Love the idea! What about something like this but for software? Could be an interesting way to learn a new language/codebase
That’s exactly how I learned to code. Retyping code from Byte magazine, Dr. Dobbs, and Apple Incider.
Show HN: I made a site where you practice typing by retyping entire novels
11–20 of 394 posts
Re: Show HN: I made a site where you practice typing by retyping entire novels
#12The idea is great and the execution if flawless.
Great job and thanks!
Re: Show HN: I made a site where you practice typing by retyping entire novels
#13After recently discovering I type with 5 fingers on the left and with just 1 on my right, this is a great way to improve! Started working on Typing Academy but the randomness of the characters can be off-putting at times.
Example: “jkk asa dfg hjk ;ah”
Re: Show HN: I made a site where you practice typing by retyping entire novels
#14"[Hunter S. Thompson] chose, rather than writing original copy, to re-type books like The Great Gatsby and a lot of Norman Mailer, the Naked and the Dead, a lot of Hemingway. He would sit down there on an old type-writer and type every word of those books and he said, 'I just wanna feel what it feels like to write that we'll.'" HST: "If you type out somebody's work, you learn a lot about it. Amazingly it's like music…
This was explained by HST in one of his letters, which was collected in the excellent three book collection of letters he sent and received to his friends. Including many famous writers.
HST was always great in small rapid outputs of writing, which is captured well in his letters (similar to how his collection of articles are his most popular works, but these deserve a similar look).
He obviously had some sort of ADD and later on combined with a long series of drug/alcohol addictions, so it makes sense he was better in short blurbs. Even his most famous novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas has a feeling of multiple long spurts on a typewriter.
Which is always how he wrote. Always also at the very last minute of the magazine due date and/or because he was running out of money and needed the next advance.
I believe this is common in creative fields. Long periods of meh and spurts of greatness.
Anyway the book series is here, usually called the Gonzo Letters:
https://www.goodreads.com/series/64386-the-fear-and-loathing...
Only the 2nd one has a Wikipedia page for some reason (the 3rd one came out in 2014) but the first one (The Proud Highway: The Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman 1955–1967) as a young writer who is often desperate and broke was most interesting IMO, even though his life or writing wasn’t yet as it would become famous for (but definitely still as wild) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Loathing_in_America
Re: Show HN: I made a site where you practice typing by retyping entire novels
#15Amazing idea, really I'm impressed. This intrigued me at first glance as a fun typing exercise, as I've always struggled with typing - I started using computers way before they started teaching typing around here, so my typing is far from the optimal 10 finger method, but I've always found typing exercises mind numbingly boring.
However, as I started typing The call of Cthulhu, I'm now much more intrigued by this as a new way to read books. It is a very different literary experience from just simply reading. I'm way more attentive to the text itself, rather than just the meaning, if that makes sense. Though it's very possible that this effect is going to go away as I get more used to it.
Any chance of typing out custom uploaded books? Maybe copy pasted plaintext?
Also kudos on the execution, the site is really nicely made.
Re: Show HN: I made a site where you practice typing by retyping entire novels
#16Amazing idea, really I'm impressed. This intrigued me at first glance as a fun typing exercise, as I've always struggled with typing - I started using computers way before they started teaching typing around here, so my typing is far from the optimal 10 finger method, but I've always found typing exercises mind numbingly boring. However, as I started typing The call of Cthulhu, I'm now much more intrigued by this as…
Hey I'm thrilled you're enjoying the site! There are indeed plans to add a feature like that sometime in the future. Thanks!
Re: Show HN: I made a site where you practice typing by retyping entire novels
#17Why is it that I find on certain websites (this one included) that some keystrokes aren't recognised when I use Safari? The letter 'e' not being recognised is common. Chrome works fine. This is on a Mac with Catalina and a British keyboard.
Re: Show HN: I made a site where you practice typing by retyping entire novels
#18I've practiced typing by retyping webnovels. I made it about halfway through Worm.
For context, Worm is about 3 times as long as War and Peace.
Re: Show HN: I made a site where you practice typing by retyping entire novels
#19This is very cool. I did find that I sometimes got confused about where the insertion point was supposed to be, especially when backing up and correcting mistakes. Having the letter ahead of the point highlighted in was inducing a lot of off-by-one errors in my head. I'd prefer a normal insertion-point cursor between characters, with the correctly typed letters bolded and only the errors highlighted.
Besides that, it's pretty good fun!
Re: Show HN: I made a site where you practice typing by retyping entire novels
#20This is great. Can you add a separate category for kids?