In which I introduce a new project, explain the why and wherefore, and ask for a little help.

Some Context – Publishing for Developers

The Red Gate .NET team has been having some long and fruitful discussions with the Simple-Talk editorial team, and together we’ve decided that we don’t do enough to educate and inform web developers. The way the technological curve is going, web development is only going to get more important and more demanding, and we want to be supporting that, and helping developers get the skills they need.

Sure, we support SQLServerCentral, and Simple-Talk itself covers a lot of technological ground, but we really want to provide web developers with a well-thought-out space of their own.

“Hang on a second!” I hear you cry, “There are LOADS sites dedicated to web development. A veritable Cornucopia. Surely this is a waste of effort?“

We disagree.

Or rather, we don’t think this is a solved publishing problem yet.

Yes, there ARE a ton of great sites, communities and resources out there for web developers, and they all serve a very specific need. And there are plenty of MVPs and experts out there blogging about whatever interesting thing they happen to be working on or talking about. But there’s something missing.

Take a look at the Stairway Series on SQLServerCentral; it’s structured, it’s clear what level of expertise each article requires, and each series gets you from zero-to-production in a particular technology. That’s the kind of thing we want to create. Not necessarily Stairways for Web API and Node.js, but content that is well-written, well thought out, leveled, structured, and designed specifically to impart knowledge to developers as quickly as possible.

The ASP.NET website does this to a certain extent, but it’s a bit piecemeal, some of the content is starting to look pretty dated, and it’s single-stack. How many projects are you currently working on that only use ASP.NET?

What’s the big deal?

Creating well thought-out content doesn’t sound like much, so it’s a good thing that we’re not just going to be commissioning great articles. The web is already full of sites that provide great articles (if you can find them), so we want to create something that’s usefully different. We’ve got a few ideas about how to present content and how to deliver content, and even what constituted “content”, and we’re going to be experimenting. That’s right – we’re doing SCIENCE.

Enter the Publishing Lab

We’ve set up webdev.simple-talk.com as a testing ground where we can try out new ideas, pit them against old ideas, and have them battle to the death. Although we have some concepts to start with, we honestly don’t know what we’re going to end up creating. That’s ultimately down to what works for you.

Of course, we’re doing our homework and talking to developers about what they like, what they don’t like, how they learn, how they solve problems… But we need as many of you as possible to give us your feedback.

To that end, I’m going to be running a Technical Publishing Beta Program (I’ll think of a snappier name later). This will be a way for developers who are interested and excited about better ways to learn new skills to see what we’re working on, give us their feedback, and help us build something excellent.

Things will definitely go “boom”, but we’ll learn something each time, become more refined, and start to scale things up and open them up to everyone on Simple-Talk. Is this ambitious? Absolutely. But fortune favors the brave and, more importantly, nothing is ever going to improve if we don’t try some new things.

Do you like new things?

You do? Particularly new things to do with learning technical skills and how technical content is presented?

Good! Get in touch, and I’ll send you an invitation to The Lab.