alexandria/README.md

# alexandria, an archive

of all of my digitized work and notes. Want to steal my stuff? This is where
you do it.

Please note, all of my work is licensed under [CC-BY-NC-ND
4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.en) (that's the
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives 4.0 license), with one
exception. The Nix source code that helps provide the document compilation
infrastructure is free and unencumbered software released into the public
domain. This includes all of the files in `./2024/nix` as well as any files
ending in `.nix` generally. The contents of `./quartz` are copyright Jerry Zhao
under the MIT License.

I (and the license) do not grant permission for my work being passed off as
someone else's (perhaps for the purpose of plagiarism). Obviously this does not
extend to the Nix source code, which is in the public domain.

## Quartz 4 Web Deployment

The markdown files in this repository are Obsidian flavored and are
automatically compiled into the knowledge garden at
[garden.youwen.dev](https://garden.youwen.dev). Please visit!

### Hacking

Builds are powered by Nix. Run

```sh
nix build
```

to produce a static bundle at `result/public`. A local development server can
be started at `localhost:8080` by running

```sh
nix run
```

## Typst compilation infrastructure

This repository contains a sophisticated system for reproducibly compiling
Typst documents using Nix, the purely functional package manager. Typst is a
modern typesetting system aiming to replace the venerable LaTeX system.

Within the [documents](./documents), an ongoing experiment is taking place to
create a monorepo organization structure for a large amount of Typst documents.
Some custom Nix infrastructure has been created to provide a similar package
interface to the familiar `nixpkgs` package repository. Instead of building
programs, however, it builds documents. Review [the flake](./2024/flake.nix)
for more information.

Since the flake in documents provides a package set, you can use the `nix
search` command on it to discover documents just like `nixpkgs`. Try:

```sh
nix search "git+https://code.youwen.dev/youwen5/alexandria?dir=documents" digression
```

You can compile any document in this repository yourself very easily! Simply
run:

```sh
nix build 'git+https://code.youwen.dev/youwen5/alexandria?dir=documents#digression-linear-algebra'
```

The builds are managed by the amazing
[typix](https://github.com/loqusion/typix) project. It helps provide a
hermetically sealed build environment, which means that all _dependencies_ of
the documents are specified, including fonts, commonly forgotten due to being
installed systemwide. Also, the build process clones down a copy of the entire
[Typst package repository](https://github.com/typst/packages), version locked
in [flake.lock](./2024/flake.lock). This means that packages are also
guaranteed to be reproducible and available.

Compilation creates a `result` that points to the compiled PDF in the Nix
store. Currently, the file is not marked as a PDF with a `.pdf` file extension,
but one should be able to easily `cp` the file from the Nix store into another
directory with a proper file name. Work is ongoing to make this as smooth as
possible.