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This may seem pedantic, but this is an aspect of project management. The pen and paper aren't in the coding, they're in the design. You may be doing some abstr

This may seem pedantic, but this is an aspect of project management. The pen and paper aren't in the coding, they're in the design. You may be doing some abstractions/pseudo code on paper but you're not coding. You're planning. There's nothing wrong with this! I think it's a great way to operate. But it's less sexy to say "How I Plan: Pen and Paper" then to conflate it with coding. Everyone does planning. Some people do it on-the-fly while coding. Some people do it in their head. Some people write it down.

stan_rogers 5y ago
No, the author is actually writing code using pen and paper. It's not just a high-level or organisational sketch. It's not just planning. What happens at the computer afterwards can best be described as transcription and debugging.
- nkozyra 5y ago
  I find it pretty unlikely that this entry: > I opened my laptop, created a new Github repository, typed in the code, added some tests and wrote the README. It was probably all done in 4 or 5 hours of concentrated work. Means handwritten code verbatim went into the repo. The focus on iteration is great - it would be unusual to stop at this point. But if we say the written word is canon, my response is that's inefficient. It is indeed the planning that is most valuable when putting pen to paper.
  - thevinter 5y ago
    This semantic discussion seem pretty pointless as it doesn't focus on the whole idea behind the article. It really doesn't matter what definition for "writing" you use.
  - kragen 5y ago
    No, she probably kept editing it after she typed it in; aside from debugging, I always find things I can improve when I'm typing in code I wrote on paper first, so I do. But that doesn't mean that what she wrote on paper wasn't the code for the module. I mean, you can see some of it in her photos. It's syntactically valid C and Ruby code, semicolons and all.
beerandt 5y ago
My cs classes in college gave quizzes via webpage or email, but the actual exams were on paper, hand writing actual code. Multiple pages of it. It actually helped make things stick better, after initially adjusting to it. Afterwards, I would end up typing code more deliberately, and found myself tapping delete far fewer times. Very similar experience to learning drafting-by-hand before CAD.
- fnord77 5y ago
  yup! I distinctly remember having to write out by hand a PATRICIA tree in C++ for the final exam of CS106X. feel bad for the T/As that had to grade all those exams.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
munk-a 5y ago
As someone who's worked a fair bit now - coding has absolutely no value to any company. What delivers results is deploying solutions - whether those solutions are powered by hotpockets and red bull at 3AM or whether they are entirely composed of meetings discussing how to inform customers of the change - it is never "coding" that solves a problem. "Coding" is at most the effort of transcribing a solution from your brain to a computer - most devs will iterate over several drafts during this process. If, instead, you iterate drafts on paper and then just type up the solution when you're happy with it - it makes no difference - you've still delivered the solution. The author is conflating coding with solution planning in a pretty minor way - you're more seriously conflating coding with solution building.
- galaxyLogic 5y ago
  Coding often gives feedback on your plan and design. You may not see its flaws as long as its only in your head or on paper. When you write the code and try to run it on your computer you often realize something is wrong with it. Architects do a similar thing, they visualize in their heads and on paper, but then they also actually build 3D small-scale prototypes to get feedback on their design. So I would say that coding can also be an important part of the design process. It is not just transliterating what's in your head to code-files on the computer, it can help improve the design which is in your brain.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    this is why I made the question about coding being called 'typing', in writing, coding or anything similar when you are at the 'typing' stage you will often revise and think more about what you are doing, add in conditions for edge cases and so forth. It is not just transcribing the thoughts you have already had, it is developing those thoughts at the same time.
    - galaxyLogic 5y ago
      That is an important point I believe. code is more concrete than plain thoughts, and concrete things give us better feedback than abstract ideas
kragen 5y ago
Your comment is directly contradicted by the article, which has scraps of syntactically valid Ruby code in it, like Arguments.to_opts( ['-c', '--compatible'] => :compatibility, ['-t', '--threads', Integer] => :threads ) Then it goes on to explain that the author wrote out a Ruby/C module in her notebook before she "created a new Github repository, typed in the code, added some tests and wrote the README." Since it's against the rules to question whether you've read the article, but people on here call each other liars all the time, I am forced to ask you why you are lying about what the article says. Why are you lying about what the article says?

stan_rogers 5y ago

No, the author is actually writing code using pen and paper. It's not just a high-level or organisational sketch. It's not just planning. What happens at the computer afterwards can best be described as transcription and debugging.

nkozyra 5y ago
I find it pretty unlikely that this entry: > I opened my laptop, created a new Github repository, typed in the code, added some tests and wrote the README. It was probably all done in 4 or 5 hours of concentrated work. Means handwritten code verbatim went into the repo. The focus on iteration is great - it would be unusual to stop at this point. But if we say the written word is canon, my response is that's inefficient. It is indeed the planning that is most valuable when putting pen to paper.
- thevinter 5y ago
  This semantic discussion seem pretty pointless as it doesn't focus on the whole idea behind the article. It really doesn't matter what definition for "writing" you use.
- kragen 5y ago
  No, she probably kept editing it after she typed it in; aside from debugging, I always find things I can improve when I'm typing in code I wrote on paper first, so I do. But that doesn't mean that what she wrote on paper wasn't the code for the module. I mean, you can see some of it in her photos. It's syntactically valid C and Ruby code, semicolons and all.

beerandt 5y ago

My cs classes in college gave quizzes via webpage or email, but the actual exams were on paper, hand writing actual code. Multiple pages of it. It actually helped make things stick better, after initially adjusting to it. Afterwards, I would end up typing code more deliberately, and found myself tapping delete far fewer times. Very similar experience to learning drafting-by-hand before CAD.

fnord77 5y ago
yup! I distinctly remember having to write out by hand a PATRICIA tree in C++ for the final exam of CS106X. feel bad for the T/As that had to grade all those exams.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

munk-a 5y ago

As someone who's worked a fair bit now - coding has absolutely no value to any company. What delivers results is deploying solutions - whether those solutions are powered by hotpockets and red bull at 3AM or whether they are entirely composed of meetings discussing how to inform customers of the change - it is never "coding" that solves a problem. "Coding" is at most the effort of transcribing a solution from your brain to a computer - most devs will iterate over several drafts during this process. If, instead, you iterate drafts on paper and then just type up the solution when you're happy with it - it makes no difference - you've still delivered the solution. The author is conflating coding with solution planning in a pretty minor way - you're more seriously conflating coding with solution building.

galaxyLogic 5y ago
Coding often gives feedback on your plan and design. You may not see its flaws as long as its only in your head or on paper. When you write the code and try to run it on your computer you often realize something is wrong with it. Architects do a similar thing, they visualize in their heads and on paper, but then they also actually build 3D small-scale prototypes to get feedback on their design. So I would say that coding can also be an important part of the design process. It is not just transliterating what's in your head to code-files on the computer, it can help improve the design which is in your brain.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  this is why I made the question about coding being called 'typing', in writing, coding or anything similar when you are at the 'typing' stage you will often revise and think more about what you are doing, add in conditions for edge cases and so forth. It is not just transcribing the thoughts you have already had, it is developing those thoughts at the same time.
  - galaxyLogic 5y ago
    That is an important point I believe. code is more concrete than plain thoughts, and concrete things give us better feedback than abstract ideas

kragen 5y ago

Your comment is directly contradicted by the article, which has scraps of syntactically valid Ruby code in it, like Arguments.to_opts( ['-c', '--compatible'] => :compatibility, ['-t', '--threads', Integer] => :threads ) Then it goes on to explain that the author wrote out a Ruby/C module in her notebook before she "created a new Github repository, typed in the code, added some tests and wrote the README." Since it's against the rules to question whether you've read the article, but people on here call each other liars all the time, I am forced to ask you why you are lying about what the article says. Why are you lying about what the article says?