出版与作家生涯2019docs.racket-lang.org
Pollen：书就是一个程序
Pollen: the book is a program
导读
这是 Racket 生态里的排版/出版系统 Pollen 的官方文档，核心理念是「书即程序」：正文用纯文本写，标记语言可以嵌入真正的代码并自行扩展。对写作者的价值在于它示范了如何让内容与版式分离、又能在需要时精细控制，评论区还讨论了 Markdown+LaTeX 等替代方案以及「工具能否真的帮作者写得更好」的质疑。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
正文尽量保持纯文本、少被标记干扰，把样式和结构交给宏或模板去统一管理。
- 02
遇到边注、特殊版式等个性化需求时，用可扩展的标记自定义，而不是在正文里手工硬凑。
- 03
围绕一个长期主题写作，把过程中产出的工具、教程、笔记也公开发表，它们会成为你作品的一部分。
- 04
警惕在工具上过度投入：选题、结构和动笔才是写作真正的难点，排版通常可以后置或交给他人。
HN 评论精选
把写作过程的副产品公开出版，围绕一个主题持续积累，能形成可辨识的个人风格。
Butterick 在数字世界里成功塑造了一个鲜明的个人身份。他的作品彼此关联——从 Pollen 到《Practical Typography》，再到他设计的字体和 Racket 教程——能看出背后有一个贯穿的主题和驱动力。他把写书过程中的「元工作」也公开发表，这些副产品本身成了独立作品。
angleofrepose查看英文原文
MB has done an amazing job at creating an identity. It seems that some content of his stirs up small controversy on this forum, and while I can't pick apart the minutiae, it's clear on a high level that he has really made a place for himself as a person in the digital world. His work is interesting and beautiful, and is all related in a way that make it clear that he has a theme or drive which he is fulfilling. From pollen to practical typography to his fonts and back to racket lessons. While I don't know the timeline of publishing, it seems each fit as a part of his path towards a goal, and he did the reader a service by publishing the meta-work. I see his racket lessons and pollen as the side result of goal to write his books, and so then became works themselves.
允许在正文标记中嵌入代码并自行扩展标记，是处理特殊排版需求的关键优势。
我正在用 Pollen 写一本在线书，体验很好。博客我用 Markdown，但在标记语言里混入真正的代码非常方便：比如给某一页做特殊版式，或做一张属性略有不同的表格。扩展标记本身也很强大——我加了 Tufte 式边注支持，写法是 Lisp is a pretty nice◊sn{cult} language. 配上 ◊ndef["cult"]{...} 定义注释内容。用 X-expression 表示文本很直观，这种建模方式和 Lisp 天然契合。
lawn查看英文原文
I'm actually using pollen to create my online book[1] and it's been very good. While I write my blog in markdown it's super nice to be able to mix real code with in your markup language. For example if you want to create a special layout for a specific page or if you want a table with subtly different properties than the rest, it's easy. It's also very powerful to extend the markup itself. I added support for Tufte style sidenotes[2] which I use extensively throughout the book. This is the markup for the sidenotes: Lisp is a pretty nice◊sn{cult} language. ◊ndef["cult"]{ Some may say it's the language to rule them all. } The way it uses X-expressions to represent text is really intuitive and easy to work with. I do think there's merit to do this in lisp instead of say Python, because the modeling maps so well to lisp. [1]: https://whycryptocurrencies.com/ [2]: https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2019/03/04/pollen_sidenotes/
让正文保持纯文本、用宏分离样式，是兼顾专注写作与排版质量的实用做法。
我在一个个人项目里用 Pandoc + Markdown + LaTeX，觉得是很好的组合。正文就只是正文，不被标记干扰；宏可以把样式分离出来、保证结构一致；TeX 生态里几乎任何排版需求都有现成工具。再配上 TeX StackExchange 和一个构建系统（我用 make），很容易做出好看的书，同时专注内容，参考文献、索引之类也一应俱全。我也喜欢「能操作整本书的 AST」这个想法——在 LaTeX 里做自由文本处理有时很困难。
jonhohle查看英文原文
I’ve been using Pandoc + Markdown + Latex & friends for a personal project, and at least to me, it seems like a great combo. Prose can be prose, without markup interfering. Macros make it easy to separate style, and build consistent structure, and there are oodles of tools in the Tex ecosystem for just about any typographic need you might have. Add Tex.stackexchange and a build system (I use make) and it’s pretty easy to set up a great looking book and and environment that allows you to focus on the content while having all of the bells and whistles (bibliography, index, etc.). I do like the idea of having the ability to manipulate an AST of the book’s contents. Sometimes it’s difficult to do free-form text manipulation in Latex, which means solving the problem in other ways.
工具再精巧也解决不了写作的核心困难，排版是次要问题。
看起来很厉害，但「把书写成程序」对作者来说仍然太麻烦。作者最难的其实是写作瓶颈、构思故事、为非虚构作品找素材；这些苦活干完后，优秀的作者往往会部分把排版交给编辑或出版社。用 Word 还是用编程语言，是次要问题。这些文档明显是写给对 Butterick 思路和数据模型感兴趣的程序员的，而不是面向普通作者的真实写作生活。
ztratar查看英文原文
While this looks impressive, I think "programming a book" is still too tricky for authors. Repeating syntax and formatting books is hard, but authors struggle the most with writers block, creating stories, sourcing content for nonfiction, etc. Once much of this hard work is done, a lot of the good ones will partially hand off formatting to an editor/publisher. Of course they'll work closely with them, but whether that work is done in MS Word vs a Programming language is the secondary. The majority of these docs are clearly aimed at programmers who are interested in MB's though process and why the data model is clean, as opposed to what life of an average author (or best-selling author) looks like, and how the tools will help them write better books. Wishing the best for this project. Perhaps a version of it could be sold to publishers?
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