Crafting Interpreters is available in print • Hacker News Board

Re: Crafting Interpreters is available in print

#51

Post by skybrian » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #2

Author here! It feels amazing to have this done and live. I'm happy to talk about whatever you might want to know about it. If you're curious how the sausage was made, I wrote a blog post about taking the web book and bringing it to print and ebook here: http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2021/07/29/640-pages-in-15...

It would be cool to see the Dart script that you wrote to build the book’s website. I know it’s not intended for anything else, but maybe there are some good ideas in there for other websites?

Edit: I guess that’s here: https://github.com/munificent/craftinginterpreters/blob/mast...

Re: Crafting Interpreters is available in print

#52

Post by munificent » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 3:53 PM UTC

titzer wrote: post #45

munificent wrote: post #2

Author here! It feels amazing to have this done and live. I'm happy to talk about whatever you might want to know about it. If you're curious how the sausage was made, I wrote a blog post about taking the web book and bringing it to print and ebook here: http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2021/07/29/640-pages-in-15...

I really like the hand-drawn diagrams in the sample PDF! Are the actually hand-drawn or stylized SVG?

Literally hand drawn with my hands. Here's a video of me making one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN1MsCXkPSA

It's, like, comically time consuming. But also pretty satisfying.

Re: Crafting Interpreters is available in print

#53

Post by jstx1 » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #32

xcubic wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How difficult was it to make this in a different language than the one used on the book?

Readers have ported the code in the book to many languages already: https://github.com/munificent/craftinginterpreters/wiki/Lox-... That means it's either not too hard to do yourself, or at the very least you can use their ports as a reference as you work through the book.

Of course Rust has the longest list in something like this.

Thanks for the book by the way, I'm picking it up for the first time now

Re: Crafting Interpreters is available in print

#54

Post by intrepidhero » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 4:02 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #2

Author here! It feels amazing to have this done and live. I'm happy to talk about whatever you might want to know about it. If you're curious how the sausage was made, I wrote a blog post about taking the web book and bringing it to print and ebook here: http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2021/07/29/640-pages-in-15...

Thanks for writing about your process! I enjoyed it almost as much as Crafting Interpreters, which is to say, quite a lot.

And you absolutely should be proud of your PDF->PNG->Highlight diffs script. As someone who has kept excel files and PDFs in version control I knew exactly the feeling you were talking about. I got to that part and exclaimed out loud, "Damn cool!"

Re: Crafting Interpreters is available in print

#55

Post by manaskarekar » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 4:03 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #50

manaskarekar wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you so much for everything you have put out. The execution is always beautiful, the content is solid, licensing/pricing model is great, and the meta info about the layout/setup/journey is equally enjoyable. As the saying goes, your books spark joy. Thank you. OT: Do I need to purchase the pdf separately if I purchase the print book?

I try, thank you!

I snuck in the OT question in there as an edit, but curious, is there an option to buy pdf + print or do those need to go separately?

Re: Crafting Interpreters is available in print

#56

Post by cxr » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 4:04 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #2

Author here! It feels amazing to have this done and live. I'm happy to talk about whatever you might want to know about it. If you're curious how the sausage was made, I wrote a blog post about taking the web book and bringing it to print and ebook here: http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2021/07/29/640-pages-in-15...

> I decided to rewrite the whole build system for the book in Dart. The build script I wrote for my first book was dead simple. Literally a single Python script that took a Markdown file for each book chapter and rendered it to HTML while weaving in the code snippets. The world’s dumbest static site generator. [...] Useful, but really straining the limits of how much code I want to maintain in a dynamically typed language like Python [...] it was, frankly, really slow

This is great to hear. When I read about your build system in Crafting "Crafting Interpreters" https://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2020/04/05/crafting-craft...>, I had hopes that your next bugbite would be fleshing out half of a quasi-literate programming tool. For a compiler writer, who also happens to be writing a book, the circumstances and fit seem just too natural to avoid it.

I'm looking forward to diving into your Markdown package, too, and expect that it will be easy to port to JS. Nowadays, whenever I need a library for a JS project, my first choice is to check for a clean Dart, Haxe, or Java implementation that does what I want, with the intent of porting it, rather than disadvantaging myself by relying on whatever the NodeJS community has cobbled together and put on NPM. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24495646>

EDIT: There is a typo "CCS" in the blog post. Highlighted: https://hyp.is/d2cCEPCLEeu7jSft-ex2Ug/journal.stuffwithstuff...>

Re: Crafting Interpreters is available in print

#57

Post by idsout » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 4:06 PM UTC

manaskarekar wrote: post #55

munificent wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I try, thank you!

I snuck in the OT question in there as an edit, but curious, is there an option to buy pdf + print or do those need to go separately?

Also interested in this. I prefer a first pass with a physical copy and having a pdf to use as a reference/search

Re: Crafting Interpreters is available in print

#58

Post by hartator » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #37

ceronman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Bob! Congratulations on shipping the book! This book has been a life saver during the pandemic, not only the world situation but I personally was a bit disappointed with my career. I was inspired by one of your posts where you mention that you were writing every single day for four years. I decided to use the same approach and I started reading the book and coding a bit every single day. I was able to finish it co…

> I was inspired by one of your posts where you mention that you were writing every single day for four years. Yes! It is the dumbest, weirdest life hack, but it seems to work for perfectionists like us.

I wonder if anyone wrote a book about this!

Re: Crafting Interpreters is available in print

#59

Post by nirvdrum » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #2

Author here! It feels amazing to have this done and live. I'm happy to talk about whatever you might want to know about it. If you're curious how the sausage was made, I wrote a blog post about taking the web book and bringing it to print and ebook here: http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2021/07/29/640-pages-in-15...

I've been waiting for the print version before diving in, so I'm excited to see it's now available. For what it's worth, I'd be willing to spend more money on an all-format package. I need to hold a book in my hand and not stare at an illuminated screen to absorb the material, but sometimes carry a big book around is not practical so having a Kindle copy is handy. A PDF copy is good for referencing stuff I've already read. Since the book is printed on-demand, such a package might not really be practical, but I thought I'd mention it.

Congrats on getting over the finish line, by the way. It's a huge accomplishment.

Re: Crafting Interpreters is available in print

#60

Post by munificent » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

manaskarekar wrote: post #55

munificent wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I try, thank you!

I snuck in the OT question in there as an edit, but curious, is there an option to buy pdf + print or do those need to go separately?

I don't have any automated way of bundling stuff. But if you email me with some proof of purchase (I don't know, a picture of you holding the book, or an order screenshot or something), I'm happy to email you the PDF.