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As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a notebook

hamatti.org

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Re: As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a notebook

#101

Post by AnimalMuppet »

js4ever wrote: post #5

Calling a notebook the “most important tool” for a dev is pure romanticism. Useful for some, sure, but let's not pretend it outweighs a debugger, version control, or CI. This isn't craftsmanship cosplay, it's software engineering.

All right, let me put it this way: As a developer, my most important tool is my brain. The time I spend figuring out what to build and how to build it is more important than just banging out some code.

For at least some people, stepping away from the keyboard may be the best way to do that thinking.

To put it in your own style: This isn't typing class, it's software engineering.

Re: As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a notebook

#103

Post by Hamatti »

js4ever wrote: post #5

Calling a notebook the “most important tool” for a dev is pure romanticism. Useful for some, sure, but let's not pretend it outweighs a debugger, version control, or CI. This isn't craftsmanship cosplay, it's software engineering.

OP here. Last time my blog caught attention in HN, I was told I'm "living in a fantasy" and this time it's "pure romanticism".

The tools you shared are of course important and I enjoy having them a lot. Wouldn't want to work as a developer without version control or debuggers, for sure. Those are tools that if I lost them, it surely would slow me down and be annoying.

I do truly consider notebook more important to me than those. Writing and running code is the tool to get things done but software development to me is more importantly building something valuable that solves problems or makes life easier. And to that, code is often somewhat trivial implementation detail — it's much more important to figure out what to build and how.

Some people are good at thinking when they are in a code editor or other digital tools. My brain goes into detail implementation mode and it's hard for me to see the big picture when I'm writing in code editor and building functionality.

For me, it's crucial part of my job to take my notebook and use it as a tool for thinking before (and during!) coding. While losing access to the other tools would definitely slow me down, not being able to think through writing with pen and paper would cripple my thinking, my problem solving ability, my creativity and thus cause me writing bad software.

Re: As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a notebook

#104

Post by Hamatti »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #2

I don't understand the pen/physical notebook thing. It's slow to write, insanely slow to search what you've written, almost impossible to copy or share.

OP here.

> It's slow to write

Only to an extent. I write fast enough with pen and paper that my thinking is the bottleneck — which isn't really that fast. I don't need to write down everything I think so it also acts as a filter and processor of those thoughts.

> insanely slow to search what you've written

Compared to digital notes system, sure. But the way I use my notes, I don't usually need a full-text search to find stuff. I remember what I've been working on, I often browse through my notebooks to revisit ideas and most often these notebook notes are kind of a "working copy" where the search relevance is often just for the feature so it only needs to be fast to search for a few days or weeks.

I also do copy many of my notes down in digital format too when there's something worth capturing for long term storage for the sake of searching for example.

> almost impossible to copy or share

100%. Sharing is not a consideration for me, these are my raw pure thoughts and explorations, they don't often make much sense to other people as-is. Sometimes I may take a photo of a UI sketch or something to share if needed but otherwise when I have something to share, I write it based on my notes rather than sharing my notes as they are.

Re: As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a notebook

#105

Post by aragilar »

js4ever wrote: post #5

Calling a notebook the “most important tool” for a dev is pure romanticism. Useful for some, sure, but let's not pretend it outweighs a debugger, version control, or CI. This isn't craftsmanship cosplay, it's software engineering.

What about an issue tracker? Or requirements? Design and planning? A debugger doesn't help you design, version control doesn't tell you what you still need to do, and CI doesn't tell you you've implemented the requirements (or even that the requirements you think you have are the actual requirements).

Re: As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a notebook

#106

Post by aragilar »

guappa wrote: post #61
WalterBright wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to get the most out of a physics lecture, leave the laptop at home. Instead, bring a spiral notebook and some colored pens. Write everything down the prof writes on the blackboard. It's remarkable how much of the lecture you'll remember. And when you read your handwritten notes, you'll remember the lecture that went with it.

Yeah good luck writing with coloured pens at the speed teachers speak.

Why are you focusing on what they are saying, rather than what they are writing (there's an important distinction)?

Re: As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a notebook

#107

Post by Hamatti »

MrGilbert wrote: post #38
gofreddygo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny. I was tolling the virtues of my spiral notebook which is always on my desk to a coworker, whom I was trying to get out of some trouble and i got... silence. That notebook is the difference between said coworker and I. She didn't get it. That notebook is the fastest most accessible tool to capture my thoughts. I can state concisely what was discussed in a team meeting last october before any notetaking tool boo…

I think an analog note taking device (woah!) requires more discipline than a digital one. In the digital world, you can always re-arrange your chaos at almost no cost, whereas you are screwed in the analog world. I'm curious: How do you organize your notes? If you mind to share.

I do almost no organising of my paper notes. The only thing I do is that I add a date to the corner of the first page of when I start making a specific note and I keep index pages where I list page/note titles (or topics, themes, not everything have a title) and a page number.

I often browse my notes even when I'm not looking for anything. I read what I've been thinking previously because that often sparks new ideas and thoughts.

One thing where I find pen and paper superior to digital is that it's easy to write in the margins, draw arrows and annotate. When I got my first iPad and tested out digital notebook tools (with stylus), I was excited about the idea that I can resize and move my existing drawings around.

Then it took me a few days to notice that I don't really ever need that. I don't need my "finished" notes to look tidy or good. I got over the need to have organised and structured notebooks and embraced the chaos.

I guess it's different things for different people. For me, the flexibility of paper is superior to any digital solution because it has the shortest "input lag" or "feedback loop" to my brain. I'm happy to sacrifice other potential benefits for that.

Re: As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a notebook

#108

Post by Hamatti »

kennu wrote: post #67

I understand the sentiment, but I don't get how you could draw more complex software plans by hand. I usually use Draw.io/Diagrams.net, and the drawings get pretty large and need reorganizing dozens of boxes several times while planning the architecture. OTOH if the plan is very simple and obvious, and can be drawn out in one go, it doesn't really need a diagram in the first place, so I skip spending time drawing the…

OP here.

I don't often do very complex software plans like that. My working notes are often on a smaller scale like individual features or so. If we need to document the full architecture for the project, I'm happy to do that with digital tools.

But while I'm planning parts of it or designing it, I do better with pen and paper. My main issue with many of the digital tools I've tried comes down to the added friction if I need to switch to a different tool in the app when I switch between circles and rectangles and text and the fact that I find free-hand drawing with mouse really difficult.

> OTOH if the plan is very simple and obvious, and can be drawn out in one go, it doesn't really need a diagram in the first place, so I skip spending time drawing the obvious stuff.

I think there's a middle ground where it might be easy to draw on one go but deciding what to draw and how things work together and what's needed requires iterations and for that, thinking through drawing and writing helps me a ton.

Re: As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a notebook

#109

Post by Hamatti »

kstenerud wrote: post #83

Most comments are focusing on the physical pen and paper aspect of this post, but are missing the underlying principle: The author uses pen and paper because when they sit down at a computer they end up shifting to "function mode" where they're implementing rather than designing. That's it. The important takeaway is to make sure you don't fall into the trap of implementing when you should be designing. How you mainta…

OP here.

Exactly! So happy to read you managed to pick up the core gist of the story.

It's important to find the tools that work best for YOU.

I partially wanted to write this because I've often felt as an outsider in tech teams where everyone sits at a computer 7.5 hours every day and I'm the one thinking better when I'm away from the screen and keyboard. So I wanted to offer an example to those who are like me and also feel like they might not belong.

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