The Sixth Edition Beta has Arrived!
This week’s early access update reached a key milestone: we’ve reached beta!
That means that nothing major is outstanding, other than a ton of revision, which I expect will still take multiple weeks, and possibly multiple months.
But it also means that the beta sixth edition has reached a some level of stability. I’m not expecting new challenges, I’m not expecting substantial chapter or section rewrites, or major additions or changes to the storyline. (Though I do plan on streamlining the story quite a bit during revision.)
My earlier guess of a November release, to coincide with the release of C# 15 and .NET 11, is still possible, but only if things go well. I think December or January is probably more likely. But I’m more confident in this guess than any of my previous guesses.
Should I wait?
Some people reading this will wonder if that means they should wait to get the next edition.
Up until now, my answer has been, “Not really. It is still a ways out, and you’ll probably be done or mostly done by the time the sixth edition ships.”
That’s starting to change.
We’re now firmly in maybe territory.
As a reminder, I’m committed to giving the sixth edition to anybody who has purchased the fifth edition for free.
This will come in the form of the PDF version from Gumroad. As much as I’d like to ship new print copies to everybody, that’s just not practical. :D
So whether to wait or buy the fifth edition now depends on how soon you want to get started, and your format preference.
If you’re willing to wait a bit (remember: my November/December/January guess is a guess, not a promise), and if you definitely prefer printed versions (I know I do), then it now seems reasonable to me to wait a bit.
If you prefer the digital PDF format (alas, no EPUB format yet, but maybe in the future), you can go either way and it won’t matter much. Get the fifth edition if you want stability and polish. Get the sixth edition if you want the updated content and can tolerate some typos and occasional weirdness (and potentially churn as the weekly updates continue).
The trickiest situation is if you prefer the print version but don’t want to wait. Again, I cannot promise a particular release date. It is possible it still won’t be done in February or March. (I really hope not. I’m more ready to release this than anybody! But the point remains.)
But it wouldn’t be unreasonable to just get the fifth edition now, and get the sixth edition in PDF form when it is available.
Ultimately, you’ll need to decide for yourself, but I’ll try to keep the blog posted with new information as I figure it out. I might even start doing weekly updates so people can be maximally informed.