Quantum Computing

I have strong memories of this book. I remember when it was proposed, the committee wasn’t sure we could do a book on quantum computing that was “pragmatic.” But I also remember one committee member saying “This is really cool, and if we don’t publish it, someone else will, and we’ll regret that.” So we signed it, and it originally had a different development editor. Unfortunately, that DE had to quit freelancing for very good reasons, and I couldn’t in good conscience assign it to anyone else, so I took it on myself. It’s a pretty advanced topic, and while I’m far from an expert, I did study physics in college, including quantum mechanics, and I figured I had a slightly better chance of connecting with the author because of that.

The idea was that the author would explain quantum computing with as little math as possible, using a rather clever metaphor to represent quantum states. That part really works well, and constitutes the first half of the book. Eventually, though, we reached the limits of what the metaphor could express, and although the author tried to keep the book as “low-math” as possible, eventually we were dealing with complex numbers and polar coordinates. The Production side was a challenge as well. The author created the images in LaTeX and exported them as PDFs, which our system could import as images…most of the time. I distinctly remember being at the All Things Open conference in Raleigh, trying to figure out why a bare handful of the hundreds of images in the book wouldn’t render. Publisher Andy Hunt was there too, and although we both should have been focusing on the talks we were giving, we spent far too much time bashing our heads against this problem. I eventually realized that the images that didn’t render used a specific color at a specific level of transparency. I have no idea why that broke the build, but after we adjusted those figures, it worked fine (and my talk was a success too).

I’m not sure how well this one did, since I had left Pragmatic by the time it came out. I imagine it was a fairly narrow audience. Nevertheless, the author was pleased with the result, and despite the difficulties, I’m proud of the finished product.