Gregory's ServerI've signed an agreement to write a book about #ActivityPub for O'Reilly Media. The book should be available sometime after summer 2024.
Blog post here: https://evanp.me/2023/09/07/activitypub-book-for-oreilly-media/
Evan Prodromou
65 comments
Evan Prodromou
O’Reilly is the best programming book publisher, hands down. I have a dozen O’Reilly titles on my shelf, all with the famous engraved animal covers, and I use them regularly. I appreciate that the O’Reilly team sees the potential for an ActivityPub book. I have had a great experience with the editors so far.
Evan Prodromou
I’ll update my progress here. I have a pretty tight schedule, but I’ve rearranged some of my commitments like graduate school to accommodate the work. (I’ll be getting credits from Georgia Tech towards my CS degree for doing this book — a nice bonus!) This is the first book I’ve written, and it’s going to require working code for examples, so there will be a lot of learning and work to do. But I’m confident this will be a step forward.
John Harris
@dannotdaniel @evan This is what I want to know. I presume some kind of elephant, but that would presume a focus on Mastodon?  
Dan York
@evan That is so awesome, Evan! I've written several books, including a short one for O'Reilly, and I wish you all the best. It can be a really tough process, but it *is* awesome to see it in print! Thanks for taking this on. It will be great to have a book out helping people do more with ActivityPub. 
Jan Lehnardt :couchdb:
@evan who is your editor? :) I too had a great time writing the CouchDB book :)
Mina
Well, you have a very probable buyer here. I find it rather difficult to find easy to digest material for programmers, who are interested in, but not fully involved in ActivityPub, say, for creating APIs or developing small apps surrounding it. Great project. I especially love the Cookbook series from O'Reilly.  
Luke Browell 💡
@evan Sounds great, let us know if you need any reviews or feedback on any chapters from the community.
Cristina DeLisle
@evan Congratulations and thank you for taking the time to do this for the public! Having a developer guide is truly something useful. 
Philip Mallegol-Hansen
@evan I’m personally excited to read it, and use it. Playing around with implementing the spec in a few random tools (I.e., creating a follower graph for my account), I concur a better source of practical information would be huge. 
27329ed9-2211-a1ba-9371-e2641bf0dcb6
@evan what kind of fucked up creature should be on the book cover?
 
Adrian McEwen
@evan Congrats! (I think, he adds, remembering the work involved in writing a tech book 😉) 
Evan Prodromou
@GustavinoBevilacqua apparently that is a fiercely-protected prerogative of the design department at ORM. Authors can make suggestions but the design team makes the call. 
Joseph Szymborski :qcca:
@evan this is really exciting! I'll surely be grabbing a copy when it's available :) 
Sebastian Lasse
So, if anyone is looking for a book _until_ summer 2024 :) Was interviewed, it is about #ActivityPub and #Fediverse too (but in German) and comes by the end of the month https://digitalcourage.social/@sl007/110857863323118230
david turgeon
@evan great news, looking forward to it. pretty sure it will be very useful to a lot of people.  
Brennan Stehling
@evan We need this book. I look forward to it. Will you be polling for feedback as you decide the outline? I recall John Resig did something like this with one of his books.
Brennan Stehling
@evan I found one of his blog posts about this process so you can see how it helped him shape the outline and subject matter. He was incredibly open and honest as he prepared to write the book which made me anxious for the release.
Brennan Stehling
@evan I see @jeresig is also on Mastodon. 👋 https://johnresig.com/blog/twitter-mastodon/
Bob Jonkman
I'd like to read a bit of the history, the design decisions that went into OStatus, how that influenced PumpIO, and how that became ActivityPub (or is that ActivityStreams?) And I'd love to read about the whole ControlYourself - Laconi.ca - StatusNet startup process, the stories of the people, the sadness of winding down. But maybe that's your next book... 
Johannes Ernst
@evan Are you going to "just" write about ActivityPub, or the entire stack as it is commonly deployed today? Say, HTTP signatures and WebFinger?  
the roamer
Love the O'Reilly books. A whole era encapsulated in a book format. Excellent choice for your book on ActivityPub! And a much needed book it is. Bravo.
pr0ton v0.0.1
@evan Would you be ok to setup an mailing list so I can remember to get this book when its available?
c++ gremlin *ada
@evan@cosocial.ca me and @navi@social.vlhl.dev were wondering if it will include C2S aspects of ActivityPub (such as a client interacting with a server, rather than a platform-specific API)  
Sumana Harihareswara
@evan are you potentially interested in having beta readers work through draft chapters? Because I know several people who'd love to do that.
Evan Prodromou
@brainwane yes, O'Reilly apparently has a process for early access and review through their learning platform.  
Jigme Datse
@evan Oh, cool. Would this ... OK, read your right short (love it love it...) post about what it is. I am glad it looks to be a book about implementing ActivityPub in your project. 
n8 Doesn't follow you 🇺🇦
@evan I'll give you 20 bucks if you let me pick the first word. No tricks, either; I'll tell you publicly what the word is before you have to agree. But it's a binding contract, so I have to know the terms are settled before I say.
Evan Prodromou
@n8 I would like to be a good sport but I feel nervous enough about this process without taking on this minor extra requirement. Sorry for being a party pooper! |
The book will be a developer guide that will help programmers connect existing software to the social web, as well as making brand new social applications. Currently, developers depend on reading the specifications themselves, forum posts, wiki pages, blog posts, and other content spread across the Web. I hope that a single book with practical step-by-step information will make learning about and building with ActivityPub easier.