Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Write thin to write fast

breckyunits.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 146 posts

Re: Write thin to write fast

#31

Post by rahimnathwani »

Isthatablackgsd wrote: post #11
rahimnathwani wrote: post #10

Does anyone know of a PDF reader than will show three pages side by side? And allow the right arrow to flip forward by one page on each press?

I believe SumatraPDF could do this.

Thanks :)

I don't use Windows, but your comment led me to look at this GitHub issue discussing this feature in SumatraPDF: https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/issues/246#is...

Someone there mentioned that Firefox supports this. I just tried it (it's called 'Wrapped Scrolling') and it works well. I can't see how to advance by a single page at a time, but that's minor thing.

Re: Write thin to write fast

#32

Post by joncp »

On a related note: At one point I switched to working exclusively on a laptop and after a while realized that the smaller screen had forced me to write better code. I wrote smaller methods, made smaller files, kept my concepts together, the whole nine yards. I even wrote better tests since that helped me keep my work small.

It didn't last; I'm writing this on a 27" monitor, but I think that has more to do with bad laptop ergonomics than space.

Re: Write thin to write fast

#34

Post by k__ »

I could imagine this trick helps.

In my experience, when I try to convert a text into tweets, it gets more concise.

I'm often baffled how much I can condense information down to 280 characters.

Re: Write thin to write fast

#35

Post by darkerside »

liquid_bluing wrote: post #26

This seems to be kind of a complex topic, with a number of variables. Here is a study: How physical text layout affects reading from screen https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220208446_How_physi... A quote from the Discussion section: "Most of the studies on line length report faster reading with longer lines, and point to the number of characters as the variable responsible for the differences, rather than phy…

It's helpful to link the research here. Thanks.

I do wonder if scanning is different from sequential reading. When reading code, I'm most often looking for the right place to change or add something.

Re: Write thin to write fast

#36

Post by ivansavz »

vlmutolo wrote: post #16
ivansavz wrote: post #14

Does anyone know how to get the narrow column at the center of the screen in full screen mode pictured in the article using vim settings? see https://breckyunits.com/writeThin.png I tried :set textwidth= , but that gives left aligned so not quite the same...

Probably Goyo. It's a vim plugin.

Thx for the tip. I managed to get it working.

Here are the additions to ~/.vimrc in case anyone is interested (this after installing vim-plug https://github.com/junegunn/vim-plug#unix and running :PlugInstall as per goyo instructions:

   set wrap linebreak nolist
   
   call plug#begin('~/.vim/plugged')
   Plug 'junegunn/goyo.vim'
   call plug#end()
   
   "Goyo settings
   let g:goyo_width = 60
   let g:goyo_height = 999
   let g:goyo_margin_top = 0
   let g:goyo_margin_bottom = 0

Re: Write thin to write fast

#38

Post by asimjalis »

609venezia wrote: post #30

Cool take. I just checked, and it looks like Ulysses has a default width of 64 characters. Swapped it to 50. Let's see what happens.

Blog author suggests 36 characters. I have done 50 before but am now tempted to try 36.

Edit 1: I did some quick experimentation with columns that were 36, 40, and 50 wide. There is something magical about 36. With 50 my eye movements were conscious. With 36 it was as if I was able to read the whole column in peripheral vision. Much more immersive. I wonder now about narrower fonts, if they could produce the same effect.

Re: Write thin to write fast

#39

Post by 0des »

valbaca wrote: post #23

Thinner columns allow for more of a "Z" pattern of reading, where you can kind of scan-read backwards when your eye scans back to the left, as opposed to the standard "E" style of reading of reading an entire line, returning to the left, then moving to the next and repeating. Writing in thin columns allows you to keep an eye on what you just wrote more easily as well.

This loosely reminds me of the way the pages of Cornell Notes are structured. I wonder if it has anything to do with that.

Re: Write thin to write fast

#40

Post by 0des »

jeffwass wrote: post #20

I also find paragraph length affects my reading speed and focus. When a paragraph is too long I tend to skim past it, even though the same paragraph split into a few smaller paragraphs would have the same word count.

Here's a tip, read the first line of each paragraph you skip. A properly structured paragraph contains a 'thesis statement' in the first sentence most often. From there you know whether you want to complete the paragraph or not because what follows are usually supporting statements.
Post reply on HN