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Paper is dead, long live paper programming

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Re: Paper is dead, long live paper programming

#11

Post by jccalhoun »

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 am always reminded of the first chapter of Lev Manovich's The Language of New Media where is writes about growing up in the Soviet Union and he took two years of computer programming without ever touching a computer. At the end of the course he got to use a computer once where he put his program into the computer and it doesn't work because he typed Os instead of 0s.

Re: Paper is dead, long live paper programming

#13

Post by tachyoff »

andrewjrangel wrote: post #5
tzahola wrote: post #2

His handwriting is gorgeous!

Except I literally cannot read it

Yeah, he's doing calligraphy (either Spencerian script or Copperplate, maybe?) for coding, which is absolutely not a good hand for it. I mean, I personally take notes in cursive, but they're typically prosaic (e.g. "Fix the VPN", "Ask Steve about those CSS changes", etc).

Re: Paper is dead, long live paper programming

#14

Post by TremendousJudge »

Back in college I used to take all my notes in cursive, mostly to help me pay attention in class (the busywork of trying to make my handwriting as nice as possible helped me keep focus).

The earlier programming courses involve a lot of paper programming, because the finals involved writing programs on paper. So I ended up writing a lot of programs in cursive, and it looked something like this (except much uglier). Although I found it a fun exercise, I don't know how much (if at all) it helped me develop my understanding of programming

Re: Paper is dead, long live paper programming

#15

Post by Cyph0n »

I participated in a few programming competitions in college where paper programming is a must.

There are typically 3 members on each team but only one computer.

Our strategy involved first finding the easiest problem in the set and handing it over to our fastest typer to solve. In parallel, the other 2 members ranked and categorized (graph search, DP, arithmetic, etc.) the remaining problems. We then proceeded to split the problems based on our strengths and difficulty.

Obviously, while the computer was occupied, the rest of the team had to design and type out their solutions on paper. Once a solution is ready, that member gets priority to use the computer.

In my experience, at least in a competitive setting, writing code on paper tends to minimize common mistakes, especially once you get used to it. By the time you type it out, you'll have addressed most of the issues, so the code should (hopefully) compile and run with little modification.

Re: Paper is dead, long live paper programming

#17

Post by tincholio »

tachyoff wrote: post #13
andrewjrangel wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except I literally cannot read it

Yeah, he's doing calligraphy (either Spencerian script or Copperplate, maybe?) for coding, which is absolutely not a good hand for it. I mean, I personally take notes in cursive, but they're typically prosaic (e.g. "Fix the VPN", "Ask Steve about those CSS changes", etc).

It's some Spencerian variation, indeed. I can't fathom why he uses that paper format... Those pages are annoyingly narrow!

Also, I agree with you, Spencerian (or any other ornate script) is not the best for coding notes.

Re: Paper is dead, long live paper programming

#18

Post by Zanni »

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…

My first programming class was in high school in 1980. The teacher, Mr. Schultz, invented a pared-down, abstract assembly language he called SIMPLE (Schultz's Imaginary Machine Programming Language for Everyone). We spent the first month of class writing out solutions to programming problems in SIMPLE on paper before we ever touched a computer. And even then, we only had the one machine, so we had to take turns on it. We coded our BASIC programs on paper and checked them as thoroughly as we could to maximize the effectiveness of our precious time with the actual hardware.

Re: Paper is dead, long live paper programming

#19

Post by dirtbox »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #14

Back in college I used to take all my notes in cursive, mostly to help me pay attention in class (the busywork of trying to make my handwriting as nice as possible helped me keep focus). The earlier programming courses involve a lot of paper programming, because the finals involved writing programs on paper. So I ended up writing a lot of programs in cursive, and it looked something like this (except much uglier). Al…

I wish I'd thought of that, now I have bad handwriting and a plethora of D's.
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