Sinclair ZX Spectrum+ from my childhood too <3<3<3
Still have one in my room. Maybe it could work if I had all some cassettes with games or software :)
Tell HN: I'm a programmer who bought a typewriter
51–58 of 58 posts
Re: Tell HN: I'm a programmer who bought a typewriter
#52A bit out of context, but GPT can now run on typewriters:
https://arvindsanjeev.com/ghostwriter.html
Re: Tell HN: I'm a programmer who bought a typewriter
#53A bit out of context, but GPT can now run on typewriters: https://arvindsanjeev.com/ghostwriter.html
You know what the thing is? I'm working with AI, I have developed some features with AI, I love it in some areas. But I think that human creativity will still be the main driving force and more and more people will appreciate when someone use their creativity, that means they think. THINK. We are slowly forgetting to think every now and then, and the reason is that phones, tv and internet are controlling what we should think, and I think that it should be the other way around. For me, good practice is to use AI as a brainstorm machine, when you get stuck, you can write some prompt and maybe out of it get some ideas. Or you can talk to other people, but everyone today is too busy. "Too busy". So you are left with yourself, which means you have to think this way or another.
Re: Tell HN: I'm a programmer who bought a typewriter
#54A bit out of context, but GPT can now run on typewriters: https://arvindsanjeev.com/ghostwriter.html
You know what the thing is? I'm working with AI, I have developed some features with AI, I love it in some areas. But I think that human creativity will still be the main driving force and more and more people will appreciate when someone use their creativity, that means they think. THINK. We are slowly forgetting to think every now and then, and the reason is that phones, tv and internet are controlling what we shou…
I totally agree with you Sasha!
I posted it as a joke/sarcasm to show that even people have tried running AI on a typewriter!
Re: Tell HN: I'm a programmer who bought a typewriter
#55Really nice post. In my final SW engineering job, I bought a ton of drafting supplies and artist paper and forced myself to architect my algorithms. It forced me to slow down and I fell much closer to my objective. I’m going to try your idea.
The Djikstra way.
Re: Tell HN: I'm a programmer who bought a typewriter
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ditto for the fountain pen. For the past few months I've been trying to switch off the computer as much as possible and do as much writing as I can by hand. I can concentrate a lot better and I enjoy the physicality of handling a good pen and actual paper.
If you want to try something wild: take a side project and do your programming on paper. Type the code in and run it if you must. But go back and write in pen and ink. It sounds weird. Programming languages have a lot of funky syntax. You’ll find the impulse to either find short-hand or else you will start structuring the program such that you can keep (parts of) it in your head.
Lisp dialects are usually nice enough to write on paper. Because whitespace between list elements is never important in classic Lisp, you can break lines wherever it makes most sense visually to do so. Plus, the referential transparency means that you can write on loose sheets without any specific order (although many Lisp compilers do read top-to-bottom in practice).
Re: Tell HN: I'm a programmer who bought a typewriter
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you want to try something wild: take a side project and do your programming on paper. Type the code in and run it if you must. But go back and write in pen and ink. It sounds weird. Programming languages have a lot of funky syntax. You’ll find the impulse to either find short-hand or else you will start structuring the program such that you can keep (parts of) it in your head.
Lisp dialects are usually nice enough to write on paper. Because whitespace between list elements is never important in classic Lisp, you can break lines wherever it makes most sense visually to do so. Plus, the referential transparency means that you can write on loose sheets without any specific order (although many Lisp compilers do read top-to-bottom in practice).
ML and Haskell-like languages are also good, although you can usually forget writing the terms and just construct everything in types.
Re: Tell HN: I'm a programmer who bought a typewriter
#58Why not just pen and paper? ReMarkable is also a good option for epaper.
I do it from time to time. Usually just some short notes, but it's not the same for me. I like to write on a machine, maybe because I'm typing on a computer keyboard for a long time. But I do enjoy writing with hand more nowadays. Few years ago I've noticed that I do not write with hand at all, everything was on a computer. So it feels good. Combination of handwriting and typewriter works fine for me. Sometimes, when I don't have note besides me, I write some thought on the phone, because I will forget it otherwise.