As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a notebook • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by r053bud » Wed, May 28, 2025, 2:21 PM UTC

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.

I’ve definitely fixed more bugs with pen/paper than a debugger.

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

#122

Post by dwringer » Wed, May 28, 2025, 2:21 PM UTC

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.

This feels like saying "when building a house, obviously a hammer is more important than the blueprints. This isn't art class, it's construction"

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

#123

Post by uludag » Wed, May 28, 2025, 2:22 PM UTC

I must say, without hesitation and doubt, that Claud 4 is my most important tool. I literally feel like I have the intelligence of the entire human race at my fingertips, giddily awaiting a caress from the tips of my fingertips. I honestly could not imagine my developer life without the twain of Opus and Sonnet.

Not my opinion of course, I just thought I'd include it as I found it surprisingly missing from the comments.

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

#124

Post by FigurativeVoid » Wed, May 28, 2025, 2:24 PM UTC

One of the few things that I miss about working in an office is a large whiteboard and standing in front of it with a colleague.

Working on an architecture with a peer and marker really led to some elegant class designs.

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

#125

Post by paganel » Wed, May 28, 2025, 2:26 PM UTC

r053bud wrote: post #121

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.

I’ve definitely fixed more bugs with pen/paper than a debugger.

That and taking a shower, doing dishes or taking a walk around the block, in fact I'd say that the ratio of bugs/issues I've solved while away from the computer compared to being in front of the computer is quite high (in favour of the "away from the computer"-fixes, that is).

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

#126

Post by submeta » Wed, May 28, 2025, 2:27 PM UTC

Why a superlative? For me it’s lots of things: My notebook, my editor, my terminal, my ide, my ipad, and so much more. So why „the“ most important? :)

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

#127

Post by paganel » Wed, May 28, 2025, 2:29 PM UTC

stackedinserter wrote: post #120

zwnow wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a few years of my career now I never had to use a debugger or CI. Console debugging is good enough usually. On version control I agree.

It means that you don't write anything complex.

Which is most probably the majority of us, computer programmers.

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

#128

Post by infermore » Wed, May 28, 2025, 2:31 PM UTC

submeta wrote: post #126

Why a superlative? For me it’s lots of things: My notebook, my editor, my terminal, my ide, my ipad, and so much more. So why „the“ most important? :)

read the article?

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

#129

Post by hk1337 » Wed, May 28, 2025, 2:35 PM UTC

One more person confirming pen(cil) to paper helps make the connection.

I go through several different notebooks, none of which I keep what is in it because it wouldn't make sense to me now but writing it out helped for it to make sense to me then.

It's like those tv episodes with the kid making a cheat sheet on his shoe then never needs it because he remembered everything.

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

#130

Post by kennu » Wed, May 28, 2025, 2:36 PM UTC

Hamatti wrote: post #108

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 i…

I guess there's many cases where you don't really know how complicated or simple the solution will end up to be, and start drawing it while thinking about it.. I must admit that those are usually the most interesting parts of the work.