Evan Prodromou on Nostr: One of the first things people ask you when you say you’re writing a book for ...
One of the first things people ask you when you say you’re writing a book for O’Reilly Media is: “What animal is going to be on the cover?” O’Reilly books are famous for their lovely animal drawings, in rich detail, either in black-or-white or colour. Books are sometimes referred to by their cover animal, like the famous Camel Book by Larry Wall and Randal Schwartz.
As an author, you don’t get to choose the animal on the cover. This is a fiercely-guarded prerogative of the O’Reilly Media design department. Authors and editors can make suggestions, but there’s no guarantee they’ll be followed.
Today, I got the design for the cover of the ActivityPub book I’m writing. I have to admit, I haven’t been thinking about it too much, so it was a surprise to see it, and I wasn’t really emotionally prepared. All I can say is that I’m overwhelmed and I absolutely love it.
The bird on the cover is a Nanday Conure, a South American parakeet. They are extremely intelligent; in captivity they can talk, and are prized as pets. The birds live in central South America. They breed and raise their young in separate, private nesting holes, but when breeding season is over they join into large roosts with many, many birds, connecting their small family units into a bigger flock network.
I couldn’t think of a better description of what ActivityPub is and does.
We’re going to be pushing two new chapters — Activity Streams 2.0 and ActivityPub federation protocol — to the Early Release program this week. (The early release version still has the baby bird on the cover.) If you want to read the ActivityPub book today, that’s the place to look.
https://evanp.me/2024/03/15/cover-animal-for-activitypub-book/ 
Published at
2024-03-15 16:56:20Event JSON
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