I’ve recently discovered the existence of Typst - historically, I’ve been a user of both TeX and LaTeX.
I’ve always liked the idea of programmatic generation of type-setting… encouraging conformity and a house-style for documents. I have always wanted custom styles for my own letters, technical documents, reports, invoices, receipts - etc. and would consider it a success if I could fully separate definition of a style for document types from their content - without making it very difficult to achieve one-off ‘oddball’ requirements for individual documents. I like the idea that textual source should be easiest to index, and to manage revisions/versions. I intend to investigate Typst to see if it represents a better approach than LaTeX for my use-cases.
From my perspective, TeX and LaTeX had a major advantage… with the two books:
The former gave a detailed exposition of the low level language; the latter gave an explanation of a recommended way to embrace the power of TeX with the idioms of LaTeX.
Thanks for the reply. I didn’t find one when I looked - so I’d not be surprised if there are no comparable published works.
Print the Typst Documentation… Hoping for definitive published books about the language isn’t just about me coveting dead-tree formats. One of the things that’s great about TeX/LaTeX is that they are mature technologies - the thing I like most about the definitive books is that they indicate stability of the language they document. Online documentation (being searchable) is very convenient - and it’s likely to always be up-to-date with changes. Published books align better with the idea that content is likely to remain sufficient and relevant for a considerable length of time. I would find it reassuring if there had been definitive books - like for TeX/LaTeX… as they’d encourage me to believe that Typst is complete, stable and the sort of technology I could depend-upon long-term. Despite other faults, TeX/LaTeX are very stable as platforms with dependable longevity.
Obviously, free online (and digital offline) documentation is extremely positive… the only down side is that… if this is the only option - one is forced to wonder about how mature the system is - and whether now is the right time to adopt/embrace Typst - relative to other options.
I believe the Chinese community has a book “like” online documentation, but there is no English equivalent.
To answer the indirect question, Typst isn’t stable enough for a published book. There were some mostly minor breaking changes in the past and there will probably be breaking changes in the future, e.g. with math syntax. Additionally, major additions like custom types and I think more powerful show rules are on the roadmap. If you don’t want to read a new book about Typst every six months/every year, you probably have to wait a bit longer or stick to a specific Typst version.
Thanks for the answer to my indirect question. Interesting to hear that Typst has strong interest from a Chinese community…
I’m not absolutely adamant that I must wait for stability - but the probability for the prospect that the language may yet substantially evolve (including with breaking changes) will influence me in deciding where it’s the right technology for me to adopt right now. It remains interesting to me.
I don’t want to scare you off, most breaking changes in the past were minor. Often a search and replace across the document was enough to adapt the document to the new release. Breaking changes are well documented in the changelog (You may want to take a look to get a feel for the changes).
From what I have seen, breaking changes are carefully planned and done with good reason. E.g. for the likely upcoming math syntax change there was a blog post, discussions on the forum, and it was ultimately postponed because of unresolved edge cases.
Ultimately, I think if you learn the basics of the language, you can probably adjust to larger breaking changes within a few hours.
I’m not scared off - but, I think, I’m taking a pragmatic perspective about which of my use cases, for Typst, that I should consider now - and which should be delayed. Knowing that the online documentation is the authority, is helpful - it helps me identify the risks that I should focus upon during evaluation/experimentation.
Hoping for definitive published books about the language isn’t just about me coveting dead-tree formats. One of the things that’s great about TeX/LaTeX is that they are mature technologies - the thing I like most about the definitive books is that they indicate stability of the language they document. Online documentation (being searchable) is very convenient - and it’s likely to always be up-to-date with changes. Published books align better with the idea that content is likely to remain sufficient and relevant for a considerable length of time. I would find it reassuring if there had been definitive books - like for TeX/LaTeX… as they’d encourage me to believe that Typst is complete, stable and the sort of technology I could depend-upon long-term. Despite other faults, TeX/LaTeX are very stable as platforms with dependable longevity.