语言与文风2012prog21.dadgum.com编辑精选
一个关于啰嗦的短篇故事
A Short Story About Verbosity
导读
这篇短文讲的是出版界对“篇幅”的执念：一本技术书被要求写到 600 页，仿佛厚度本身就是价值。评论区的出版从业者和读者拆解了这种“越长越好”逻辑背后的销售动机，也给出了判断合适篇幅的实用标准——对任何要决定“写多长”的写作者都有参考价值。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
篇幅应由“必须说清的内容”决定，而不是由页数指标、书脊厚度或“显得全面”的市场心理决定。
- 02
厚度常被当成完备性的替代指标，但真正被读者读完、用上的往往只是其中一小部分——写之前先想清楚读者实际需要什么。
- 03
给作品设定一个具体的使用场景（如“一次洲际航班读完”），是控制篇幅、保持可读性的有效约束。
- 04
多人合写的大部头容易重复、自相矛盾、留漏洞；需要协作时要有人统一体例和取舍。
HN 评论精选
好书的长度等于把话说清楚所需的长度，页数本身没有价值。
不知道出版商是谁，但听起来不像 O'Reilly。我在 2000 年代为 O'Reilly 工作时，我们的信条是一本书的合适长度就是“把该说的说完所需要的长度”。大约 120–150 页是下限，低于这个厚度书脊上放不下可见的封面，但 600 页相对 250 页并没有内在好处。当然做电子书就没有最小篇幅这回事了：市场需要多长就多长。
gnat查看英文原文
I don't know who the publisher was, but it doesn't sound like O'Reilly. When I worked for them (in the 2000s) our mantra was that the right size for a book is however long it has to be to say what has to be said. There's a minimum length of around 120-150 pages, below which it's hard to have a visible cover on the spine, but there's no inherent benefit to 600 page books versus 250. With ebooks, of course, there's no such thing as a minimum size: it's whatever there's a market for.
多人拼凑的大部头往往重复、矛盾、有漏洞。
按我的经验，最该避开的技术书就是那种又厚、作者又超过四位的。作者之间通常缺乏协调，结果是前后不一致、内容有缺口、大量重复。
Angostura查看英文原文
In my experience, the technical books to avoid are the really fat ones with more than four authors. There is usually little coordination between authors, meaning inconsistencies, holes, repetition abounds.
厚度是书架营销和 B2B 销售的手段，牺牲的是内容质量。
我对“600 页规则”的猜测是：这个长度能让书有漂亮的厚书脊，而厚书脊正好适合用超大字号印上抓人的书名，这在实体书架上促销时大概很有用。此外，篇幅还能被当作“内容完备”的代理指标，这在面向企业、学界等 B2B 渠道卖书时很有帮助——这类买家往往更爱抱怨书里“没写到什么”，而不是“写了什么”，于是就有了这种“什么都塞进去”的倾向。这一切当年对销量是好事，对书的质量却不是。
jonnathanson查看英文原文
My best guess about the "600 pages" rule is that such a length gives the book a nice, thick spine, and a nice, thick spine is a great place to plant a catchy title in enormous lettering. That probably helped when selling the book on shelves. Furthermore, length could be used as a proxy for comprehensiveness, which helped when selling the book through B2B channels, like corporations, academia, etc. (Oftentimes, such buyers were more likely to complain about what a book didn't contain than what it did, hence, the drive toward kitchen-sinkism). All of which was great for sales back in the day, but not so great for the quality of the books.
入门书宜短，用具体阅读场景来定篇幅。
《点石成金》（Don't Make Me Think）一书里说，它期望的阅读场景是一次洲际航班上轻松读完。我觉得这对入门书来说是很好的长度。我读过一些编程语言的入门书，通常我真正需要的只是一个好的语法介绍，加上点明这门语言的优势和特殊之处；剩下的反正编程时自己会摸索出来。可惜这意味着我通常只读半本书。
Derbasti查看英文原文
The book Don't Make Me Think states that it is meant to be easily readable during one intercontinental flight. I think that is a good length for an introductory book. I have read a introductory books about programming languages. Usually, all I really need is a good introduction into the syntax and a pointers to the strenghts and peculiarities of a language. All the rest I will have to figure out while programming anyways. Sadly though, this means that I will typically only read about half the book.
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