Chapter template

[becarpenter]

Markdown makes things easy, but I still thought it was worth making rough templates for a generic chapter and section. They are at https://github.com/becarpenter/book6/tree/main/99.%20Chapter%20Template . My main learning from this exercise is those %20s, which are annoying but necessary.

So, there's now some material in Chapters 1, 2 and 8. But now it's your turn. Please review the list of contents and pick your target.

[becarpenter]

Working on the chapter template made me think about another issue: how can we ensure that the list of contents and the actual contents are in step, with various links between them (which are tricky to do by hand)?
Being a programmer at heart, the answer was obvious. So I am working on a Python program that will reconcile Contents.md with the actual chapter folders and their contents, including automatically creating any missing folders and blank files. It will also set up links between sections (previous/next etc.). This will be a spare time project and I will test each step on a private copy of the repo. But when it's done, it should make it much easier for people to write individual sections and even have them appear in the table of contents without manual editing.

[becarpenter]

There is now a workable version of makeBook.py in the utilities directory to do this job.