Response to Alan Holub's Last Column

[John Girard]

>  9/29/88
>
>  After reading Alan Holub's "last column" that had not been
>  published, I sent a copy to Jon Erickson and asked him why I
>  should continue to read DDJ.  His reply was quick, and he asked
>  me to post his view of the situation on the net, for equal
>  representation.  Obviously, there is a conflict between Alan
>  and Jon.  But Jon says he is leaving the door open to readers
>  to comment, and that he will respond personally.
>  
>  Please send any feedback direct to Jon at DDJ.
>

Over the past few weeks, there's been quite a lot  of  discussion
about  Dr. Dobb's Journal, much of it rumor, innuendo, and specu-
lation. And, as you might expect, more than a little bit of  this
has been just plain misinformation.   Because of problems such as
this, I devoted my Editorial in the September '88  issue  of  the
magazine  specifically to the subject of what you can expect with
DDJ. A lot of what I'll say here about the  sort  of  things  DDJ
will  be doing is discussed in more depth there. One thing I said
there bears repeating:  "Believe it not, we are kind of happy  to
find out that DDJ readers care enough about the magazine to raise
a stink when they feel their magazine is being threatened."

I'd also like to say that I won't be following up on this  thread
here  on  Usenet  since I don't want to get into any mud-slinging
matches; they just aren't that productive. However, I am glad  to
talk  with  any  of you who want to drop me a letter or give me a
phone call. I can be reached  at  (415)  366-3600  or  be  mailed
letters  to  Jon  Erickson,  Editor-in-Chief, DDJ, 501 Galvenston
Dr., Redwood City, CA 94063. If you send me a letter, I'll  phone
you  back.  This  will  be a fairly long message; I apologize for
that but it seems that the time is warranted.

One last note before launching into a few specifics: the articles
and  programs in DDJ are primarily reader-submitted. If you would
like to see an article on a  specific  topic,  let  me  know,  or
better  yet,  write it and submit it. DDJ is one of the few maga-
zines left around that still relies on *reader*  submissions  and
support.  If the magazine isn't what you want or need, you can do
something about it by submitting an article.

1.  The decision to cancel Allen Holub's monthly column was mine.
I  did  so because Allen would not allow us to provide his source
listings free of charge (like every other program  in  the  maga-
zine)  on  our CompuServe forum or at cost to readers through our
disk distribution service. Instead he wanted to sell  the  source
code  through  his  own  software business. I felt his column was
becoming, in effect, a free advertisment for his business. When I
cancelled  the column, I told Allen that I valued his association
with the magazine and with the C language and would like  to  put
him  under  a  new  contract  as  a  contributing editor to write
feature articles and reviews. At first he said that  he  was  in-
terested but then apparently declined.

2.  The ratio of advertising to editorial pages has been going up
in  favor  of editorial pages since I joined DDJ. I have insisted
on that. Our November issue will be greater than 40 percent  edi-
torial which is average or above average for the industry. In the
first part of this year, we were running about 50 pages  of  edi-
torial  per  issue.  For  the  past few months, this has risen to
about 60, and next year we are planning up to 80  pages  in  some
months. Even if an increase in ad pages doesn't happen as expect-
ed, we will be increasing the ratio above what it is now.

3.   We will continue to publish listings and those listings will
continue to be more than just quick examples. In January '89, for
instance, we are going to publish a graphics utility that is more
than  1200  lines  of  code.  In March/April of next year, we are
planning on publishing the source code of  an  implementation  of
Scheme.  WE  WILL  ALWAYS  PUBLISH  CODE AND MAKE IT AVAILABLE TO
READERS. We'll occasionally run an article  that  does  not  have
code (one article in December won't have any), but, for me, a DDJ
article means text AND code. And more pages in the magazine means
more code.

4.  The magazine is not going mass-market, low-tech. DDJ  readers
want  to  be challenged, not coddled. We will not spoon-feed you,
we expect that you  are  experienced,  advanced  programmers  who
don't need to have a simple concepts explained.

5.  The technical staff at DDJ is being expanded. Kent Porter  is
the  senior  technical  editor who started in July and we are ad-
vertising for another technical editor right now. We have expand-
ed  our list of contributing editors as well. Management has less
to do with the editorial content of this magazine than  with  any
magazine  I've  ever seen. They don't tell us what to publish and
in fact seem afraid to bring up the subject. I respect  them  for
that  if  nothing  else.  My responsibilty lies with readers, not
with advertisers or management.

6. Our columns currently consist  of  C  programming,  Structured
Programming,  and  Programming Paradigmns. We may include another
next year as our page count continues to increase.

7. As a courtesy to Allen, I offered him the opportunity to write
a  final  column. What he turned in was a scurrilous attack on me
and the magazine. He called it his "final editorial."  I  decided
on  not publishing it (would you have?) since it didn't serve any
purpose to the reader. What you saw on Usenet was  a  version  of
it,  by  the  way. The acknowledgement at the end of the C column
was not my words, but those of the columnist who was simply  pay-
ing tribute to Allen for his work over the years. I don't want to
get into the specifics of what we pay contributors  and  what  we
were  paying  Allen.  Our payment varies from $500 to about $1000
per article, depending on a number of  factors  such  as  length,
etc.  I  also  pay  bonuses to authors who go out of their way to
meet a tough deadline. I do not accept "free" articles from indi-
viduals who are associated with a company. Allen was getting paid
at the top of the scale, not the bottom and I didn't save any mo-
ney  with  the new columnist. I don't look at the code associated
with an article as being separate  from  the  article.  The  text
tells  you  what  the author had in mind, the code tells you what
the author is really saying. You can't have a DDJ article without
code and Allen was getting paid (handsomely) to provide a monthly
column -- this means text and code.

On another subject: Our November graphics lineup looks like this:
"Photorealism  and  Computer Graphics" "Perspectives on Graphical
Interfaces" "Image Compression via  Image  Compilation"  "Dynamic
Run-Time  Structures" "Mapping DOS Memory Blocks" "Inserting Ele-
ments into a BASIC Integer Array" and a review of  Prolog/V  (in-
cluded  with  Smalltalk/V). For our December operating system is-
sue, we'll be running "Writing Portable Software" "Unix vs. Unix"
"Writing OS/2 Applicationw with I/O Privledges" "Undocumented DOS
Functions" "Writing Programs for  MultiFinder"  "LRU  Algorithms"
"Finding Functions from Inside Brief". January is neural networks
with articles on "A Neural Net for Pattern  Recognition"  "Under-
standing   Hopfield  Nets"  "Neural  Nets  for  Noise  Filtering"
"Streams in Unix" "Postscript Fonts".

Again, if there are any other subjects you'd like to see covered,
write them up and send them my way. Thanks. Jon