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digitalmars.D - Where did the specification ebook go?

reply "Jakob Ovrum" <jakobovrum gmail.com> writes:
There is a link to a file `dlangspec.mobi` on this page:

     http://dlang.org/spec.html

The ebook link is dead. I tried building an ebook myself using 
the makefile, but to no avail; kindlegen encountered dozens of 
problems with the generated dlangspec.html.

Anyway, spec.html is not even reachable through any links on the 
site as far as I can tell. Shouldn't "Language Reference" in the 
sidebar link to that page? It currently sends you to lex.html. 
"Library Reference" links to an (incomplete!) overview of Phobos; 
it's probably a good idea to have the two links behave the same, 
even if that means "Library Reference" linking to, say, 
/phobos/object.html.

I see that there is also an ebook sold on Amazon linked from that 
page; not sure what I think about monetizing an open source site 
like that, even if the copyrights of contributors are technically 
yielded to Walter. I'm thinking there might be some good reason 
here, though.

By the way, why does the makefile look for \kindlegen\kindlegen 
by default? For one, those are Windows specific path separators, 
and shouldn't it look for just "kindlegen" in the PATH 
environment variable?
Mar 03 2012
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 3/3/2012 9:25 PM, Jakob Ovrum wrote:

 There is a link to a file `dlangspec.mobi` on this page:

 http://dlang.org/spec.html

 The ebook link is dead. I tried building an ebook myself using the makefile,
but
 to no avail; kindlegen encountered dozens of problems with the generated
 dlangspec.html.

 Anyway, spec.html is not even reachable through any links on the site as far as
 I can tell. Shouldn't "Language Reference" in the sidebar link to that page? It
 currently sends you to lex.html. "Library Reference" links to an (incomplete!)
 overview of Phobos; it's probably a good idea to have the two links behave the
 same, even if that means "Library Reference" linking to, say,
/phobos/object.html.

 I see that there is also an ebook sold on Amazon linked from that page; not
sure
 what I think about monetizing an open source site like that, even if the
 copyrights of contributors are technically yielded to Walter. I'm thinking
there
 might be some good reason here, though.


Amazon's minimum price for an ebook is $.99 (after all, Amazon is entitled to 
make some money off of their system). The Digital Mars cut of this 
"monetization" works out to $.35 per copy. I can assure you that nobody is 
getting rich off of that.

But if that still offends anyone, that's why it is linked to on the web site.
It 
seems to have suffered bit rot in the transfer of the site to dlang.org, and 
simply having a number of people working on the text. It needs fixing.

I have attempted to donate it to the local government library, but they ignore 
my repeated emails and phone messages (I suspect that nobody actually works
there).

I attempted to add it to Amazon's free lending library, but Amazon refused it 
because the book is not exclusive to Amazon.



 By the way, why does the makefile look for \kindlegen\kindlegen by default? For
 one, those are Windows specific path separators, and shouldn't it look for just
 "kindlegen" in the PATH environment variable?


For these and other bit rot issues with the ebook, please add a pull request to 
github to fix them.
Mar 03 2012
parent reply "Jakob Ovrum" <jakobovrum gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 4 March 2012 at 06:29:06 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 3/3/2012 9:25 PM, Jakob Ovrum wrote:

 There is a link to a file `dlangspec.mobi` on this page:

 http://dlang.org/spec.html

 The ebook link is dead. I tried building an ebook myself using 
 the makefile, but
 to no avail; kindlegen encountered dozens of problems with the 
 generated
 dlangspec.html.

 Anyway, spec.html is not even reachable through any links on 
 the site as far as
 I can tell. Shouldn't "Language Reference" in the sidebar link 
 to that page? It
 currently sends you to lex.html. "Library Reference" links to 
 an (incomplete!)
 overview of Phobos; it's probably a good idea to have the two 
 links behave the
 same, even if that means "Library Reference" linking to, say, 
 /phobos/object.html.

 I see that there is also an ebook sold on Amazon linked from 
 that page; not sure
 what I think about monetizing an open source site like that, 
 even if the
 copyrights of contributors are technically yielded to Walter. 
 I'm thinking there
 might be some good reason here, though.


 Amazon's minimum price for an ebook is $.99 (after all, Amazon 
 is entitled to make some money off of their system). The 
 Digital Mars cut of this "monetization" works out to $.35 per 
 copy. I can assure you that nobody is getting rich off of that.

 But if that still offends anyone, that's why it is linked to on 
 the web site. It seems to have suffered bit rot in the transfer 
 of the site to dlang.org, and simply having a number of people 
 working on the text. It needs fixing.

 I have attempted to donate it to the local government library, 
 but they ignore my repeated emails and phone messages (I 
 suspect that nobody actually works there).

 I attempted to add it to Amazon's free lending library, but 
 Amazon refused it because the book is not exclusive to Amazon.


Ah, I suspected the reason was something like that, I think 
that's great :)

Sorry if it sounded like an attack, and thank you for clearing 
that up for me.


 For these and other bit rot issues with the ebook, please add a 
 pull request to github to fix them.


Right, just making sure I wasn't doing something wrong.

So, does anyone have any thoughts on whether "Language Reference" 
should link to spec.html or keep its current behaviour?
Mar 03 2012
parent "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx> writes:
On Sun, Mar 04, 2012 at 08:36:44AM +0100, Jakob Ovrum wrote:
[...]

 So, does anyone have any thoughts on whether "Language Reference"
 should link to spec.html or keep its current behaviour?


It should link to spec.html. The current behaviour is confusing, and
looks like an oversight.


T

-- 
If creativity is stifled by rigid discipline, then it is not true creativity.
Mar 04 2012