Paper is dead, long live paper programming

When I was growing up I couldn't afford a computer so I would write Basic on paper and save it for when I could get to school or somewhere else with a machine, then type it in. I definitely feel it made me a stronger developer as I had to "think like the machine" a bit more than when receiving immediate feedback while composing a program. The programs I was writing were insanely simple but I feel it was still a good exercise.

My handwriting was nowhere near this nice though :)

Re: Paper is dead, long live paper programming

#5

Post by andrewjrangel » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 5:42 PM UTC

tzahola wrote: post #2

His handwriting is gorgeous!

Except I literally cannot read it

Re: Paper is dead, long live paper programming

#6

Post by throwaway7645 » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 5:46 PM UTC

I submitted this recently and added some links to the author's previous posts if it helps anyone. Seriously cool:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16455455

I like how this posts shows the strength of APL like notation.

Re: Paper is dead, long live paper programming

#7

Post by genjipress » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 5:47 PM UTC

This reminds me of http://www.multicians.org/andre.html

Re: Paper is dead, long live paper programming

#8

Post by coldcode » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 5:47 PM UTC

In my first job in 1981 the first few weeks we had 7 people sharing a single terminal. We had to write code on paper until it we got an hour or so to use it. This lasted two week before they got a couple more. You still had to sit at your desk with paper for 2-3 hours a day. I have less than zero percent desire to write code on paper again. It's hard for people not from back then to imagine a time when most desks did not have access to any computer system. I think of this today as the Desk Operating System. Thankfully that only lasted a couple years and I moved on to PCs.

Re: Paper is dead, long live paper programming

#9

Post by shrimp_emoji » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 5:48 PM UTC

andrewjrangel wrote: post #5

tzahola wrote: post #2

His handwriting is gorgeous!

Except I literally cannot read it

Same here. :c It's a dead language.

Re: Paper is dead, long live paper programming

#10

Post by leggomylibro » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 5:51 PM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #4

When I was growing up I couldn't afford a computer so I would write Basic on paper and save it for when I could get to school or somewhere else with a machine, then type it in. I definitely feel it made me a stronger developer as I had to "think like the machine" a bit more than when receiving immediate feedback while composing a program. The programs I was writing were insanely simple but I feel it was still a good…

I really like finite state machines, for sketching out a basic program flow.

Nothing as complicated as big formal UML diagram, but IMO a quick sketch of a program as a 'grid' is a nice way to visualize and quickly iterate on logic flows.