I've been getting a lot of questions lately about the status of my OpenGL ES 2.0 book for PragProg. What I've been telling people is: "it's about half done but I have no idea when I'll be able to finish it". To say I've been busy lately would be an understatement of epic proportions. As a part-owner of a business in its first year, being too busy is a great problem to have, but it does take its tolls in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
When you combine how busy I am with the fact that I've been completely unable to get even ballpark information about when Xcode 4 will go GM (the book is heavily based on Xcode 4), it means I simply cannot nail down a production schedule for the book. Even if I had time to finish the book right now, it can't be published until the Xcode 4 NDA drops. It also makes no sense to revise the book to a version of Xcode which is soon to become obsolete.
As a result, today, I made the difficult decision, along with my editor at Prags, to indefinitely shelve the OpenGL ES 2.0 book project. I would have liked to keep the project open and work on it whenever I have time, but that wouldn't have been fair to my publisher. They have to plan their production pipeline very carefully and a book with no set timeline throws a real monkey wrench into that process, which I really don't want to do. The door has been left open for me pick the book up in the future if and when I have time, but for now, it's coming off the production schedule to free up resources for other authors' books.
I have requested permission to post the existing seven chapters of the manuscript to my blog (tweaked so I'm not violating the Xcode 4 NDA, of course). From a contractual and legal point of view, I cannot just post what I've written without the the permission of my publisher. Prags has been nothing but fair, patient, and a pleasure to deal with and I want to make sure I'm just as fair to them and also comply fully with my contract.
However, if I can find a path to posting the chapters that's legal, ethical, and doesn't harm my relationship with Prags, I will do so.
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