Why you should fund this graphics Book
You are primarily a .NET developer and/or a regular user of C#, VB or even F# but do not encounter graphics as a regular requirement within your projects. You are now wondering why I am promoting a book about .NET graphics to you in particular. There are two reasons.
The first is just that when you do need to include some graphical techniques into some development task then you will need a book that can jumpstart your skills acquisition and/or provide just the code you need for an unexpected task.
The second is that keeping up with developments in User Interface (UI) techniques is going to make increasing demands upon graphical skills. The UI will advance faster than the Windows API (or under surrogate APIs like WPF) and users, product managers and designers are going to be making some tough demands upon all developers with code running in the “human domain” (shall we call it?).
Now you could prepare for this upcoming eventuality by brushing up on the maths involved - maybe starting here http://codeofthedamned.com/index.php/introduction-to-the-math-of - but it would be way easier to let someone else tease out the crucial bits and present the results alongside their immediate sample application.
Why this specific Book? The answer to that is very straightforward. The last time Rod wrote a book about graphics it was brilliant - and I have some authority here. When I first started Windows programming I chose a development area that was entirely graphical (an early mapping application). This was before the Internet and the vast resources that has exposed - then if you wanted to know how something was done then you had to sit and work it out for yourself. I had an early copy of Charles Petzold’s master work (Programming Windows) to lookup the (Windows 3.1.) API calls and, in extremis, access to Microsoft developer support via CompuServe [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompuServe ] (yup you could email the guys that actually wrote the stuff in those dim and distant days and if your enquiery was interesting enough they would reply). Rod had not yet written his book and I struggled to learn and to develop the techniques required to produce even moderately efficient graphics code.
Some time later Rod’s book was published and I grabbed a copy - partly as personal affirmation but also to learn just how often I had done it all wrong. Here was a definitive work that you could dip into as required and I found that thereafter I did, saving time in recalling (or discovering) the optimal path every time I needed to. As .NET took over as the best development framework then I found I was using the book rather less. I knew that Rod had an updated opus in mind but sadly he could not convince a publisher that a market of the scale they required was waiting for a new book to be written.
Here is our opportunity to fund a book of undoubted value for all - a definite plus on anyone's electronic bookshelf. Please join me in funding this Kickstarter. It will benefit the community of .NET developers as well as each individual “investor”.
Start here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2002981747/net-graphics-programming-omnibus/description and then please encourage others to join in and make sure this book becomes a reality.
Addendum:
Sadly this Kickstarter has been withdrawn.
Addendum:
Sadly this Kickstarter has been withdrawn.
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