Marc Delisle Interview

From managing the time to the pleasure showing his first print to his peers...Marc tells it all!

Marc Delisle is the author of Mastering phpMyAdmin 2.8 for Effective MySQL Management and Creating your MySQL Database: Practical Design Tips and Techniques  Marc Delisle is a member of the MySQL Developers Guild – which regroups community developers – because of his involvement with phpMyAdmin. He started to contribute to this popular MySQL web interface in December 1998, when he made the first multi-language version. He has been actively involved with the phpMyAdmin project since May 2001 as a developer and project administrator.

PP: Overall, how was your experience of writing your book?

MD: This  was my first experience with such things as the whole editorial process, meeting deadlines, working with an editor, dealing with the reviewer's comments.

 It was a pleasant experience, and after translating my phpMyAdmin book from English to French, I then wrote a second book in English.

PP: How did our staff help - what kind of things did they help you with, do you think there were some things they could have helped with more?

MD: The help was very professional and very friendly at the same time. At first, when establishing the outline, it was crucial to build a text that reflects the book's goal, and for this the advice of my editor was helpful. As an author, knowing my subject is an advantage but I was tempted to assume that some parts are known to the reader. So the advice of the first readers (editor and reviewer) is very important to improve the clarity of the text

When I needed help I asked and got help so no, I don't think they could have helped more.

PP: Was there anything particularly interesting that happened during the writing of the book?

MD: Being a producer of open source software (OSS), I was pleased to use OSS in the writing process, from text processing to screenshots. Also, I kept the secret about the book: other phpMyAdmin team members did not know it, apart from the reviewer. It was fun to reveal this only when the book was published.

Finally I had the pleasure of meeting my editor and my reviewer in person when I made my first trip to Europe.

PP: Did it overshadow personal life in any way? How did your deal with that?

MD: Personal life was a bit complex to manage. I have four kids and they talk much... and I don't have a home office. I noticed that what I was hearing from them had a tendency to pass thru my fingers directly into the book, so I had to find better times to sit at the computer.

PP: How did you get on managing your time?

MD: We agreed on a schedule, but at the same time we wanted to be the first to market a book about phpMyAdmin, so the schedule was a bit aggressive -- no complain here, as I had agreed. It turned out that I was working mostly all the weekends to meet the deadlines -- and I have a day job too.

PP: What benefit did writing a book bring to you in MySQL community?

MD: phpMyAdmin is an important tool for the MySQL community and now we are able to direct people to the book, this means less support questions. At the same time, having a book published in five languages (with more coming soon) adds an "official" aspect to the whole project.

PP: Do you have any tips for other authors, or tricks that you learnt while writing, that you'd like to share?