Section 38 of "The Sentiment of the Big Tree" "First Collaboration with Teacher Zhang Qianghua to Publish Computer Professional English at Higher Education Press" describes the process of publishing the first edition of "Computer Professional English Course" at Higher Education Press in April 1999, and the second edition was released in January 2003; the third one in April 2008 and the fourth edition in September 2013. The fourth edition has been in use for a long time, and it wasn't until 2021 that we started contacting for a reissue. The person in charge was replaced with a female editor whose name seems to be male, surnamed Zhao and named Guanqun.
The first step in reprinting is to submit an application to the publishing house and report the content of the new version in advance. My division of labor with Teacher Zhang Qianghua is that he is responsible for the content and I am responsible for the editing, and this time it is still the same. Teacher Zhang is very agile and completed the report application within two to three days. He replaced the outdated content of the fourth edition with new technologies that have emerged in the past decade, including big data, data mining, data visualization, artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, virtual reality and augmented reality, blockchain, and other new knowledge. It also involves the latest knowledge of edge computing, streaming media, quantum computing, brain computer interface, etc. As a layman, I feel unfamiliar with these nouns and terms.
December 26, 2021. In his New Year's greeting, Teacher Zhao also replied that the matter of reprinting is in the stage of topic selection and planning, and needs to be further promoted. But after five days, which was the last day of 2021, Zhao, the editor in charge, said that the topic had been approved and asked if the manuscript had been completed. A thousand year old fox thought if the manuscript is completed, the publishing matter has not been confirmed yet. What to do? So, Teacher Qianghua came up with a clever plan for me to deal with the publishing house. We will start writing after receiving the contract. Therefore, I replied in WeChat: "We are waiting to sign the reprint contract."
Editor Zhao retorted: Teacher Song, you need to finalize the manuscript first before signing the publishing contract, because if the manuscript cannot be roughly determined, many contents in the contract may be changed, which will delay the subsequent publishing progress!
I immediately replied: We have already submitted a topic application, and once it is approved, we need to sign a contract first. Without any evidence, what if we invest a lot of effort and are rejected? We used to operate like this in previous versions!
Finally, we reached a compromise and agreed that Editor Zhao would provide a certificate, which would be stamped and sent to me after New Year's Day.
PROVE
PROFESSOR SONG DEFU OF XUZHOU UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY'S "COMPUTER PROFESSIONAL ENGLISH COURSE" (5TH EDITION) (WBS: 18-00770-026) HAS BEEN SELECTED FOR PUBLICATION IN JUNE 2021 AND IS NOW IN THE SUBSEQUENT PUBLISHING PROCESS. THIS IS TO CERTIFY.
EDITOR'S OFFICE OF HIGHER EDUCATION PRESS CO., LTD. JANUARY 4, 2022
In this way, Teacher Zhang Qianghua also thought it was okay, and we started to do our best in editing work.
As usual, Teacher Zhang sent me the selected materials one by one, and I edited them according to the template for each lesson. Many new knowledge and technologies impressed me. Learning to read is like this, not understanding is like gnawing on tree bark, understanding is like eating sugarcane, the more you work, the more energetic you become. On February 16, 2022, after two and a half months, the entire manuscript was released.
The first step in the review process of the Higher Education Press is external review, and comments need to be written. It is necessary to hire a computer science English teacher from a university, and this work still needs to be completed by me.
On April 6, 2024, Teacher Zhang Qianghua requested me to strongly request the publishing house to sign a publishing contract. During the review period, we must cooperate and invest a lot of energy. On April 11th, Editor Zhao began drafting the publication contract. The contract was approved in the office on April 18th. After receiving the contract, we couple signed it and forwarded it to Ningbo for them to sign before returning to Beijing. The contract has been confirmed.
Due to the negligence of the editor, the submitted review samples were mixed with the content of the fourth edition, which took me a lot of time.
Then I hired American girl Claire through my daughter-in-law Meng Lei and our grandson, Australian Peter, to record the first ten units of the main text and insert it into the courseware to provide to the teacher. In October 2023, the fifth edition of "Computer Professional English Course" will be officially published and distributed.
Computer English Fifth Edition
After editing the fifth edition of the Computer English Tutorial, let me briefly share my personal experience of the history of computer development:
In the early 1990s, there was a personal computer that cost tens of thousands of yuan. Compared to my monthly salary of only about 200 yuan, I felt that having a computer at home was a pipe dream. The computer consists of a heavy trunk and a large protruding display at the back. Opening the trunk, you can see hardware such as hard drives, central processing units, and memory modules plugged into the motherboard, which are connected by wires. The DOS (disk operating system) operating system is used, and various commands are entered in English at the command prompt on the screen display. The machine recognizes and executes them, which is a very professional profession that ordinary people cannot operate. In 1995, the Windows 95 operating system was developed, which belongs to the graphical user interface (GUI). DOS was completely integrated into the background, and users clicking on the interface with a mouse were equivalent to inputting commands to the computer. The interface has been localized again, and the price of a computer has been reduced to seven or eight thousand yuan, even five or six thousand yuan. The finance department where I am in charge also has a computer laboratory, and many teachers are eager to try it out. During the holidays, I can move a computer to my bedroom for 24/7 operation. With the increase in salary, I gritted my teeth and purchased a computer so that I could read the English version of the Windows operating system, use the Word Processing Program, and start writing computer English textbooks. Then, I collaborated with Professor Zhang Qianghua, who has a background in computer science and understands English, to apply for the topic of computer English courses at the Higher Education Press and received approval. With the help of Mr. Peterson, an American foreign teacher, during the editing process, all obstacles in the materials were cleared, allowing the textbook to be published in 1999 and reach more than 50 universities. The fourth edition was published in 2012, and the fifth edition was edited in 2022 ten years later. This job drives me to barely keep up with the development of computers and networks.
The emergence of computer laptops has made it convenient for people to carry around. All hardware has entered integrated circuits, and the capacity of hard drives and memory has become increasingly large and cheap. Audio and video files have entered the system, and computers can connect with people from anywhere in the world when surfing the internet. Subsequently, tablet computers were introduced, and touch screens were refreshing. Children could use their little fingers to click, and touch screens were also installed on mobile phones, allowing them to access the internet. Things that used to be done only through computer networking, such as bank transfers, buying train tickets, video conferencing, etc., could now be operated on mobile phones. Around 2010, I began to fantasize about using mobile phones to access the internet, such as being able to purchase transfer tickets on trains or make bank transfers while lying in bed. These operations have all come true for me since 2014.
This fifth edition has given me another prediction about the future of computers, and I feel that the end of computers is not far away. Cloud computing can provide all hardware and software, and individuals can rent them by paying a fee, which eliminates the need for a personal computer. With just one display screen and a web browser, the cost is reduced. Moreover, the hardware and software are all newly developed, and users do not have to replace their laptops every few years, resulting in a pile of discarded laptops and electronic waste at home. Computers come and go, and their speed may exceed most people's imagination. Do you believe that hot computers will be eliminated? Monday, February 7th, 2022 (the seventh day of the Lunar New Year)
Oct 1, 2024
