I just read on news.ycombinator.com via Eric.Weblog via Z trek that the Programming Magazine Dr. Dobbs will no longer be publishing it’s normal monthly rag.  Click for Dr. Dobbs take.  That really stinks.  Even though I don’t read it regularly any more.  When I started my first full-time job back in 1995, I read Dr. Dobbs and MSJ (Microsoft System Journal) every month.

Back then both of those magazine were sold at newsstands and bookstores, so every month I would go with my girlfriend now wife to Borders and buy the latest copy of each magazine.  My wife has way different tastes then me so she got… actually not sure she got, I was busy reading my magazines. In the early days of my career, I always looked to the publication to learn new programming technique, and spark new ideas. Dr Dobbs was throughout the time I read the magazine high quality and packed with a variety of programming languages and implementation ideas.  Variety, I felt was one of its greatest attributes.  It never seemed to focus in one area but rather gave an introduction to many different things.  This was completely opposite to MSJ which focused for obvious reasons on Microsoft (This was a great magazine as well).

Then I moved and instead of the bookstore run; I bought a subscription to the magazines.  At one point, I had around a hundred of each magazine piled up in my office at work.  My wife always asked every time the subscription came due.  “Are you sure you want to renew?” and year after year I did.

Becoming Published

Since the first time I read the magazine, I was intrigued by the idea of getting published in a magazine.  It always seemed like something I wanted to do, though I never really understood how it happened or if I could do it, but I always put it in my goals for the upcoming year during my review.

Today getting published means a lot less than it did then, from an effort and focus standpoint.  Anyone with a computer can publish an article on the web, which is awesome, the more information the better.

Writing for an magazine is much different than Blogging.  Blogging is passion driven (Kind of like this article), get an idea, bang it out, proof read, then syndicate.  If I never finished this article, only I and the Wordpress software would know.

The publication process for a magazine involves many more people, there are things to manage, deadlines to meeting, and people to please – editors and readers. So when you pitch and idea to a magazine, the Marketing team talks to the magazines associate editors which will pitch the idea internally and get approval. If the idea is approved, then a place in the magazine needs to be found – which month and the length.  Once these are determined the magazine communicates back to the marketing people and then to you. This process can take one to three months, if in that time you didn’t write the article, the passion for the idea may have left.  This means that instead of being able to bang out the article completely on the adrenaline caused by the passion for the idea. The process turns into a task, ugh, a task for writing an article is no different from any other task that you need to complete. Its Work.  This is where the marketing team places their most critical role.  Nagging.  Every week, then every day and then every hour the marketing people ask “when you will be finished?” Finally you give them the article and they proof read it, then you re-read and finally it goes of to the magazine and they edit and then you are finished with everything except waiting.  At this point you are just sitting and waiting and nagging, the marketing people when the article will be coming out. Finally you get the magazine with your article printed on glossy paper and it all seems worth it.

Goal was met

Over the last few years, I have been published in a many different magazines, but never Dr. Dobbs.  Many times I had talked to my marketing department and said “What about Dr. Dobbs?” I have spoken at their conference, why don’t we pitch them an article idea. Then… this summer my PR person emailed me and said fill out this Dr. Dobbs Developers Diary, so I did. Now I was left to waiting and nagging the marketing team on the publication date. For the first four months after completing the Diary interview, I would check weekly on the Dr. Dobbs site to see if the article had been published and nothing.  Then I lost track of the whole thing.  One day while satiating my Google Analytics apdiction, I noticed multiple hits from the Dr. Dobbs site.  Bingo.  I went to the site and what was the first I saw? My giant head on the cover of the magazine (Click to see the online version). Holly shit, how did that happen? I never really thought that I would be on the cover from my “Developers Diary” interview… which made it even more awesome.

Finally, I got the physical copy of the magazine and brought it home to keep forever and to surprise my family. My family has seen my face in videos and pictures on the web, but there is something different and special about seeing it on an actual magazine cover.  My son could barely stand because he was laughing so hard and my wife just thought it was a fake. It’s been a month since I have gotten the magazine and it sits to my right, in plain site until I can get it framed.

I am glad I finally got published in the magazine and if the person that putting me on the cover reads this, I greatly appreciate it,

Bob (Buffone)