I find the hours amazing. My understanding is that a typical tech publishing cycle is three months for a first draft, with an SD of around 1.5 months, and a page count of 300-600. Not infrequently the book will be a side project and not the author's main gig.
E.g. When iPhone OS (as it was) first appeared, in-depth guides like Erica Sadun's were on the shelves almost as soon as it was released.
Even if some of those authors had limited distribution beta versions, they still worked their way through all the new features of the OS, wrote and tested sample code, and wrote all the content in a couple of months.
I understand Meyers wants to make sure the content represents industry practice, and that takes longer than just cranking out some code and making sure it works.
But even so - that's still a surprisingly long time for a tech book.
E.g. When iPhone OS (as it was) first appeared, in-depth guides like Erica Sadun's were on the shelves almost as soon as it was released.
Even if some of those authors had limited distribution beta versions, they still worked their way through all the new features of the OS, wrote and tested sample code, and wrote all the content in a couple of months.
I understand Meyers wants to make sure the content represents industry practice, and that takes longer than just cranking out some code and making sure it works.
But even so - that's still a surprisingly long time for a tech book.