> when people were trying to do something else, and had to invent new tools.
(Author here.) My point was not that you shouldn't invent tools if you need them. By all means, go ahead. My heart beats for creating tools (especially tools to create other tools...).
What I wanted to express was this: if you want to write _a book_, first write the book and only then worry about the tools. If you then notice that you need a custom toolchain to get the book in exactly the shape you need it to be, do it.
I've had people tell me that they would love to write a book, but, well, the existing tools are not sufficient enough. And I think that's the wrong approach to writing a book: write something and you'll quickly realize that the tooling is not your biggest hurdle.
> What I wanted to express was this: if you want to write _a book_, first write the book and only then worry about the tools. If you then notice that you need a custom toolchain to get the book in exactly the shape you need it to be, do it.
I agree 100% with this. Following the case of Knuth/TAoCP/TeX, in fact the first edition of TAoCP was not written in TeX, he made TeX to improve his already written book.
> I've had people tell me that they would love to write a book, but, well, the existing tools are not sufficient enough.
That’s hilarious. Humans were hand writing books on paper and giving them to other humans to hand write copies. A good craftsman never blames his tools.
> Humans were hand writing books on paper and giving them to other humans to hand write copies.
Not very many were, and a big reason for that was the available tooling.
> A good craftsman never blames his tools
Someone who writes a book by blames the available tooling support for the low quality of its content is a craftsman (but, per the saying, not a good one) blaming his tools.
A person who chooses not to write a book at all because the anticipated opportunity cost given the existing tooling support and that person’s personal utility function is not.
(Author here.) My point was not that you shouldn't invent tools if you need them. By all means, go ahead. My heart beats for creating tools (especially tools to create other tools...).
What I wanted to express was this: if you want to write _a book_, first write the book and only then worry about the tools. If you then notice that you need a custom toolchain to get the book in exactly the shape you need it to be, do it.
I've had people tell me that they would love to write a book, but, well, the existing tools are not sufficient enough. And I think that's the wrong approach to writing a book: write something and you'll quickly realize that the tooling is not your biggest hurdle.