How I Under-Engineered My Book: A Word Processor, a Drag-and-Drop, and Done
The author contrasts his minimalist approach to writing a book with the over-engineered methods often showcased on Hacker News. He typed each chapter in Obsidian, copy-pasted it into Word, and dragged it into Box for Manning. No complex toolchains, no automation—just simple, direct steps until completion. The result: a finished book, now available for purchase.
Then I kept doing that until it was done.
- noir_lord
The related Over Engineering Post - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49335292
Does seem like overkill but everyone scratches their own itch.
- hyperhello
Is there a word for the right amount of engineering? Kind of a negative concept of not engaging in performative conceptualization. Just doing it in a way that the implementation was natural and not worth writing home about.
- ifh-hn
I finished a BSc and an MSc with quarto and fossil. It had to be in Word so I wrote a VBA script that pulled comments so I could edit my markdown files easier.