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09/22/2004: "19 horseshoes so far at JavaRanch"

Ernest Friedman-Hill posted his own review of JUnit Recipes and gave it 9 horseshoes, to go with the 10 from Dirk Schreckmann. I know of Ernest as a veteran of JUnit, so I was especially pleased to see him write, "I've been using JUnit for years, but I picked up quite a few useful tips from this enjoyable book. Highly recommended." This reminds me of a tense moment towards the end of the book-producing project.

I was on the phone with the guy at Manning, Marjan Bace, in whose hands laid my fate as a first-time author. He was concerned about the size of the book, since we originally estimated 400-450 pages, and it was over 700. He wondered whether the book tried to reach to too wide an audience, and in the process, might dissatisfy everyone? He wondered aloud about cutting essentially all of Part 1 -- or at least all the purely novice bits -- in order to appeal to the intermediate and advanced crowd. As you might expect, the thought of losing 25% of my baby did not sit well with me.

Still, even after getting past the initial emotional response, I said, "Don't worry. There's good content for everyone: novices, veterans, even experts. No matter how much someone knows about JUnit, this book will give them something new and valuable." Maybe that was bravado on my end, but so far, so good. At least a few veterans of the JUnit community have had good things to say about JUnit Recipes, and I am grateful to them for that. It's satisfying to know that I was right to stick my neck out like that.