I was to comment the same the other day , but the post was about some book the author was promoting so I didnt want to be a party popper but the book was totally mediocre.
It seems to me the inevitable destiny of all "tech" press, start with strong titles and devolve into crap, or to be fairer a crap-shoot.
So now you have:
ALWAYS HAVE BEEN "CRAP" = Packt and Apress
STARTED OK,GOOD NOW MOSTLY CRAP = Pragmatic, Manning, No Starch
Where's the No Starch judgment coming from? While they seem to have started veering into more mainstream/maker-y type stuff over the years, I've never had a single bad book off of them, and in terms of actual physical quality I'm not sure there's any publisher that's better.
I've had mixed results with Packt and Apress (quite a few typos in Packt). Pragmatic, Manning, and No Starch have all been pretty good, as has O'Reilly.
It seems to me the inevitable destiny of all "tech" press, start with strong titles and devolve into crap, or to be fairer a crap-shoot.
So now you have:
ALWAYS HAVE BEEN "CRAP" = Packt and Apress
STARTED OK,GOOD NOW MOSTLY CRAP = Pragmatic, Manning, No Starch
STILL OK,GOOD = O'Reilly, CUP