Ted Roden

What have I been working on?

Every year, towards the end of the year, everyone makes lists of the best and worst things that happened that year. Other lists are compiled detailing the tragic losses felt that year and fascinating people are fascinated over. But despite the creating these hundreds of lists with their thousands of bullet points, the year always ends up getting boiled down to one or two key things.

I’m not sure what last year’s key points are going to be, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that “leveraging your tumblr account to get a book deal” and “The Realtime Web” should be on the list.

Luckily for you and I, nobody is going to give me a book deal based on my rants on tumblr. However, someone has given me a book deal… to talk about the realtime web.

Yes. I’m writing the book on The Realtime Web for O’Reilly.

Not only am I writing it, but you can actually buy “Building the Realtime User Experience” today, right now in fact. And you can read it today, right now in fact. The folks at O’Reilly are really smart. They understand why this is an important topic and helped me rush it out the door, warts and all, as part of their Rough Cuts program. So the book you’re getting today is not totally complete, but it has quite a bit of content. It has huge amounts of code samples, including complete working applications, and even some higher level discussions about the topic in general. If you’re aching to get add some realtime type experiences to your application, this will get you up and running today.

On a totally personal note: I’m absolutely amazed that anyone even let me have the discussion about doing this, but someone actually agreeing to publish it? And it’s O’Reilly? Really? For a guy who learned to program by reading ‘the animal’ books in the aisles of a Borders book store after dropping out, this is totally mind blowing. So I must thank Simon, Tim and of course, Nick for making this happen.

FAQ

When will it be in the stores? Next year. It’ll also be available in any number of electronic formats as well. But you should buy it in print, I want to visit your apartment and see it on your shelf, dog-eared and abused.

Ted, I’m your friend, should I buy it too? Do you have a name? You’re probably mentioned in it in one way or another… seriously.

I’m not sure I get this realtime thing, does it really warrant a book? It does, I hope to explain it for anyone who isn’t 100% convinced in this book. What isn’t answered in the chapters posted today, will be answered in the final version.

What animal is going to be on the cover? A unicorn! No, I don’t know yet. I can’t wait to find out though. A Myna(h) Bird!

I want more updates, where can I get them? On twitter, follow @therealtimebook and there is also a website. I’d that you should check the twitter account first and often.