Just thought I’d update you. We got quite a few good errata from readers, and I took a couple weekends and went through the book with a fine-toothed comb, catching typos and subtle errors that crept in at some point (TPC benchmarks were labeled as TCP benchmarks — did you catch that one?). I marked up my book and mailed it to O’Reilly, who went well above and beyond what they normally do for errata. Normally, once a book is in print they will fix only serious technical errors. They fixed everything, even going as far as rearranging page breaks and moving figures to improve readability.
The second printing is on Monday August 4th. Already! I think the book has been selling a lot better than anticipated. I know I am psyched to see it remain in the top couple thousand on Amazon. And they thought it was a big deal when it broke five thousand!
In other news, it’s going to be translated into Spanish, Polish, and Portuguese. So now all my friends in Brazil will be able to read it in their native language.
And Percona’s two expert consultants in Poland, too. No undue influence was exerted. I didn’t even know it would be translated. Really! We do have a Spanish-speaking consultant who lives in Spain, but he is a native English speaker. Now, all we need are Russian, German, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian translations and I think we’ve pretty well got the company covered, at least until we hire again.
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I wanted to say thanks to both you and your fellow authors. I came across the first edition about a month before the second was published, and held out until it shipped. Are the corrections made for the second printing significant enough that I should try to return the first print? Thanks again. The book is an essential part of my library.
No, the second printing is just typos and stuff like that — the vast majority of the corrections were not technical errors. I’m pretty sure they take the attitude that you buy the book as-is with errors and it’s not returnable. O’Reilly’s page for the book has errata: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596101718/errata/
I would like to participate in Ukrainian translation, if it’s possible…