I was the primary maintainer of GNU M4 (alongside GNU Libtool & others) for 20ish years (I’m afraid to actually count in case it’s longer), and lead author of GNU Autoconf, GNU Automake & GNU Libtool from New Riders circa 2001.
I bought the beta of this book because I really enjoyed earlier books in this series, and saw that it includes forth (which I’m learning by writing a forth) and m4.
I’ve tech reviewed books for No Starch Press, and APress in the past, and wondered if you’d like me to tech review the m4 chapters of this book?
Gary, I would be excited! However, the formal tech review process at Pragmatic involves only the beta version (the first three to four chapters). If you agree to review the chapter informally (which means you will not get a free copy of the book from the publisher), I will gladly give you all proper credit in the preface. Thank you!
P.S. Having you as the reviewer would put tremendous pressure on me, but it’s ok 
Gary, we would love to have you as a beta reviewer for the full book if you are open to it. You’d review the first 50% for now, and then the remaining 50% once the chapters are ready. You’d get a free copy of the book and acknowledged in the book as a thank you, but since you already purchased the beta, you’d be given a credit for the purchase. If you prefer to just review the Forth and m4 chapters, then as Dmitry said, you’d be just an informal reviewer, and In that case you would get acknowledged, but no free book. Please let me know if you would like to participate and how, and we’ll go from there. Thanks!
Hello both,
Thanks for the fast responses!
I’d be delighted to tech review the whole book, though I’m only an expert in m4 so for other chapters I’ll only really be trying out installation and examples in case there are any issues with the code or ordering etc.
I’m not familiar with PragProg processes (previously I’ve reviewed with comments in MSWord documents or inline with LaTex/texinfo markup), so please let me know how you’d like to receive feedback and it will be my pleasure to get started.
Since I bought the e-book, a physical copy of the final published book instead of a credit would be lovely!
Dmitry, no need to feel pressured… if anything you’ll be able to rest easy in the knowledge that the chances of an error in the m4 chapter will be much lower 
Cheers,
Gary
Hi Gary,
That’s perfect. We look for feedback like that. We need to hear from not only experts but also those who are learning. We want to not only make sure we properly covered all the important things but also ensure nonexperts are able to understand the information we’re providing. I’ll add you to my reviewer list. Please send me your direct email address so I can send a link to the manuscript when it’s ready.
Thanks!
Adaobi
Hey Adaobi,
The email address in my profile for this forum is good. i.e myfirstname@mylastname.pe
If you don’t have access, I’ll make a temporary gmail account, and post that on this forum thread. Sorry for being somewhat obtuse… it has helped me keep the same email address for decades without getting overrun by spam
Cheers,
Gary
Thanks, Gary. I completely understand. The only thing is I don’t see an email address in your profile. Also, I want to make sure that when I send the link to the book that it’s not going to be in a public forum. A temporary gmail account sounds like the best solution.
Please try sending a short message to this temporary email address, and I’ll reply with my primary email:
ann-o-neemus.prag-prog@manyme.com
Cheers,
Gary
