[plt-scheme] Re: online version of _The Little Schemer_?

From: Mitch (mwand1 at gmail.com)
Date: Fri Dec 21 08:07:42 EST 2007

On Dec 21, 2:54 am, "Benjamin L. Russell" <dekudekup... at yahoo.com>
wrote:
> Aha!  This would seem to explain why some computer
> science-related books with relatively high sales, such
> as _The Little Schemer,_ are so hard to find online:
> Perhaps the publisher is afraid of losing sales.

Well, of course!  That's why all the physob publishing businesses
(books, newspapers, journals, record companies) are in trouble.  OTOH,
much as we all love the Little books, I wouldn't call these
"relatively high sales".  Go check the Amazon rankings. :)


> However, this then doesn't explain why one of the
> granddaddies of such books, _SICP,_ is available
> freely online, even though it is being published from
> a major publisher.  What I can't understand is why
> _SICP_ is available for free online, while _The Little
> Schemer_, published by the same publisher, is not.
>
> Perhaps _SICP_ is a special case?  Other course books
> from the same publisher for other MIT OpenCourseWare
> courses are not necessarily freely available online.

Sorry, I don't know what the story is here.  However, SICP is
typographically straightforward, and easily translated to HTML.  The
Little books are typographically very complex.  They are little works
of art, and looking at them in HTML would not be much fun.

--Mitch



Posted on the users mailing list.