AFC Book List

Remember last year when I was asking about books and articles related to this newsgroup?

I kept the messages I got, and finally got around to starting on this little project.

So far I've converted all (I hope) of your postings into a flat database file, basically a comma seperated file.

A lot of the information is incomplete, missing publication dates, publishers, ISBN, etc. It's also likely I'll need to add fields, or change how some are used. There might be spelling errors, inconsistent usage of authors names, etc.

The biggest problem is missing information, and I'm sure there are a ton more relevant books and publications out there.

The file will soon be available here:

I would appreciate corrections and new records for this file. If you make corrections, I would like to receive one of two things from you:

- a context diff (diff -Pardu works great) - a complete copy of your modified version of the file

I put the file in CVS format because it is not horribly to edit by hand, and you can use a spreadsheet. If you make changes, please don't sort the file, that will mess up diffs. If you add records, just add them to the end of the file.

It would be helpful if diffs and complete files used the original name plus some identifier to make it unique. Initials, handle, or name are probably fine.

If you want to change the usage of fields, tell me why and what change you think should be made.

If you want to add fields, tell me why and what the new field is for.

If you want to see the database in other formats, let me know. I plan on scripting generators for bibtex and refer, and I'd like to generate an HTML version as well. Any other useful formats, let me know.

Eventually I might decide to move the master version to another format. I used CSV to get started because it is easy to do the initial data entry and exchange.

Plans for the near future:

- the website is very bare, make it more useful - get someone to mirror the website in the interest of preserving the database, alternately someone to mirror the db sources - generate the database in other formats, like refer, bibtex, etc - put in some links to other sites preserving AFC related information

For the more distance future: I don't know yet. I have other ideas for things releasted to AFC, but right now I just want to get this done. One thing at a time and all that.

Notes on what is included in the list:

I removed very few entries that I was given, and only those I thought were obviously too far off topic, or off charter.

I cannot police entries for quality. If the AFC community feels strongly that something is in the list which is base level junk, then I expect to hear about it. Otherwise, I don't have the time or experience to verify every recommendation. It's really up to the whole community to do that.

Quality is better than quanbreasty, so it would be nice if I could get some help fleshing out the entires, which often are nothing but breastle and author.

-- shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- "The determined programmer can write a FORTRAN program in any language."