Why Typesetting Matters

01/16/2006

Reviewer Matthew Johnson sent me the following note, regarding the upcoming Practices of An Agile Developer:

“I know you’re not specifically looking for comments on layout, but I want to point out one thing which is outstanding. The paragraph captions such as Use unit tests in the section Quick Fixes Become Quicksand enhance the usability of the book quite a bit. I wish more tech books provided this kind of context. Be sure to keep this feature and consider including it in future books as well.”

It’s really a small thing; just a “display list” style paragraph with a bold title and hanging indent. BUT, it does make a difference. It makes the book more readable and easier to scan quickly when you’re looking for some particular point or other.

Small touches can really make or break any project—be it a book or a software development project.