How I Write Code: Pen and Paper • Hacker News Board

Re: How I Write Code: Pen and Paper

#51

Post by rramadass » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 5:51 AM UTC

chriszhang wrote: post #49

rramadass wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pshh ... Don't use Pens! Use Mechanical Pencils. No leaking/drying/wastage and you always get to marvel at the ingenuity that goes into making some of these gadgets. Plus it gives you an excuse to indulge in another collection mania :-)

I tried pencils but I find text written pencils to be too faint. I find it uncomfortable to read. But pen writes text in bright blue color which is more pleasing to read.

You have to read up on "Lead Grades" used in Pencils; use 2B or 4B (or higher) to get dark, clear and smooth writing. Another factor to choose is the "Lead Diameter"; use 0.7mm(ballpoint fine)/0.9mm(ballpoint medium) for thicker lines.

See https://www.jetpens.com/blog/The-Best-Lead-Grade-For-Every-A... https://www.jetpens.com/blog/Mechanical-Pencil-Lead-Size-Com... and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73gZFjIAHtw

Re: How I Write Code: Pen and Paper

#52

Post by bryanrasmussen » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 6:26 AM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #43

nkozyra wrote: post #31

This may seem pedantic, but this is an aspect of project management. The pen and paper aren't in the coding, they're in the design. You may be doing some abstractions/pseudo code on paper but you're not coding. You're planning. There's nothing wrong with this! I think it's a great way to operate. But it's less sexy to say "How I Plan: Pen and Paper" then to conflate it with coding. Everyone does planning. Some people…

As someone who's worked a fair bit now - coding has absolutely no value to any company. What delivers results is deploying solutions - whether those solutions are powered by hotpockets and red bull at 3AM or whether they are entirely composed of meetings discussing how to inform customers of the change - it is never "coding" that solves a problem. "Coding" is at most the effort of transcribing a solution from your br…

if what you say is correct in all cases then why do we not just call coding 'typing'?

Re: How I Write Code: Pen and Paper

#53

Post by HanaShiratori » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 6:29 AM UTC

I did the same 20 years ago when I was a middle schooler running my websites and wanting to add features while on holidays with my family without access to any computer.

It helped me to think about the conceptual side, but other than that I'd never do it again. I like to seperate planning and coding nowadays. Writing code on paper doesn't solve any problem for me, but I respect it if it does for OP or other people!

Re: How I Write Code: Pen and Paper

#54

Post by Abishek_Muthian » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 6:35 AM UTC

eric4smith wrote: post #21

Heh... Growing up in Jamaica in the 80's, my brother and I wrote code on paper this way, before we got a computer. We bought the books, wrote the BASIC code and rewrote it many times until we thought it was good. Once the computer came though, all that went out the window. But to this day, my desk is covered in notebooks that help me visualize problems before writing any code. I sketch out UI. Design database schemas…

You remind me of the brothers I know from my village in India, They are much older than me and their room were filled with CSE books, notes and computer came late.

One of them graduated from IISC, Top rank holder in all-India entrance test for it, is at top position in a leading SW company abroad and another runs a SW company in our city with about ~ 100 employees for 25 years (he's content with the scale); Many of his ex. employees are at top positions in FAANG.

I guess the story would be same for many from GenX who have made themselves a great career in IT but couldn't afford a computer when they were studying.

Re: How I Write Code: Pen and Paper

#55

Post by girishso » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 6:56 AM UTC

This reminded me of the very first _big program_ I wrote in C. My cousin showed me steps to solve a magic square [0] and asked me to write the program.

I did not have a computer at the time. So I wrote actual program on paper, ran it, debugged it mentally. When I was satisfied, next day I went to my father's office which had a computer luckily with C compiler. I typed the whole program from the paper and ran it. There was no compiler errors or anything, but it didn't print anything on screen, absolutely nothing. I was surprised because I knew it can't fail. After spending hours of checking program and reading books (internet was still a long away), I realized I had put semicolons after every single statement including `if`s and `for`s conditions, essentially short circuiting everything. Once I got rid of those extra semicolons, it ran perfectly. What a nostalgia!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_square

Re: How I Write Code: Pen and Paper

#56

Post by Jaruzel » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 7:02 AM UTC

In my first 'real' job when I was 18, I was hired as a programmer to work on an accountancy package for DOS. It was quite radical at the time - the concept was to present double entry bookkeeping on the screen in the same layout as it would be in a paper book. A bit like Lotus 1-2-3 but with all the accountancy stuff already built in.

Anyway, the firm I was working at only had 2 proper DOS machines, and one of those was reserved for the boss, but there were up to 3 programmers working on the software.

If the DOS machine was in-use (which was most of the time) I had to spend the day 'writing' my code on another machine (an ACT Apricot PC). This machine, although it booted into DOS, was NOT IBM compatible, so the IDE software wouldn't run. All I had was the provided Word Processor app, so I wrote in that, sometimes for days, hoping that what I was typing was working code.

I'd only know if I'd written working code once I'd transferred it via floppy disk and compiled it on the real DOS machine every few days.

Not quite the same as coding on paper, but this thread reminded me of this part of my career.

Re: How I Write Code: Pen and Paper

#57

Post by noir_lord » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 7:03 AM UTC

I'm a hybrid, I have piles of 5mm pads/pens but I use them as a local memory store more than a pure design tool.

I also have an ipad/pencil with the excellent notability app (excellent because it gives me an infinite grid page) for jotting notes/things I need to follow up on.

I tried keeping that stuff in a text file but there is something about writing it down on the ipad that means I rarely have to actually look it up, it sticks in my memory better and if I do forget what I had to do I rarely forget that I had something to do and can just look it up when we need to.

Re: How I Write Code: Pen and Paper

#58

Post by aargh_aargh » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 7:10 AM UTC

Archived link: https://web.archive.org/web/20210902102730/https://noteflake...

Re: How I Write Code: Pen and Paper

#59

Post by kragen » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 7:13 AM UTC

nkozyra wrote: post #31

This may seem pedantic, but this is an aspect of project management. The pen and paper aren't in the coding, they're in the design. You may be doing some abstractions/pseudo code on paper but you're not coding. You're planning. There's nothing wrong with this! I think it's a great way to operate. But it's less sexy to say "How I Plan: Pen and Paper" then to conflate it with coding. Everyone does planning. Some people…

Your comment is directly contradicted by the article, which has scraps of syntactically valid Ruby code in it, like

    Arguments.to_opts(
        ['-c', '--compatible'] => :compatibility,
        ['-t', '--threads', Integer] => :threads
    )

Then it goes on to explain that the author wrote out a Ruby/C module in her notebook before she "created a new Github repository, typed in the code, added some tests and wrote the README."

Since it's against the rules to question whether you've read the article, but people on here call each other liars all the time, I am forced to ask you why you are lying about what the article says.

Why are you lying about what the article says?

Re: How I Write Code: Pen and Paper

#60

Post by heurisko » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 7:15 AM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #43

nkozyra wrote: post #31

This may seem pedantic, but this is an aspect of project management. The pen and paper aren't in the coding, they're in the design. You may be doing some abstractions/pseudo code on paper but you're not coding. You're planning. There's nothing wrong with this! I think it's a great way to operate. But it's less sexy to say "How I Plan: Pen and Paper" then to conflate it with coding. Everyone does planning. Some people…

As someone who's worked a fair bit now - coding has absolutely no value to any company. What delivers results is deploying solutions - whether those solutions are powered by hotpockets and red bull at 3AM or whether they are entirely composed of meetings discussing how to inform customers of the change - it is never "coding" that solves a problem. "Coding" is at most the effort of transcribing a solution from your br…

> As someone who's worked a fair bit now - coding has absolutely no value to any company. What delivers results is deploying solutions...

I don't see how some solutions not requiring code means that coding is not valuable, as some solutions evidently do require code.

When the solution requires code, the code is the solution, whether it's written in pseudo code or a language. I don't think there is a line separating the two. Just like language is thought.

Your "deploying solutions" could be replaced with "deploying code" (whether created in house or third party).

If your solution depends on code, then the quality of that code will also be important, which will include aesthetics, design, readability, tests.

In the long run, this is valuable, as you can't regularly and reliably ship the solution, unless you're confident it still works.