Show HN: Algorithms and Data Structures in TypeScript – Free Book (~400 Pages)

gausswho | 6 hours ago

this is well structured and put together. i would think it serves as a good base for refreshing oneself on the fundamentals. and it has a satisfying bend towards being both concise and thorough.

tossandthrow | 5 hours ago

This seems to be an entirely AI promoted post.

dang: Can we get stuff like this out?

[OP] jsontwikkeling | 5 hours ago

It might seem so, but it is not an AI promoted post. The book was finished with the AI tools, but a bulk of it was written by myself plus the structure and direction.

And I am human, who first finished a similar course roughly 20 years ago, worked as a TA and taught students programming and algorithms

tossandthrow | 3 hours ago

I didn't talk about the book.

I talked about the first 5 comments on the thread, all by new accounts.

It seems like an AI campaign. not organic up votes.

[OP] jsontwikkeling | 3 hours ago

OK, I am not sure who these are. I would not promote my post like this. They are indeed new accounts

Permit | 5 hours ago

> and done a high-level pass on the rest.

Why would I read your book if you have not read your book?

Edit: I now understand what is going on here. This is an attempt to promote Zenflow. The GitHub account (https://github.com/amoilanen/) is Anton Moilanen who is an employee at Zencoder, the creators of Zenflow.

The account (https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jsontwikkeling) was created 86 days ago the same day as this Show HN post was created: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46290617

It would probably be worth the moderator's time to see if this post was part of a coordinated upvote ring as well.

[OP] jsontwikkeling | 5 hours ago

It is your choice. I have read a good part of the book, also wrote a part of it and am in the process of finishing the review. The more reviews - the better. The book is officially in beta and this is fully transparent

bananamogul | 4 hours ago

what kind of author releases about a book they themselves have not read? Could you possibly care less about your readers and your own work?

bombcar | 4 hours ago

At least he's honest about it, the vast majority of AI people would just submit it as their own work having never read it at all.

Permit | 4 hours ago

He's being dishonest. He's attempting to promote Zenflow (a tool created by his employer Zencoder). He's produced AI slop (that he has not even read!) as a vehicle to promote Zenflow and get it in front of eyeballs on HackerNews.

[OP] jsontwikkeling | 4 hours ago

I am just referencing the tools I used (also Claude Code, by the way) because the bulk of the work was done by them.

This is what I was taught: work should be attributed correctly. If I would not mention the tools it would seem if the book was written entirely by me which is not the case.

This is a book which was started by me, I did use the AI tools I normally use in my daily routine on my personal projects. They are secondary in this post though.

I posted in my personal capacity and my employer is not aware or connected to this - the book is entirely mine.

It is not AI slop. A large part of its content was written originally by me 10 years ago.

But if it has offended anyone and I should not had posted the work which I have not fully yet reviewed myself, then sorry

sumeno | 3 hours ago

How would you know whether or not it is AI slop, you haven't reviewed it

[OP] jsontwikkeling | 3 hours ago

Sorry, definitely my mistake for sharing too early.

[OP] jsontwikkeling | 4 hours ago

The main goal of posting early was to gather feedback and peer review as soon as possible. I hope it can become a collaborative effort with external contributions.

The book is still a work in progress, and I have tried to be transparent about that. If you have specific concerns about the quality or suggestions for improvement, I would genuinely appreciate hearing them.

sumeno | 4 hours ago

You shouldn't ask other people for feedback before you have done the bare minimum of reading your "own" book

[OP] jsontwikkeling | 3 hours ago

Clear, sorry, my mistake. I just was excited to share and hoped it can be useful.

Though I genuinely wrote a substantial part of the book myself.

I will finish the review on Github in the coming days/weeks and will hopefully get some collaborators there

vova_hn2 | 4 hours ago

Just ask an LLM summarize it for you, lol

What was the point of first asking an LLM to expand prompt/"specs" into a book and then asking it to compress it back to a summary? Well, I'm glad you asked! To promote this Z*n tool, of course.

[OP] jsontwikkeling | 3 hours ago

It was not the goal and I was posting in my personal capacity. I just used it together with Claude Code on my personal project. Because I work with it regularly it is natural that I used it.

I wanted to mention the tools I used including Claude Code. I hope it does not seem that I am here to promote Anthropic tools as well?

I just thought it appropriate to mention for the correct attribution, because the heavy lifting was done by the tools, not by me

[OP] jsontwikkeling | 3 hours ago

The goal was to share the book which I finished and ask for review and feedback.

Feedback is clear, I should never had posted and will probably not post in the future.

Hopefully the book will be useful for those who find it, I will get feedback elsewhere and will finish reviewing it myself

[OP] jsontwikkeling | 4 hours ago

As you can see I was never hiding and my identity can be viewed and verified quite openly

I just mentioned the tools I use normally and it is my personal project done on my personal time of which my employer is not aware.

I might not mention the tools I used but they did the bulk of the work so I thought appropriate to mention.

Promoting Zenflow or Claude Code was not my goal. They are mentioned purely for the attribution purposes