---
title: Buy the Case and Return the Pearl
date: '2017-10-25'
slug: bookdown-pearl
---

There is a famous story "[Buy the Case and Return the Pearl](https://books.google.com/books?id=e5DRAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=buy+the+case+and+return+the+pearl&source=bl&ots=afgxi44Sx7&sig=r_hqeKIzIExFj3XKgGEiz3hT1s8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjq4P_tiYvXAhUq8IMKHY3qB4YQ6AEILjAB#v=onepage&q=buy%20the%20case%20and%20return%20the%20pearl&f=false)" (买椟还珠) that all Chinese students must have learned in elementary schools. It came to my mind because I saw [Mareviv's tweet about **bookdown**](https://twitter.com/maureviv/status/922870137614667777):

> It [bookdown] makes you want to write things just to use it.

I was flattered. That was exactly one of my motivations of developing the **bookdown** package. As I mentioned in [the Acknowledgments section](https://bookdown.org/yihui/bookdown/acknowledgments.html) in **bookdown** book, I loved the beautiful Gitbook style, which motivated me to write an R package based on it.

[![买椟还珠](https://db.yihui.org/images/mai-du-huan-zhu.jpg)](http://www.hschinese.com/en/node/2349)

Mareviv's tweet is actually the opposite of the story "Buy the Case and Return the Pearl" and also how I hoped **bookdown** would work: I hope users feel good about the book style first ("buy the (empty) case"), and then start writing a book (produce the "pearl").

I'm looking forward to [more pearls](https://bookdown.org) in the future.
