Astro Hacker News - I wrote a 750-page guide to self-hosting production apps

kocyigityunus |next [-]

I’ve been working on this for nearly two years. I originally aimed to complete it before my son was born, but he’s now 16 months old. Go figure. Seems like writing a book is harder than it looks. My original motivation was to write something I would want to read since most resources I found on self-hosting were either too shallow, lacked real-world examples like code, or didn’t fully address the knowledge gaps I kept running into.

The book starts with the basics and builds up to covering the full infrastructure stack, with the goal of understanding the system as a whole and eventually deploying on Kubernetes. Kubernetes is a major focus but the content can be applied to any environment. I can't express this clearly, but you should probably check the sample "Jobs and CronJobs" section to get an idea. There’s also a section on best practices, tips, and practical details based on things I’ve run into myself.

It is available for free including the PDF and the code blocks. Yet, you are welcome to pay what you want.

harvey9 |root |parent |next [-]

I got to the word 'book' and got the joke of this submission title. Thanks.

kocyigityunus |root |parent [-]

some says don't use the word book, some says use manual but it's old fashion. guide is not probably it for 750 pages. idk.

hermannj314 |root |parent |previous [-]

Congratulations on completing the book!

kocyigityunus |root |parent [-]

Thank you. It was the hardest thing I've ever did by far.

eviks |next |previous [-]

> PDF optimized for on-screen technical reading

PDF isn't optimized for that, like now, reading the article a phone, I couldn't properly check out a chapter because PDF is awful in optimizing itself for a smaller screen

chii |root |parent |next [-]

Yep. I would prefer to see an epub version, which would be readable on more devices with different form factors, plus you could change the fonts and spacing etc.

kocyigityunus |root |parent |previous [-]

what is the operating screen, the app you reading on and the model of the phone ?

eviks |root |parent [-]

Any? PDF is fixed-width and is currently laid out for desktop, so bigger than any phone - though even there, you might want to use the guide side-by-side with your actual host shell to follow some instructions - and hit the same limitation on a smaller laptop screen where text wouldn't fit and you'd have to scroll.

kocyigityunus |root |parent |next [-]

no, it's not. pdf has multiple rendering modes and your problem is the client you are using to view it.

the reason this book being ~20 mb with 750 pages is that %99 percent of the things inside is vectoral, including the variable font that I used. While trying to find the perfect page aspect ratio and the perfect variable font width, I tried it with many different screen sizes, operating systems, dpis etc and clearly tell you that you have another problem.

kocyigityunus |root |parent |previous [-]

also, happy to discuss if you just can tell me the client program and the device you are using.

eviks |root |parent [-]

For me, it's any device/app: Windows with Chrome/Firefox, Sumatra, PDXChange, iphone Safari, Mac Preview/Skim The chapter looks identical, the first line of chapter 5 is "In the previous chapter, we covered the basics of the Linux operating" and it doesn't reflow when you change zoom on any device, as is pdf-typical, unlike your website where zooming in never loses the "A complete roadmap from Linux foundations to production-grade Kubernetes." text.

But instead of troubleshooting my case, just tell what the ideal client program that breaks the curse of PDF is! I'll even try the Acrobat monstrosity if it's the only one

supernes |next |previous [-]

Congratulations, that's an impressive achievement. I've successfully evaded learning anything about Kubernetes this far, but I guess this is a good opportunity to see what I've been missing.

kocyigityunus |root |parent [-]

Maybe. Please read it and tell me if it helped fill the gaps, since that was the main point.

freedomben |next |previous [-]

Thanks for making it optionally free! I'm going to download it now for 0, check it out, and if I like it, I'll go back and buy it for $50

kocyigityunus |root |parent [-]

Thank you.

ShimbaBumba |next |previous [-]

Thank you so much for such a useful book, I really appreciate what you did! But please add alternative payment methods to thank you, I don't trust leaving credit card details on third-party services

throwaway290 |root |parent |next [-]

I trust gumroad or stripe way way more than some stranger's homegrown CC form

kocyigityunus |root |parent [-]

alternative method probably means a coin.

kocyigityunus |root |parent |previous [-]

Let me add that and come back to you.

kbitey |next |previous [-]

Thanks for the book!

Can you add a machine-readable table of contents to your book? The Firefox PDF reader calls it a "document outline".

This allows navigation using the outline with a PDF reader.

This PDF has an example of such an outline: https://web.mit.edu/6.001/6.037/sicp.pdf

Imustaskforhelp |next |previous [-]

I have downloaded the book (and thanks for making it free!), I will really love to read this book when I get into college/have more spare-time

Thanks for creating this book!

kocyigityunus |root |parent [-]

You're welcome. Please read and share it.

exceptione |next |previous [-]

Tried to check it out but can't comment on the contents, because gumroad is apparently the intersection of facebook, cloudflare and google and specializes in serving millions of captcha's, then when solving all of them bluntly tells the transaction could not complete. There is a special place in hell for sites like gumroad.

chii |root |parent [-]

Yep, i hit the same issue(s). Gave up after a couple tries.

adamsiem |next |previous [-]

What if I want a hard copy? Are you working with a printer? That would revenue.

kocyigityunus |root |parent [-]

I talked with several publishers. It seems a 750-page, high-quality printed book just isn’t economically viable these days.

Imustaskforhelp |root |parent |next [-]

https://www.lulu.com/pricing

Had to search but it seems that lulu allows 800 pages so your book can fit just right in

There are definitely some other publishers like No Starch Press who might help ya as well.

kocyigityunus |root |parent [-]

A standard color book with 800 pages will be around $25 at scale. So, if I sell it for ~$40, I would make ~$5.

Since I spend so much time, I decided to let people read it.

abrookewood |root |parent |previous [-]

So why not break it up into smaller bits? You could probably do that fairly easily with an LLM - I get that you don't want AI slop, but this would be more about helping you structure it into more publishable sizes/topics and would be your words.

kocyigityunus |root |parent [-]

Most publishers wanted me to split it into two or three parts. However, doing so would require splitting it at awkward points.

Additionally, I’ve spent so much energy writing it that I didn’t want to deal with that.

wosined |next |previous [-]

So many pages... Were all of them necessary?

kocyigityunus |root |parent |next [-]

you can just skip parts.

wosined |root |parent [-]

all parts maybe :D

cromka |root |parent |previous [-]

Wait till you hear about Britannica!

erelong |next |previous [-]

sounds like some nice light reading, thank you

kocyigityunus |root |parent [-]

Probably not that light.

hugo4715 |previous [-]

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