It really doesn't explain why they chose a book as their format over a searchable website or why they chose a 2 page layout, with one color inverted.
Spreading the content over 2 pages makes it very unusable. Displaying 2 pages side by side makes the content too small to read. Having every 2nd page color inverted makes it unprintable. It's also annoying if (like me) you invert the colors on your e-reader or PDF viewer.
I also noticed the index doesn't have hyperlinks to the content pages and it doesn't appear to have a working table of contents making it even more difficult to use on an e-reader.
I like the concept but the implementation has serious usability issues.
Timestamp 0:45 - "It was originally designed to be a *physical* book but we realized it made more sense to be downloadable."
Timestamp 1:32 - Video shows that there are clickable links that will bring you to more detailed reference pages; so I assume that if the stylistic layout choices makes it unusable for you, you can always open up the the external reference pages.
> It was originally designed to be a physical book but we realized it made more sense to be downloadable
Kinda wish they'd stuck with that. It feels like they made a bunch of decisions in the design that made sense in that context, but would have not been ideal choices if you were designing it as an online reference.
Still cool, and glad they did it and made it available. Hopefully the license means we'll see some nice improvements.
I personally don’t think the current iteration is meant to be an online reference. I look at it not even as an ebook but a simple digital copy of a book.
Yeah, perhaps the intent is to just get people interested and bootstrap an eventual printing via merch sales?
It would seem a bit lacking in context without the video intro, though, to understand that it wasn't necessarily meant to be consumed in the format they've giving you now.
One of my favorite resources on the Web. Information-dense, loads fast, easy to navigate.