I feel dumb(er) when typing, and smart(er) when writing • Hacker News Board

Re: I feel dumb(er) when typing, and smart(er) when writing

#41

Post by Syzygies » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 6:16 PM UTC

Back in the day, a shopkeeper in Japan might realize that they'd forgotten to pull out their abacus, that they'd been playing this musical instrument in their head to do calculations all morning.

One guides a slide rule to roughly the right position based on intuition, then homes in on the answer.

Calculators make people dumber.

I'm torn between doing all my math on 40 lb laser paper with an assortment of Staedtler Pigment Liners, or on my iPad Pro using the architectural drawing program Concepts. Either way, I'm drawing. A digital interface is like a bird taking flight when one becomes algorithmically involved.

Re: I feel dumb(er) when typing, and smart(er) when writing

#42

Post by Arubis » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

I honest-to-goodness will frequently print out code to review or revise on paper. Being able to mark it up with pen freehand doesn’t let me do anything I couldn’t in a good editor, but it works better in my head.

Re: I feel dumb(er) when typing, and smart(er) when writing

#43

Post by Tarsul » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 6:53 PM UTC

I just read an interview in the guardian with author George Saunders that has 7 tips for writing (and reviewing what is written). One fits here especially: " Print - Revision is “not meaningful unless I print,” he says. “There’s a visual difference in reading on the page versus the computer. I don’t trust it unless I’m reading a hard copy.”" So, basically if an award winning writer thinks like you do, there's nothing wrong with it :) (btw. his other tips are great too) actually, there are studies about this that agree (e.g. better retention when reading paper than when reading on screen) but I don't have them saved.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/08/always-wanted-...

Re: I feel dumb(er) when typing, and smart(er) when writing

#44

Post by usrbin » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 7:10 PM UTC

Tarsul wrote: post #43

I just read an interview in the guardian with author George Saunders that has 7 tips for writing (and reviewing what is written). One fits here especially: " Print - Revision is “not meaningful unless I print,” he says. “There’s a visual difference in reading on the page versus the computer. I don’t trust it unless I’m reading a hard copy.”" So, basically if an award winning writer thinks like you do, there's nothing…

Anecdotally I notice the same. I'm curious about whether it's the look of print vs. a screen, or the physical form of the text being a physical object vs. stored on a device. Do we get a similar effect from using e-ink devices?

Re: I feel dumb(er) when typing, and smart(er) when writing

#45

Post by karmakaze » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 7:32 PM UTC

In a similar vein, I've noticed that I'm significantly dumber when I use a laptop with the touchpad vs using the same laptop with a mouse. I mostly grew up learning to write software with a mouse and later in life consume media using touchscreen phones/tablets. Now I know how to get in the 'work' mode. [Also noticed that comfy trackpants are worse for thinking than jeans or other office pants.]

Re: I feel dumb(er) when typing, and smart(er) when writing

#46

Post by karmakaze » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 7:36 PM UTC

pdpi wrote: post #13

It's useful to understand the difference between problem space and solution space. Writing code (in most languages) is all about writing in solution space, and sucks at talking about problem space. I find that most people tend to jump into their editor way too quickly and start writing the solution before they've thoroughly analyzed the problem. When I jump from editor to pen and paper it usually means that I'm havin…

I've noticed the same when I write design notes in a Github issue vs a Google Doc. The latter results in a longer document with less technical focus => lower quality, more suitable for a less-technical audience. Even knowing this, my writing style and content drifts in those directions for each medium.

Re: I feel dumb(er) when typing, and smart(er) when writing

#47

Post by sammycaution » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 7:51 PM UTC

Alan Kennington wrote about the "asterisk method" to learning mathematics [0]. There is a line that I'm thinking about in particular when you mention the utility of paper and pencil over reading on screen (or solving problems in general): "Copying material by hand is important because this forces the ideas to go through the mind. The mind is on the path between the eyes and the hands. So when you copy something, it must go through your mind!"

Maybe there is something about owning a problem that is more personal when writing it down and working it out by hand versus reading it on a screen.

[0] http://www.geometry.org/tex/conc/mathlearn.html

Re: I feel dumb(er) when typing, and smart(er) when writing

#48

Post by mare5x » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 8:12 PM UTC

Same here. The best time to debug code is before writing it.

Re: I feel dumb(er) when typing, and smart(er) when writing

#49

Post by medstrom » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 8:26 PM UTC

lambdaba wrote: post #21

dgan wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are right to generalise it to "context switch". Countless times I deleted my yet-to-be-posted, detailed Stackoverflow question, when after typing (ha!) it, i would realize my mistake. I never tried duck - debugging, maybe should give it a go too

It's kind of surprising that the makers of Copilot or others haven't come up with something like an automated, "smart" rubber duck.

A "smart" rubber duck would probably suck, because it won't ask the right questions, but I expect it's going to be a common IDE feature down the line. It'll help for some classes of problems.

Re: I feel dumb(er) when typing, and smart(er) when writing

#50

Post by pedrovhb » Sun, Jan 09, 2022, 8:33 PM UTC

Recently I started writing out all my ideas and designs of personal coding projects in a notebook of graph paper. It's pretty incredible how I can see and think about high level things (like general architecture) much more easily than if I'm in front of a screen staring at code or a project template. The cycle of thinking, building it out until you reach the next tier of work, and then stopping to think again is a lot more efficient in the long term than continuously solving the next problem without having a concrete target direction.

One of these days I'll start seriously building my Graph Paper Markup Language processor, which will use scanned notebook pages with special symbols recognized by OCR to automatically tag and add dates to my notes. It's all sketched out already.