7 ms·

Six hundred and forty pages in fifteen months

169 points by agluszak 5y ago

asicsp 5y ago
Related discussion from a week back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27997167 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27997167
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
> If you get tired of reading it, it can serve as a doorstop or protect you from small-arms fire. I like the self-deprecating humor, and wish him well.
- vanderZwan 5y ago
  Reading it did tire me out, because I couldn't put it down and ended up skipping half a night of sleep. So uh, task failed successfully I guess?
rednab 5y ago
For any Dutch folks wanting to purchase the book, it's also available on amazon.nl ¹), and appears to be cheaper there than the .com or .co.uk options, thanks to free shipping! ¹) https://www.amazon.nl/Crafting-Interpreters-Robert-Nystrom/dp/0990582930 https://www.amazon.nl/Crafting-Interpreters-Robert-Nystrom/d...
tux3 5y ago
This is super interesting and thank you for taking us through it! Enjoy a whole lot of not anything in particular, now :)
- munificent 5y ago
  I have been so far, and it's been delightful. :)
0n34n7 5y ago
TIL that books can have build systems. What a time to be alive.
- TacticalCoder 5y ago
  Some used to write books using LaTeX a quarter of a century ago and it was pretty much a build system. You'd typically have a little shell script making backups, cleaning the mess from the last build, building the book in x passes (IIRC there was a first pass for the book and a second one for all the references), converting it to another format, maybe opening the result in a viewer, etc. As for TFA: 640 pages in 15 months ain't bad. Some have a lot of discipline and can write five or ten pages a day, but that's really hard...
  - pletnes 5y ago
    As a concrete example, see latexmk. https://mg.readthedocs.io/latexmk.html https://mg.readthedocs.io/latexmk.html
  - munificent 5y ago
    > As for TFA: 640 pages in 15 months ain't bad. It took me 15 months to edit and typeset the print and ebook editions. The actual writing and illustrating part took me another ~4 years before that.
- browningstreet 5y ago
  Check out leanpub.com ... basically what it is.
donquichotte 5y ago
I bought Robert's book "Game Programming Patterns", and although it is a bit OOP-heavy for my taste, I have enjoyed it and the illustrations are excellent. Also, cool to see him pull a Knuth and writing his own typesetting and build system for the book!
aazaa 5y ago
> Remember back on Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood when he would take you to a factory and show you how pencils or umbrellas are made? I love that stuff, so I thought maybe you might like to see what I spent the past year on. You can read this as a peek behind the curtain, or maybe a long apology for why it took so long. This is a great way to lead into the article. The author pulls off something that turns out to be extremely hard to get right: Interweave humor and slightly off-topic material into a technical post. Most of the time it falls flat, but not here. Looking forward to reading further.
edgyquant 5y ago
This may be the first technical book I’ve wanted to buy in a decade. Google searching really replaced the way I learn programming and I’m not sure why. I’ve always had access to Google or another search engine but I used to actually buy books.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kiba 5y ago
Is this book workable for someone who knows how to program but don't have much of a formal education in CS?
- gnodar 5y ago
  Yes. I'm halfway through it now, and while I do have a degree in CS, all that's really needed is knowledge of Java and C. If anything, it's less formal than a compiler / PL course one would normally take during undergrad.
  - kiba 5y ago
    I have very limited programming experience in C and Java. Is that going to be a problem?
    - nomy99 5y ago
      yes.
    - gnodar 5y ago
      It depends what you mean by "very limited". All the code is provided to you, so you can get through the book by simply copying and pasting the provided code snippets. As long as you understand what the code is actually doing just by reading it, you'll be okay. The book has some "challenges" where you can implement additional features if you want to, but you don't need to. However if your knowledge of Java or C is so limited that you'll have a hard time even understanding what the code is doing, then it's probably not worth the effort going through the book. It will be too confusing, and you won't learn much.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - nomy99 5y ago
      Look at the free sample pdf on his site. Topic is garbage collection. If you can comprehend that then buy the book.
neeeeees 5y ago
Looking forward to grabbing a physical copy of this book. As a beginner, CI and Alex Aiken’s course at Stanford were a great place to start. Bob also gave me a lot of insight on what it’s like working on programming languages in the industry when I reached out to him as an undergrad.
dominicjj 5y ago
I love Bob's writing and his solid grasp of programming subjects that interest me like games and programming languages. For his next book, I suggest trying LyX and the book class with the Tufte layout for far less pain in the publishing process.
- mwcampbell 5y ago
  > For his next book, I suggest trying LyX and the book class with the Tufte layout for far less pain in the publishing process. Can that stack produce well-structured, accessible HTML? Or are you suggesting that he still use HTML or Markdown as his source format, then use LyX only for the print version?
  - dominicjj 5y ago
    Oh absolutely. Stick with Markdown and export to HTML as needed (I use emacs and org-mode's built in converter for that) but pandoc can export from Markdown to LaTeX and then Lyx can import it no problem.

169 points by agluszak 5y ago

Related discussion from a week back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27997167 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27997167

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

> If you get tired of reading it, it can serve as a doorstop or protect you from small-arms fire. I like the self-deprecating humor, and wish him well.

vanderZwan 5y ago
Reading it did tire me out, because I couldn't put it down and ended up skipping half a night of sleep. So uh, task failed successfully I guess?

rednab 5y ago

For any Dutch folks wanting to purchase the book, it's also available on amazon.nl ¹), and appears to be cheaper there than the .com or .co.uk options, thanks to free shipping! ¹) https://www.amazon.nl/Crafting-Interpreters-Robert-Nystrom/dp/0990582930 https://www.amazon.nl/Crafting-Interpreters-Robert-Nystrom/d...

tux3 5y ago

This is super interesting and thank you for taking us through it! Enjoy a whole lot of not anything in particular, now :)

munificent 5y ago
I have been so far, and it's been delightful. :)

0n34n7 5y ago

TIL that books can have build systems. What a time to be alive.

TacticalCoder 5y ago
Some used to write books using LaTeX a quarter of a century ago and it was pretty much a build system. You'd typically have a little shell script making backups, cleaning the mess from the last build, building the book in x passes (IIRC there was a first pass for the book and a second one for all the references), converting it to another format, maybe opening the result in a viewer, etc. As for TFA: 640 pages in 15 months ain't bad. Some have a lot of discipline and can write five or ten pages a day, but that's really hard...
- pletnes 5y ago
  As a concrete example, see latexmk. https://mg.readthedocs.io/latexmk.html https://mg.readthedocs.io/latexmk.html
- munificent 5y ago
  > As for TFA: 640 pages in 15 months ain't bad. It took me 15 months to edit and typeset the print and ebook editions. The actual writing and illustrating part took me another ~4 years before that.
browningstreet 5y ago
Check out leanpub.com ... basically what it is.

donquichotte 5y ago

I bought Robert's book "Game Programming Patterns", and although it is a bit OOP-heavy for my taste, I have enjoyed it and the illustrations are excellent. Also, cool to see him pull a Knuth and writing his own typesetting and build system for the book!

aazaa 5y ago

> Remember back on Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood when he would take you to a factory and show you how pencils or umbrellas are made? I love that stuff, so I thought maybe you might like to see what I spent the past year on. You can read this as a peek behind the curtain, or maybe a long apology for why it took so long. This is a great way to lead into the article. The author pulls off something that turns out to be extremely hard to get right: Interweave humor and slightly off-topic material into a technical post. Most of the time it falls flat, but not here. Looking forward to reading further.

edgyquant 5y ago

This may be the first technical book I’ve wanted to buy in a decade. Google searching really replaced the way I learn programming and I’m not sure why. I’ve always had access to Google or another search engine but I used to actually buy books.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

kiba 5y ago

Is this book workable for someone who knows how to program but don't have much of a formal education in CS?

gnodar 5y ago
Yes. I'm halfway through it now, and while I do have a degree in CS, all that's really needed is knowledge of Java and C. If anything, it's less formal than a compiler / PL course one would normally take during undergrad.
- kiba 5y ago
  I have very limited programming experience in C and Java. Is that going to be a problem?
  - nomy99 5y ago
    yes.
  - gnodar 5y ago
    It depends what you mean by "very limited". All the code is provided to you, so you can get through the book by simply copying and pasting the provided code snippets. As long as you understand what the code is actually doing just by reading it, you'll be okay. The book has some "challenges" where you can implement additional features if you want to, but you don't need to. However if your knowledge of Java or C is so limited that you'll have a hard time even understanding what the code is doing, then it's probably not worth the effort going through the book. It will be too confusing, and you won't learn much.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - nomy99 5y ago
    Look at the free sample pdf on his site. Topic is garbage collection. If you can comprehend that then buy the book.

neeeeees 5y ago

Looking forward to grabbing a physical copy of this book. As a beginner, CI and Alex Aiken’s course at Stanford were a great place to start. Bob also gave me a lot of insight on what it’s like working on programming languages in the industry when I reached out to him as an undergrad.

dominicjj 5y ago

I love Bob's writing and his solid grasp of programming subjects that interest me like games and programming languages. For his next book, I suggest trying LyX and the book class with the Tufte layout for far less pain in the publishing process.

mwcampbell 5y ago
> For his next book, I suggest trying LyX and the book class with the Tufte layout for far less pain in the publishing process. Can that stack produce well-structured, accessible HTML? Or are you suggesting that he still use HTML or Markdown as his source format, then use LyX only for the print version?
- dominicjj 5y ago
  Oh absolutely. Stick with Markdown and export to HTML as needed (I use emacs and org-mode's built in converter for that) but pandoc can export from Markdown to LaTeX and then Lyx can import it no problem.