1 Putting marks on paper
This chapter covers
- What this book is about, who it is for, and what it contains
- Coordinates and units for placing ink on a page or pixels on a screen
- The physical characteristics of paper, ink, and computer screens
- Building lines and making shapes using only dots
This book provides an introduction to computer science through a series of sketches highlighting aspects of one central theme: book production. If you are reading a physical paperback copy of this book, everything from the writer’s thoughts up to the act of printing it was done automatically. If you are reading this book as an eBook, of course, the book is still inside the computer.
What is computer science? Is it just programming? Is it really a science like physics or chemistry, or is it just a branch of mathematics? Or is it just a fancy way of talking about how we use computers and not a science at all? We will try to answer these questions through eleven sketches based on our theme. This is not a comprehensive, beginning-to-end textbook of book publishing but a look at the techniques behind some important aspects involved in the process. It won’t teach you a new programming language or technology, but it should give you insight into the ways we use computers to automate human processes, how we marshal data and computing power to do our work for us, and how the publishing industry uses computers to build electronic and physical books.