No worries I didn't take it as a criticism. I understand your point. I mean when we sign a contract there's a minimum number of pages to write. But personally, I never felt the pressure of having to add more stuff.

Instead, my DE multiple times told me that it's better to favor just-in-time teaching over just-in-case teaching. Meaning multiple times, he made me drop certain section because they weren't really serving the chapter. They were "perhaps helpful" and he made me drop all of those.

I guess it also depends on who you're working with and which publisher. On this aspect, Manning was fair, imo.