Show HN: I wrote a book about WebAssembly

#1

Post by raboukhalil » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 8:38 PM UTC

Hey HN!

I've been working on a book about WebAssembly over the last few months, and it's finally available at http://levelupwasm.com!

Why a book on WebAssembly you ask? Well... WebAssembly is awesome (obviously ) but it's certainly not the easiest thing to learn. So I wrote this book as a practical intro to using WebAssembly in your web apps.

I would appreciate any feedback!

Re: Show HN: I wrote a book about WebAssembly

#2

Post by olso » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

That's a really expensive (and I can afford it). How did you figure out these prices?

Re: Show HN: I wrote a book about WebAssembly

#3

Post by kristiandupont » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 9:56 PM UTC

olso wrote: post #2

That's a really expensive (and I can afford it). How did you figure out these prices?

Seems like a pretty standard price for a non-fiction book to me..?

Re: Show HN: I wrote a book about WebAssembly

#4

Post by rolfvandekrol » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 9:59 PM UTC

kristiandupont wrote: post #3

olso wrote: post #2

That's a really expensive (and I can afford it). How did you figure out these prices?

Seems like a pretty standard price for a non-fiction book to me..?

Not for a book of 75 pages. The price and the amount of content don't seem to be in balance.

Re: Show HN: I wrote a book about WebAssembly

#5

Post by anchpop » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 10:01 PM UTC

The book looks good (I like the demos of the examles), but what motivated you to choose that pricing scheme?

Re: Show HN: I wrote a book about WebAssembly

#6

Post by Posibyte » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 10:06 PM UTC

The capstone project and little pacman game look pretty interesting. Think you can spare a short portion of the book to show what the writing is like? I find them to be some of the best litmus tests of what I'm about to get myself into on a technical book purchase.

Re: Show HN: I wrote a book about WebAssembly

#7

Post by macp » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 10:07 PM UTC

Table of contents and sample chapter?

Webassembly for genomics sounds cool :)

Re: Show HN: I wrote a book about WebAssembly

#8

Post by Insanity » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 10:22 PM UTC

rolfvandekrol wrote: post #4

kristiandupont wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a pretty standard price for a non-fiction book to me..?

Not for a book of 75 pages. The price and the amount of content don't seem to be in balance.

Unless it is of great quality perhaps. But I do agree, it seems like just a bit too much.

Re: Show HN: I wrote a book about WebAssembly

#9

Post by raboukhalil » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 10:30 PM UTC

Posibyte wrote: post #6

The capstone project and little pacman game look pretty interesting. Think you can spare a short portion of the book to show what the writing is like? I find them to be some of the best litmus tests of what I'm about to get myself into on a technical book purchase.

Thanks Posibyte! Here's a sample section about how to compile jq to WebAssembly: http://levelupwasm.com/sample-jq.pdf. But note that it's from Chapter 7, so some of the HTML portions might not make complete sense without reading the previous chapters, but hope it gives you a sense of the writing style!

Also, here's the table of contents in case it helps: http://www.levelupwasm.com/toc.pdf

Re: Show HN: I wrote a book about WebAssembly

#10

Post by raboukhalil » Thu, Feb 28, 2019, 10:31 PM UTC

macp wrote: post #7

Table of contents and sample chapter? Webassembly for genomics sounds cool :)

Yes! Here's the table of contents: http://www.levelupwasm.com/toc.pdf

And for a sample of the writing, here's the section on compiling the CLI tool jq to WebAssembly: http://levelupwasm.com/sample-jq.pdf (though note that it builds on previous material so it doesn't re-explain everything)

Edit: Also, if you're curious about using WebAssembly in genomics, check out https://github.com/robertaboukhalil/aioli/ and https://github.com/robertaboukhalil/fastq.bio, a tool to get a preview of DNA sequencing quality that uses WebAssembly to speed up the analysis portions.