Show HN: Mastering Modular JavaScript | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Mastering Modular JavaScript

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94 pointsbevacqua34 comments

Please stop pretending your book is free, people can see right through it. Most people in this community consider personal information and user marketing as a form of cost. Otherwise one can access it on Github, but it's not very convenient. I couldn't find "6.2.1. Is WeakMap Strictly Worse than Map" anywhere on your Github, other than in the screenshot.

If you want the book, you will have to pay them one Tweet and several powers, most of which are not necessary:

  1. Read Tweets from your timeline.
  2. See who you follow, and follow new people.
  3. Update your profile.
  4. Post Tweets for you.
  5. See your email address.

You're asking for more information than you actually need, which is looked down upon. Why do you need to post tweets for me, update my profile, see who I follow and follow new people for me? This does not abide by the rule of least-privilege.

> Otherwise one can access it on Github, but it's not very convenient

How come?

> I couldn't find "6.2.1. Is WeakMap Strictly Worse than Map" anywhere on your Github, other than in the screenshot.

Maybe that's because that heading belongs in an old revision of a previous book of mine, but in any case, here you go:

https://github.com/mjavascript/practical-modern-javascript/b...

> [Twitter perms]

Twitter didn't offer any permissions granularity last time I checked, so that's just what they always request. You don't need to go through my website, just go to GitHub, purchase the book, or ignore my content.

Feedback: very interested on the topic of your book, but seeing the marketing tactics and your response to criticism seriously put me off. I’d rather support more agreeable authors. Content ignored indeed.

:wave:

> How come [the Github version is not convenient]?

You went through the trouble to create a "free" HTML version of it, so you already know the answer to that question. In any case, thanks for the link and thanks for posting your book to Github.

Regarding the Twitter permissions, the last time you checked was too long ago. You are asking for read and write permissions when you only need read[0] permissions.

Forcing people to market it on Twitter gives me the impression you aren't confident that people will share your book organically. Maybe you should just make the HTML version free like you said you would. You might even have more success in making people pay for the HTML version, compared to lying about it being free. I'm sure people would pay to read a beautified copy of the book, if it's any good.

[0] https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/basics/authentication/...

> You went through the trouble to create a "free" HTML version of it, so you already know the answer to that question. In any case, thanks for the link and thanks for posting your book to Github.

The GitHub experience was worse back when I implemented the HTML version on my own site, because they weren't rendering AsciiDoc back then. Regardless, I implemented it because it was fun to integrate all the things (O'Reilly Atlas, GitHub, Twitter, and my site's automation processes) and as a way to centralize all if my content on my site.

Please stop pretending you deserve things for free. He provides the content on Github, which is more than he needs to. If you don't want to pay for it (either via social media promotion or just buying it), then don't read it and don't complain.

The author is giving us options. So you don't like one of the options provided. Spare the outrage for important matters.

> The book is publicly available in HTML format and free forever ... Read the free HTML version of the book on Pony Foo ... The free-to-read version of Mastering Modular JavaScript is ... free to read online ... A free-to-read version is available online ... Free to read! ...

Marketing something as free that turns out to have strings attached is referred to as "asshole design".

> He provides the content on Github, which is more than he needs to

Respectfully, it's not more than he needs to. He said it was free, so if it's not, then that's considered dishonesty and is looked down upon.

Start reading: https://github.com/mjavascript/mastering-modular-javascript/...

Thanks again for link... I hope you realize I wasn't begging for a free copy or direct link; my main purpose for commenting was to give you some feedback on your marketing strategy. Best of luck.

I can't believe you are complaining that the author is giving you an alternative to just paying.

You can either read the book on github (thanks!) or have a better formatted version in exchange to some marketing technique.

I think it is fair.

This is an entrepreneurial community, we should rush to pay this author to support his efforts, rather than criticize his attempts to get something out of providing his work for free.

Shame on you.

> This is an entrepreneurial community, we should rush to pay this author to support his efforts, rather than criticize his attempts to get something out of providing his work for free

Criticism is part of the feedback process, even if you don't agree with it.

No, we shouldn't just rush to pay him. We should evaluate his work and content as we could anyone that posts in "Show HN" - if you come here thinking you just get free marketing without the feedback part, then this is definitely the wrong community.

Giving something way for free doesn't preclude you from feedback, especially when that "free" is just part of a larger marketing tactic for building a personal & professional brand.

As you say, you can access it on GitHub for no charge with a Creative Commons licence. That's free by any definition. Alternatively you can pay cash for a physical copy or ebook, or pay with a tweet for prettier HTML. And yet you've still derailed the whole discussion with your complaint. You've dressed it up as "giving some feedback", but in the first sentence you're straight up accusing him of deception, which is not good faith, constructive comment that we expect on a Show HN.

> That's free by any definition.

To be pedantic, we're talking about the HTML version which was purported to be free.

> You've dressed it up as "giving some feedback" but in the first sentence you're straight up accusing him of deception, which is not good faith, constructive comment

You're free to disagree with me. The first sentence is not very constructive in and of itself, no. There are a few other sentences where I give a few reasons as to why I didn't take the bait. In summary, when I clicked through to the free HTML version, I hit a soft paywall asking me for many permissions, which caused me to leave the site. If I were building a marketing funnel, I'd like to know if people thought that way about it.

Clicking the link to the HTML version of the book takes you to a page that makes you tweet (and grants some pretty far reaching twitter permissions) to read the book. If you click to the chapters folder and then on the individual .asciidoc files, GitHub will render them for you.

Yep, you can read this book in a few different ways:

- AsciiDoc via GitHub. Nav to the chapters and they'll render into HTML. Cost: Free under Creative Commons [source]

- HTML via Pony Foo. Cost: authorize app and auto-share a single tweet (feel free to revoke right after), Creative Commons. [html]

- The book was released on Amazon today (PDF or physical copies) [amzn]

[source]: https://github.com/mjavascript

[html]: https://ponyfoo.com/books

[amzn]: https://amzn.to/2OQ8vMe

[license]: https://ponyfoo.com/license

"Do X to unlock" schemes are not popular with the HN community and you'll get a lot of flak for trying to use game theory mechanics to get people to market your book.

The "tweet to unlock but you can find an ugly version in the source code" was enough to turn me off your product and lose any interest in discovering more. Just feels like a cheap tactic, especially since I don't have a Twitter account.

Agreed and well stated. Will definitely not be reading this as an attempt to slyly market the product is enough to turn me off. If the content is valuable it should stand on its own.

Meanwhile I find it petty to complain about the small price of a single tweet. I don’t understand what or how it’s a “game theory mechanic.”

Is it also a manipulative tactic for a store to impose the “Pay $1 to unlock a candy bar” mechanic on you? I bet you use the same dark mechanic on your employer.

I'm a prospect that explained how the journey disinterested me from the product. I provided specific examples along with my best understanding of why I felt that way. This is one of the things that HN was founded on.

I'm asserting that you were only backsplaining something you couldn't be fucked to download and read regardless. :)

Did you miss the part where I said I was prospect? That means a potential customer that was clearly interested in the book, but changed his mind. The author screwed up a chance to convert me and many other customers.

It's one of many alternatives. You can purchase the book, read it on my website like you've mentioned, or just read it on GitHub as HTML.

HTML link, no further steps necessary:

https://github.com/mjavascript/mastering-modular-javascript/...

This is great. Thanks for releasing it as a free book.

The whole series is/will be like this. First book was Practical Modern JavaScript, covering ES6 and beyond up 'til ES2018.

You can find it here on GitHub: https://github.com/mjavascript/practical-modern-javascript

Also, thanks!!

Lots of interesting ideas in this book. Thanks!

My only grip is I wish there would be more examples: when you talk about state especially.

How about showing the book from the start and giving me the ‘option’ of tweeting about it?

Personally I don’t feel very much inclined to promote a book I haven’t even read yet.

Start reading: https://github.com/mjavascript/mastering-modular-javascript/...

Please don’t double post.

It was unintentional. I thought "Show HN" posts don't go to the front page anymore.

OK, we've marked the other as a duplicate.

Thanks!

Could you also remove the "Show HN:" this isn't a free book, see first comment by anonytrary.

It is, start reading here: https://github.com/mjavascript/mastering-modular-javascript/...

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