The Tools I Use to Write Books (2018)

This page summarizes the projects mentioned and recommended in the original post on news.ycombinator.com

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  • wefx

    Basic WASM graphics package to draw to an HTML Canvas using C. In the style of the gfx library

  • I've used a similar pipeline to create "books for code and infrastructure". A/k/a coding in a somewhat literate programming style. Similar to what is described here:

    gemini://gemini.robrohan.com/2022-04-23-narrative-programming.md

    With output that looks similar to this: https://github.com/robrohan/wefx/blob/main/docs/manual.pdf

    Using a github action like this: https://github.com/robrohan/wefx/blob/main/.github/workflows...

    (most of the code borrowed from those projects)

    You can do it with just plain markdown files and use directories for chapters / organization if you're just going for prose.

    I've thought about using the process to try to make open textbooks where you can mix and match chapters, but I don't have any experience in that field.

    Anyway, can confirm, it's an incredibly useful process.

  • pp

    PP - Generic preprocessor (with pandoc in mind) - macros, literate programming, diagrams, scripts... (by CDSoft)

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  • IParse

    IParse: an interpreting parser written in C++

  • I wrote a tool that can process a number of MarkDown files with fragments of C code and put all those fragments in the right order to produce a file that can be compiled. It is grammar based and works with manipulating Abstract Syntax Trees, so I guess, it could be adapted for different programming languages. See: https://github.com/FransFaase/IParse#markdownc

NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a more popular project.

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