Audiobook

[phi12ip]

I looked online and through the issues, and I haven't seen any mention of an Audio-book. I like to listen to books and talks while doing other things that require my eyes, so I naturally want to find audio versions of concepts.

I personally am on my third read through of the book over the past few years, and I believe there would be a lot of value in an audio version of the book and I would be willing to do at least the initial narration.

I believe it could be accomplished by partitioning the audio for each Chapter in a way that could be tied to the changes in the book and altered when the book is changed.

I think having separate audio files for each "paragraph" would reduce the amount of work that would need to be redone The paragraph could be defined simply based on white-space or heading, and the coherency could be maintained by a queue of wording changes.

--Phil

[steveklabnik]

Hi Phil! This is an interesting idea, but we barely have the bandwidth to keep up with the text version. Also, we'd have to go back and re-record the audio when we change the text. I appreciate the idea, but there's no way we can do this.

[ostap-tymchenko]

Hey, are you guys still really busy? I have a pretty hard time reading books without an audiobook while I read along.

[carols10cents]

Yes, I don't know anyone with time to record an audiobook.

[phi12ip]

First, I have at least 2 hours a week free to record an audiobook version of the Rust book.

Second, I really think this would be something to help more people join the community, as I had the same problem in 2017 when I was learning Rust.

Also, I also proposed a potential solution to stay on top of changes at the beginning of the thread which could of course be modified, refined, or improved.

Finally, I genuinely understand if the people in charge don't want to be responsible for keeping up with an audio version of a theoretically infinitely changing document. I also understand that a poor quality audiobook version of the very high quality book might reflect poorly on the community and language as a whole.

[carols10cents]

The book is licensed MIT precisely to enable community contributions like this (and translations). It wasn't clear to me in your original issue @phi12ip that you were volunteering to create the audio recording; it seemed like you were asking for an official version.

I'd be happy to link to whatever you create/maintain!

[carols10cents]

I would be willing to do at least the initial narration.

Yep, I completely missed this.

[ostap-tymchenko]

The book is licensed MIT precisely to enable community contributions like this (and translations). It wasn't clear to me in your original issue @phi12ip that you were volunteering to create the audio recording; it seemed like you were asking for an official version.

I'd be happy to link to whatever you create/maintain!

Is that for the paperback version as well or just web?

[phi12ip]

Wonderful! Apologizes for burying the part where I volunteered to take it on.

I will start work and keep everyone of my progress updated here 😄

[ostap-tymchenko]

Hey sorry just to clarify are you going to read the web or print version?

[phi12ip]

Hey sorry just to clarify are you going to read the web or print version?

I will be reading the current version, so I guess the web version.

From what I understand the only difference is that the print version is obviously fixed to a particular past point.

The version of the print book that I have is the 3rd version printed in 2018. But I will be reading from this: https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/title-page.html

[ostap-tymchenko]

Oh really? i though the print version has extra content, we should probably make sure beforehand. @carols10cents do you know? and @phi12ip are you going to be reading out the code blocks or will that be for readers to do by themselves as they follow along?

[carols10cents]

The print version does not have extra content.

[tasnuva1]

Literally reading & scanning through different documentation for free natural text to speech tool. Just for this book. For the 1st time: Listening to audio at 2x speed is so efficient. like scanning through books, and enforce all my attention and focus on "rust by example". In actual practice. Then anyone can read/listen the entire book for the second and third times so that nothing is left out. This type of learning is really helpful for the community especially for the early generation (age 15-22). And this book is literally beginner friendly.

I am really looking forward to this.

All the different repo to such as: https://github.com/suno-ai/bark https://github.com/neonbjb/tortoise-tts https://github.com/coqui-ai/TTS https://github.com/elevenlabs/elevenlabs-python

Can anyone can contribute to this text book by converting into an actual Audiobook. It will be really helpful. Like really.

[TheRealNOIG]

Hey Yall,

I found a Youtuber who did a walkthrough of the book from about 4 years ago. They do add their own commentary and work through some stuff so its not a perfect audio book experience but it is out there for anyone to use: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVhhUNGAUIQScqB26DdUq4n1Y2n3auM7X

[TheRealNOIG]

Hey sorry just to clarify are you going to read the web or print version?

I will be reading the current version, so I guess the web version.

From what I understand the only difference is that the print version is obviously fixed to a particular past point.

The version of the print book that I have is the 3rd version printed in 2018. But I will be reading from this: https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/title-page.html

Any updates on your work? As someone who has severe dyslexia an audio version of books are almost mandatory to be able to get through more than a couple pages a day. All the recommendation for learning Rust always point to reading the book at least once but some people recommend multiple times which is massive barrier for devs with dyslexia to overcome.

[ProHaller]

Looking forward to this. Keep us updated. I’m hesitant to just use openai api to read it aloud but it’s a little budget. Hang in there!

[luckynumberke7in]

Hi, I know this topic has been discussed for quite a while without a whole lot of traction. Personally, I seem to retain information best when listening to the text spoken as I read along. I get far more immersed in the concepts / stories.

Since there isn't any real 1:1 equivalent of this, I'm thinking of recording my own with only the book's information, both visually and audio. Also possibly a narrators note to describe how I will be narrating the code in the chapters. I used to produce audiobooks for a company with an NLS contract for blind and physically handicap and I'd like to retain that accessibility in this project.

I will likely release it 1 section at a time. This will also make it easier for me to potentially update video's for future releases, as well as allow me to get some form of accessible content out earlier.

On this note, though...what do you guys (community and The Rust Foundation) think is the most digestible way to break the actual code down for a visually impaired individual? Would it simply be reading each block of code character by character? Or should I create an appendix explaining how the syntax works, then describing them in each chapter using verbiage like "function foo takes variable bar of type i32 as an argument and returns a variable of type i32" or something to that effect?

I've been considering making this for a while but have been stopped up pondering on this...I just stumbled on this post and figured I'd ask!

[luckynumberke7in]

@carols10cents Sorry, I didn't realize this issue was closed.

I'd really like some opinions on this idea so I can produce the highest quality of audiobook. Do you think it would be best if I open a new issue asking about this, or to utilize the discord server?

[carols10cents]

Reopening, here is fine-- I don't have any opinions though, because I don't listen to code via audio-- you should try to find people who actually use readings of code to get their opinion.

[ostap-tymchenko]

If by visually impaired person you mean someone with partial blindness? In which case I would still think leaving the code blocks to the person would be the right way about it, as they would need to be able to read code to do it themselves. Maybe leaving it on screen in large text could help, during the duration of the page (if it's a video based audiobook)

[phi12ip]

Hello everyone, just wanted to give an update on this. Sorry it has been a while.

I started recording the first 2 chapters but there are so many sections of code that need to be spoken, and many of them do not have explicit labels like "Listing 1-1". I was not able to come up with a good solution to this, so I am calling it on this project.

If you are visual impaired and want to get your feet wet in Rust, I would suggest "The New Rustacean" podcast and some of the video walkthroughs of the book that have been done and shared.