Seven Years of Ratings
The first edition of my book was published in March 2016. March 2023 is the seventh anniversary, and the current seventh edition now has enough global ratings, so I thought now would be a good time for a retrospective of how readers rate the seven editions (and first edition of the companion book) published so far and how I have worked hard and responded to feedback to improve the book with each edition.
I could see that there was a lot to do to improve the quality of the book and its reception in the market.
A big improvement compared to the 1st edition. Majority of ratings are five stars. No one star ratings.
Incremental improvement compared to the 2nd edition, but it was published only seven months after the 2nd edition so I did not have much time to make improvements. Majority of ratings are five stars. No one star ratings, fewer two-star ratings.
A disappointing dip in the number of five-star ratings, balanced by a bigger increase in four-star ratings. Reappearance of some one-star ratings. This was the edition that I stopped using Visual Studio and switched to using Visual Studio Code as much as possible. Some readers were not happy.
A nice jump in five-star ratings to over 70%. But another small increase in one-star ratings. My embrace of modern cross-platform tools like Visual Studio Code is polarizing for readers. A super-majority love it; but a small minority hate it. geekette, a five-star reviewer from Australia, said, “He makes you use VS Code (not Visual Studio) which doesn't do as much for you but I found that useful as I now understand more.”
Regardless of the benefits of Visual Studio Code, I do not want any reader to feel that I make them use a specific coding tool, so I made changes in the sixth edition for readers who want to use Visual Studio or other coding tools to complete the coding tasks in the book.
.NET 7 is a Standard Term Support release meaning only 18 months of support from Microsoft.
A new companion book. Great ratings for a first edition especially the almost 9 in 10 who give five-stars. But also a few one- and two-star ratings so hopefully responding to feedback and making improvements will help it avoid those in the next edition.
.NET 8 is a Long Term Support release meaning 3 years of support from Microsoft.
If you want to see the latest ratings for all my book editions, the best place to start is my Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Mark-J-Price/e/B071DW3QGN/