Or not. Maybe you'd get "infinite scroll". Or some other modern webdev bullshit that's strictly inferior to PDF (or plain HTML) and CTRL+F.
I'm actually surprised by the anti-PDF sentiment here (in general case, not necessarily this book). Modern web is so bad, that almost every day I end up on some page that would be strictly better if it were a PDF. So, to play devil's advocate, PDFs are cool because:
- The links may rot, but they remain, and so does surrounding content. Once you get a PDF, no one can take it away from you.
- It's self-contained. It can easily be transferred between devices and read without an Internet connection.
- It's a file. Yes, it's important to mention because in 2024, files cannot be taken for granted.
- Rich format without spurious dynamics and other web nonsense. Sure, PDFs technically can run arbitrary JavaScript, but hardly any reader supports that.
- Can't track you or spy on you (theoretically it could, in practice, see previous point).
I could come up with a few more. Point being, you could do worse, and modern web quite often is worse.
As for what could be an even better format, my mind is drawn towards CHM[0]. You know, like the help files in old Windows software. A self-contained file built of interlinked HTML pages, complete with index and internal search/xref. Kind of a better EPUB[1].
(Ironically, marketers should actually love PDF - total control over presentation is exactly what they've been trying to gain on the web all these years.)
- It's self-contained. It can easily be transferred between devices and read without an Internet connection.
- It's a file. Yes, it's important to mention because in 2024, files cannot be taken for granted.
(Btw it’s a sad state of affairs that we can less and less own our files)
But I do think in the post here, the issue is that the PDF in itself is pretty useless : it doesn’t contain any information and only links to … websites.
(Btw I wouldn’t criticize this a lot because I’m admirative of the indexation work, it’s pretty cool !)
I expect that whatever was used to create the PDF could be configured to produce a website...