Christoph Wille - Author
August 16, 1999
Being a Microsoft MVP means understanding users problems at a
close level. It is with this experience that Christoph "Brains" Wille started
out to write "Teach Yourself Active Server Pages in 24 Hours." He works for
Softwing Hahn KEG, Austria as a network consultant.
We had a chance to talk with Christoph about his book and his
experience writing it.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Manohar Kamath: Hello Christoph, and welcome to
the Corner. I am hearing some great reviews about your book at Amazon.com, how does it
feel?
Christoph Wille: Really great! We have put a lot of effort
in this book project and it is pleasure for us to see that we actually managed to make it
the right book for beginners.
You wrote "Unlocking ASP" a while back, and as
for as I remember it was the second book on ASP ever. How was your writing experience
then, and now when your wrote your latest book? Was "Teach Yourself.." easier to
write than your first book?
"Unlocking ASP" was my first book, and with the
exception of the second chapter, I was the sole author. It was quite hard for me, as I had
to get used to writing in English and my high school knowledge wasn't especially helpful.
In addition to this major roadblock, the documentation of IIS itself was at best
ridiculous (IIS 3 with ADO 1.5). Looking back at this book, I have to admit that I could
have done better because without previous programming experience, you'll have a hard time
understanding all the technology presented in this book.
The "Teach yourself..." book was much easier to write,
more than a thousand pages of book writing later - most of these in the MCSE exam
preparation arena - I am now "trained" by the editors to write for beginners,
doing step-by-steps and writing knowledge testing questions as found at the end of each
chapter. Looking back, it was a good move to do exam prep books though I didn't like
writing the exam questions.
Here's a tip for new authors: if you want to write a book and
don't feel good about your English, I want to strongly recommend Bill Stott's book "Write to the
point" - it got me started in next to no time.
Christian Koller is listed as the co-author of the book,
what part did he play?
He wrote exactly half of the chapters of this book, so he played
quite an important role in this book project - also by reviewing my chapter ideas for
beginner suitability. It was his first book, and he experienced the same problems I had
with "Unlocking ASP". Because he works for the same company as I do, it was easy
for me to help him, and what is more important for readers, coordinate our chapters and
examples more closely.
As there's no information on who wrote which chapter in the book,
here are the chapter numbers for Christian's work: 1, 4, 5, 6, 12 through 18 (ADO), 23.
I have to ask you this, the book took me about a week to
read, so why call it "Teach yourself.. in 24 hours"?
A common misperception is that 24 hours of reading must be
stuffed into a single day - we surely don't recommend that. You can certainly read a
single chapter in one hour, but if you follow all examples and exercises - and I strongly
recommend that - then it will take you longer. I view it just like a lecture at a
technical university - one hour of instructions and one hour of exercising.
Looks like the market for ASP books is ever growing. How
does the book fit into this market segment? Also, there is already couple of books for
newbies, so why write another?
Two reasons: first, none of the books on the market answers the
newbie questions you encounter on the newsgroups. Secondly, just read the reviews at
Amazon - they criticize the books for being not organized well, examples not being
connected to the text, and more - just read the reviews closely.
Did your being an MVP help you write this book in any
way?
Definitely yes - I have seen many of the newbie questions in the
newsgroups and know why people get frustrated when working with this exciting technology.
Does this mean the book is written for ASP beginners?
Sure - we start with installing the beast on Windows 98, NT
Workstation and Server. Then we go on with basic tasks, moving on to more tough jobs of
the trade towards the end of the book. Though it is mainly targeted at beginners, even
intermediate programmers should find it useful because of the background information found
in this book.
I see that you use SQL server as a primary database in
most of your examples. What made you choose that instead of say Access database?
The book employs the latest technologies throughout, so we
decided to go the route of SQL Server 7 - and therefore also the one of MS Data Engine
(MSDE), the scaled down version of SQL Server 7. I expect to see a lot of developers use
the MSDE for development purposes, scaling their deployment to the real SQL Server.
I should commend the fact the book is highly organized,
but why add chapters on XML/Windows scripting host? Without these chapters, don't you
think people would learn ASP in 22 hours? :)
A small correction - we could have cut it to 21 hours because
chapter 24 also uses XML for the shopping bag implementation. It was my decision to put
these technologies in the advanced part of the book because I wanted to give beginners an
introduction to some really important technologies. For example, many people don't even
know about script components and how easy they can be used in their Web applications.
Also, people talk about how cool XML is - but only a small number actually knows where to
use it in the server-side environment.
What other chapter do you think you could have added? I
thought the chapters were based on the most frequently asked questions, "Sending
email" for example.
We really had trouble not making this book "Hardcore
ASP" - just see some of the tips and warnings throughout the book. An area we could
have expanded vastly on was ASP and ADO - we could have filled an entire book on this
topic only. Questions never cease on the newsgroups.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The book contains a brief bio about yourself. tell us
something you haven't put on the book.
As I have put only professional background information in that
bio, let's stick with personal matters here. I'm Austrian, born in Bad Ischl, which is at
the heart of the Salzkammergut. Currently, I live in Leoben and work/study at the school
of mines. Guess no one would believe that I have hobbies beside computers, but I do: race
cycling, skiing just as every Austrian, and I own a car that is older than I am - a 35
year old Steyr Puch 700C.
How come the nick "Brains"?
Once upon a time I was developing a simple database app for a
friend of mine who runs a bar. At that time, he had a waiter from England, Steve, who
shared the house with him. One morning - ok, it was more like half past ten - I stopped by
to deliver an update for the database. Steve greeted me with "Good morning,
Brains!". He's always been amazed by people that do computers, and that may be the
reason why he came up with this nick - I don't know for sure because I never asked.
Since that time, even the whole family was tagged with
"Brains", with my brother being BJ - "Brains Junior". Also, that's why
the co-founder of Softwing became known as Pinky...
What type of work do you envision doing in a year from
now? Any more books coming?
I'm not only a programmer - I'm also a network technician, so at
no point in time I'm exclusively doing one or the other. Only one thing is for sure for
the future: more books are to come, in any one area of specialization, which already
included TCP/IP or SQL Server in the past.
WORDS FOR READERS
What, in your opinion, is the technology of the future?
If I have to absolutely learn something in next 3 months, what will it be?
If you are not fluent in SQL Server 7, learn it now.
Chris, thank you so much for taking some time off in
talking with us! We wish you all the best in your future efforts!
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