13 ms·
I program on the subway
- pinkroute 10mo ago[dead]
- abstractspoon 10mo agoBack in the 80s I would work on stacks of fanfold code printouts on my trips on the London underground to and from work
- cadr 10mo agoI used to get so much done on my BART commute. Also learned piano on a little 25 key midi keyboard until the program I was learning from started needing a 26th key.
- gozzoo 10mo agoThat's so cool. Can you share more about this. What program and keyboard did you use? Did you proceed with more serious learning?
- cadr 10mo agoI used an Akai LPK25 with my iPhone (using the Camera Connection Kit and a combined usb hub/dac) and an app called Simply Piano. They make a wireless version of that now that would simplify the setup a great deal. It is a mini keyboard and the keys are quite small, but in my experience it was fine for the beginner stuff (and the keyboard is useful in general later). As I said before, I stuck with this until the app started using keys outside the range I had. Now, as for "did I proceed with more serious learning" - I alternate though a ton of hobbies. So I moved on after that, though still go back to it from time to time. But I also have other musical interests and it was helpful to those as well. Also did a lot of music on the commute on my iPhone with Korg Gadget (and Caustic before that). Sometimes with a keyboard, sometimes without.
- firefax 10mo agoI used to get frustated that the train shook so loud that in combination with the sound of the train I struggled to listen to podcasts, kudos to you.
- cadr 10mo agoI sometimes would bring ear-protection headphones that I'd wear over my earbuds to muffle the train noise.
- kevin_thibedeau 10mo ago> I don't even have an internet connection. Vibe coders feeling a great disturbance in the force.
- mohamez 10mo agoNomophobia is the word for that lol
- anthk 10mo agoOr plain incompetence...
- DoctorOW 10mo agoNot immediately of course, you have to wait until the robots are trained on this blogpost.
- venturecruelty 10mo agoUsing your brain and skills to program is so 2021.
- tonyedgecombe 10mo agoI spent six months coding up a new product in a rented office with no internet. It was a really productive period.
- chrischen 10mo agoWith coding agents AI almost never manually type code anymore. It would be great to have a code editor that runs on my phone so I can do voice prompts and let the coding agents type stuff for me.
- llbbdd 10mo agoI have been doing this with GitHub's copilot agent web interface on my phone; word-vomit voice prompt + instructions to always run the tests or take screenshots so I can evaluate the change works really well.
- chrischen 10mo agoWas it the github issues copilot integration? I found that to be slow compared to natively running copilot in the IDE.
- lbrito 10mo agoThat sounds awful
- xnx 10mo agoSimilar to a product or engineering manager giving directions on a call from the golf course.
- lbrito 10mo agoGolf course isn't bad; I witnessed a CEO join meetings from the subway and packed airport concourses lol
- Spooky23 10mo agoEarly in my career I drew the short straw to fetch a C level exec who was running a critical incident from a strip club and too drunk to drive. I had to pay the $90 three drink minimum to get in. Getting that reimbursed was fun.
- ziofill 10mo agoWhen I was living in Paris I had a 20 min ride from home to work each day. I picked up the habit to read during those 40 total minutes and I was going through books like I had never been able to, because while 40 min is not a lot, it’s about 150h per year. One easily underestimates the power of consistency.
- bitmasher9 10mo agoI read many books a year by reading for 20-30 minutes per night before sleeping. A habit with multiple benefits (winding down and reading or commuting and reading) is very powerful for getting the most value out of your time.
- bbkane 10mo agoUntil the book gets really good and you have to keep reading past your bedtime to learn what happens (or maybe that's just me)
- druskacik 10mo agoIt's not just you, I hear this often, but I am always suprised people can read for so long in bed. No matter how interesting a book is, I can rarely read more than 20-30 minutes before the urge to fall asleep becomes too strong. But I can sometimes code until like 4AM. Weird.
- sponnath 10mo agoReading is usually more passive than coding. I'm often never sleepy if I'm actively coding something late at night but reading a book (no matter how engaging) or watching a tv show can very easily make me sleepy. That said, everyone's brains work very differently.
- wredcoll 10mo agoThis is just so weird. In general coding won't let me fall asleep but a book 100% will never let me sleep until I finish. I also find the idea of "forcing" yourself to read rather peculiar, but we're all different people. I wonder if there's genuinely something different in how the brain reacts.
- almost_usual 10mo agoI work/program on CalTrain but that’s pretty common. NYC subway or BART seems a bit more challenging. It’s overall time much better spent than being stuck in a car.
- saagarjha 10mo agoI used to do work on Caltrain, which used to be like 3 hours of my commute and didn't have any internet, so I would carefully plan what I could do beforehand. My code deploys to a machine that's very different from my laptop, but I had a Docker container set up to cross compile things and loaded up the docs beforehand, so as long as I planned out what I wanted to do. These days Caltrain is faster and has occasionally frustrating, but fairly good Wi-Fi, so now my constraints are that I don't have a large monitor but not really much else.
- throwaway2037 10mo ago3 hours of Caltrain!? I assume that is 90 mins each way. San Jose to SF on a non-express train? That sounds painful!
- saagarjha 10mo agoI take the non-express in the morning and express in the evening, which used to be 105 and 60 minutes respectively prior to electrification. Nowadays it's 75 and 60 which is a little more reasonable. I could in theory take the last express in the morning but I think trying to squeeze in on a packed train that I have to wake up early for isn't really worth it over being able to leave the house at 10 and being guaranteed a table.
- fragmede 10mo agohttps://a.co/d/1lCU1ha https://a.co/d/1lCU1ha for mobile triple head.
- saagarjha 10mo agoI appreciate the suggestion but this is more than twice the weight of my laptop and I would much rather have light than big screen :)
- dackle 10mo agoHere is a description of the daily commute by Michael Milken, 1980s junk bond king, as told in "Predator's Ball" by Connie Bruck: At 5:30am each weekday in the early 1970s, a bus pulled up to a stop in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and a young man lugging a bag that bulged with papers mounted its steps. He was making the two-hour commute to New York City, where he worked at the investment banking firm of Drexel Firestone. The train would have provided a more comfortable and faster ride; but, for those very reasons, it also offered more opportunity to meet other Wall Street acquaintances. They would want to engage in the kind of idle small talk that commuters share to pass the time. The thought must have been intolerable. He did not wish to be rude, but he wanted no interruption. As soon as he had settled into his seat, being sure to take one with an empty one adjacent, he unloaded a mountain of prospectuses and 10ks (annual Securities and Exchange Commission filings) onto the seat next to him. On winter mornings the sky was still pitch black and the light on the bus was too dim for him to be able to read. He wore a leather aviation cap with the earflaps down; he had been bald for years, and although he wore a toupee his head always felt cold on these frosty mornings. Now over his aviation cap he fitted a miner's headlamp -- strapped around the back of his head, with a huge light projecting from his forehead.
- trinix912 10mo agoI've done it a few times on city busses which I'd say are worse than subway. Less legroom, bumpier ride, more people passing by. My 13" laptop barely fit. It's not something I'd want to do on the daily but if you really need to get something done and are running out of time (those busses get stuck in traffic for half an hour or more), it's doable.
- komali2 10mo ago> they would have to do it at a station, where they could immediately get off the train. I think, though, that this would be risky, given that subway stops generally have a lot of people getting on/off the train in the first place. I've seen a phone jacking in this exact scenario and nobody moved to stop the guy running. Nobody on the train can help cause the doors have closed, and nobody on the platform has any idea anything just happened, or if they do the guy is well gone before they can put two and two together. For me I always pocket my phone or e-reader at each stop, unless I'm in Japan or Taiwan.
- trinix912 10mo agoTrue, but a laptop is much more of a hassle to quickly grab and run with than a phone. What also helps is having one that's full of stickers or overall looks fairly (ab)used. A pristine MacBook is going to be much more of a target than a random ThinkPad with a sticker, greasy keyboard and 20 scratches.
- Spooky23 10mo agoDepends on where and when you are. Some hyped up dude is fixated on the next fix and lacks the executive function to discriminate. The more professional thieves are more discriminating.
- bitmasher9 10mo agoI agree that it’s just a matter of when it’s stolen, not if it’s going to be stolen. The article suggests the laptop is about $300, and he uses it about 1hr/day. If the laptop is stolen less than once a year he spends less than $1/hr for coding on the go, which I would consider a fair deal.
- Spooky23 10mo agoBy “when” I mean time of day. If you’re heading somewhere in Brooklyn after 7pm, that’s different than heading to the city at 7am.
- MuffinFlavored 10mo ago> Between work, meetups, and social events, I have noticeably less time for side projects than I had before moving here. Lucky you. :) Good problem to have.
- ghostly_s 10mo agoDid this for a couple years on a 45 minute CTA commute in Chicago while I was learning to code outside my day job, it honestly made that commute not even feel burdensome. Key was that I was 1.) on the brown line, which was still running the 3200-series cars with plentiful seats, and 2.) at an early enough stop to reliably get one. And can confirm an old Thinkpad (x220 at the time) is the king of commute coding.
- Wowfunhappy 10mo agoI’ve done this before, but you need a relatively long subway ride without any transfers. IMO, 30 minutes is just barely at the edge of being worthwhile, and only if you can get a seat right when you get on, and only if the seat isn’t so cramped that it’s actually possible to get your laptop out of your bag. This happens rarely. But on longer trips from e.g. upper Manhattan to deep Brooklyn, particularly at off-peak hours when I have room to spread out—yeah, I’ve had some very productive sessions.
- mlhpdx 10mo agoNot often, and not recommended, but I have coded on the cockpit table while single-handing a sailboat. Interrupting a conference call with “sorry, one moment, I have to tack out of the fleet” is its own special joy.
- horizion2025 10mo agoI have always enjoyed it. I have even gotten comments "can you really do anything in such a short period of time" but i have found that even 20 min sessions on a commute can be effective. For a major project I did the final push on such a commute just hoping the push could complete before the train reached the tunnel without coverage, and it did
- 65 10mo agoEh. My preferred subway activity is to listen to music and stare at the ground. I don't know... do I really need to stare at my computer screen every waking moment?
- jonlam92 10mo agoWith some noise cancelling headphones, it may actually help with focus. I'm a fan of doing things on the subway.
- neomantra 10mo agoI love to program on my commute. When I took NJ Transit bus, when I took NY Ferry, when I took MetroNorth. But I’ve never felt comfortable opening a laptop on the NYC subway. It wasn’t about the safety that OP describes. It was about the culture and the physical configuration (facing middle with strap hangers vs facing front/back). It just didn’t feel right in the subway. I do miss the MetroNorth Bar Car! I could drink and code and it was jovial.
- nicbou 10mo agoMy entire stack is meant to let me work offline in random locations. Until recently it was meant to run smoothly on a 12" Macbook. The output is also made for users on spotty internet connections. This comes from years of working while travelling. I can work offline for weeks if needed. I sometimes do "iPad work", which is essentially researching, reviewing and annotating content on my iPad Mini. I will hop on my bike and work an hour or two in different locations, over coffee or in the sun. It's a relaxing break from working on a computer at a desk. I do think that people should work in different places. Perhaps we'd have apps that work better on slow internet.
- theshrike79 10mo agoIIRC there are some actual studies that say changing your physical location will actually affect your performance. In my previous $dayjob I was That Guy who was getting pinged on chats and emails and people dropped in for "just a quick question". When I had to get work done on a deadline, I went to a cafe down the street, turned off the chats, got a massive bucket of coffee, put on my noise cancelling headphones and just ... worked. Later when the office got bigger (multiple stories in the same building), I "hid" on a couch at a complete different department for the same purpose. That was almost 10 years ago and still my brain connects couches and cafes as deep work places :D
- nicbou 10mo agoIt was mostly to fit my travel habits, but you might be right. Nowadays I work at a cafe with friends every Monday. It's a nice break from WFH.
- Chinjut 10mo agoI love making money for my employer with every spare moment of my life.
- htk 10mo agoIf you took the time to read the first paragraph instead of typing this snarky comment, you'd know he's working on his personal projects.
- venturecruelty 10mo agoNot paying attention on the train, even in 2025 girliepop-influencer-Instragram-latte-art New York, is not the smartest. You're probably better off during rush hour, but being aware of your surroundings is never a bad idea, even in "safe" New York.
- ipaddr 10mo agoDo your work today and tomorrow you can fool around and have some fun. Do the minimum today so you can do the maximum tomorrow rarely makes sense.
- aj7 10mo agoI did my calculus homework on the subway.
- Myzel394 10mo agoI was in Philadelphia for a week and also used my commute time (2 hours in total each day) to program. As a web developer who uses Github Copilot and often checks documentation online, I did not have such a good experience as OP had. Mobile data is pretty much nonexistent in Philadelphia in the subway and there are also no wifi Hotspots. Sure, it was better than nothing, but I would quite often find myself waiting for the subway to arrive at stations and hoping that there is at least some internet connectivity there.
- gregsadetsky 10mo agoReminds me of this metafilter thread [0] where people asked/shared less usual work locations. Hotel lobbies are a great one, as have laundromats sometimes been in the past. An intercity train with wifi/cell service (and tea!) is an incredible focussing function as well. You got 3 hours and a beautiful not too distracting view. Go! P.s. I also suggested to Stephen that he gets a Nathan Fielder “laptop harness” for his subway work..? Has anyone tried this? [0] https://ask.metafilter.com/316039/Ideas-for-workspaces-please https://ask.metafilter.com/316039/Ideas-for-workspaces-pleas...
- theshrike79 10mo agoLouis Rrossmann[0] had a massive tirade against Macbooks over a decade ago because they didn't have a battery hump in the back. Why you ask? I'll tell you. He edited videos on the NY subway using his Lenovo(?) laptop with a massive extra battery hump in the back, which he used as a handle to hold on to with one hand while he typed with the other. [0] https://www.youtube.com/@rossmanngroup https://www.youtube.com/@rossmanngroup
- teddyh 10mo agoMany years ago, before mobile internet was reasonable and before wireless internet was available, and before even electrical outlets were something which could be counted on to be present on trains, I took a 6 hour train ride. I had no laptop. I printed out, on paper, the entire source code of the project I was working on, and brought a red pen. I read through the whole thing, from start to finish. Many subtle bug fixes, refactorings, and efficiency improvements were made that day.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- dghost-dev 10mo agoThat’s actually pretty cool!
- someone_jain_ 10mo agoThats pretty rad! How many papers were you hauling!?
- ktzar 10mo agoI developed a big chunk of my Scumm games decompiler in London's central line. I was lucky (or unlucky) enough to go far enough each day to always hand an empty seat and enjoy 30 minutes of me time each way. All on a Chromebook with crostini. Cheap, long battery life and decent keyboard.
- roryirvine 10mo agoMy experience of the central line couldn't have been more different - commuting between Bethnal Green and Holborn, often having to wait 20-25 mins on the platform, letting a dozen trains go by before finally managing to squeeze on, followed by 9 minutes crouching under someone's armpit. No chance of reading my phone or Kindle, let alone using a laptop!
- macNchz 10mo agoI recently bought a GPD MicroPC 2, a 7” laptop with a real keyboard. It runs Linux just fine, and it has been a fun experience of having a “real” computer with me much more often than I otherwise would. My version of programming on the subway has been programming on a park bench—it fits in a jacket pocket, or even the back pocket of some of my pants. The keyboard is tiny but easy enough to use with thumbs, or, with some practice, two-handed touch typing on a flat surface. It’s nice to be less tethered to a desk, while also not having to carry a backpack and heavier full laptop, but still able to remote in and do what I need to do. I really enjoy having a fully capable Linux PC in my pocket vs a smartphone.
- yjftsjthsd-h 10mo ago> GPD MicroPC 2, a 7” laptop with a real keyboard Is it actually decent for typing on? I'm perennially tempted, but I'm somewhat skeptical of a small keyboard vs touch typing.
- nathell 10mo agoAnother GPD MicroPC owner here. It’s not quite as comfortable as a normal-sized keyboard, but much more comfortable than it looks. It’s quite decent for occasional recreational programming, and I’ve also used it to write daily blog posts from a long-distance cycling trip.
- macNchz 10mo agoIt's surprisingly good! I wouldn't want to type on it all day long, but it works pretty well for me. I just did a cold typing test, not having typed on it in a few days, and got 55wpm touch typing the normal way, and 40wpm with thumbs. On a regular keyboard I can type >100wpm, so it's clearly not quite there, but I much prefer it to a smartphone keyboard, and I can be much more accurate on it without any sort of autocorrect.
- internet2000 10mo ago30 minutes is enough? I hope this person doesn't complain about "flow state" when I interrupt him by dropping by at his desk then!
- btreesOfSpring 10mo agoWhen I was part of a team developing a highly durable texting protocol, those of us in NYC would regularly test messaging while riding the subway. Between stations, you didn't have network access but different devices upon entering the next station would handle and recover from the interruptions in various ways. The subway produced so many repeatable network connection edge case problems. It was fantastic.
- confusus 10mo agoSounds very cool! Is that protocol still around?
- bitwize 10mo agoI used to program on the Boston T. I had my little MSI Wind netbook and I coded a game on my commutes to and from work. I eventually ported that game to Android.
- venturecruelty 10mo agoThis is how transplants get mugged, but okay. Why not just enjoy your hour of zen instead of constantly working?
- helterskelter 10mo agoI do my best thinking on the bus.
- don-code 10mo agoDoing connected work from the subway has gotten much, much easier in the last few years. I attribute that to three things: 1. Cell service has become low-latency. This is very different from "fast", which it has also become! When I started working from the train (on HSPA+), pings in the hundreds of milliseconds were the norm. My first step was usually to SSH to a remote machine, and let just the text lag on me. Nowadays, I can run a Web browser locally without issue. 2. Cell service has, at the same time, become ubiquitous in subway tunnels. When I started, there were some areas that dropped down to EDGE (unusable), and some areas that had no service at all. Now, there is exactly one place on the Boston transit system - Back Bay Station - where I lose cell service. 3. Noise cancelling tech has gotten better. It's not just about noise cancelling headphones: both of my laptops (a 2024 MBP and a ThinkPad P14s) have microphones that can filter out screeching wheels and noisy teenagers quite well. That means I can take meetings without making them miserable for the people on the other end. These, honestly, are a huge game-changer for me. The ability to take a 30 minute meeting while commuting, where otherwise I would've had to get in early or stay late at work, actually does wonders for my ability to have a life outside of work.
- isaacdl 10mo ago> The ability to take a 30 minute meeting At the small cost of making everyone around you miserable.
- AmbroseBierce 10mo agoMaybe they mean those meetings when you don't talk much, just listen to everyone else
- prattmic 10mo ago> 2. Cell service has, at the same time, become ubiquitous in subway tunnels. Not in New York, unfortunately. All of the stations have cell service, and one tunnel (14th Street L train tunnel under the East River), but everywhere else has no service between stations. It’s an annoying limitation that most cities seem to have fixed by now.
- allkushdiet 10mo agoI used to do this as I commuted on the train between school and my hometown in the early 2010s. As a way to learn and pass the time. No access to internet so mostly hacking from memory. I could use man pages for C, but Haskell was a bit more tricky. Sometimes I’d just end up sketching things out on paper, but eventually I could complete entire modules without looking anything up. Was always a bummer to be stuck on something that I knew could be answered online in mere seconds. Good times.
- mncharity 10mo ago> I've had good conversations with strangers Laptops sometimes have stickers. For a time, I instead had a transparent slip cover, to vary the sticker set, user-test alternatives, and throttle conversations. Science education topics (Boston/Cambridge subway). Anti-patriarchy stickers drew proto-MAGAs. Some backpacks now have low-res screens built into the back, suggesting new possibilities. One Laptop Per Child, at its peak, generated fun continuous crowd conversations. > a pair of glasses with a screen inside of them I've no idea what current tech is like, but I use to proselytize aphysical UIs, where a small head motion results in larger screen motion, to reduce neck swiveling.[1] > weirder Laptop harness walking desks are a thing. And one can do hand and head tracking[2] (I had that setup at a meetup where the swag was little stick-on privacy shutters for laptop webcams :). Boston/Cambridge is perhaps culturally a best case for such games - I've not tried them in NYC... hmm. > but something very complex, [...] instead sketch out a diagram on a piece of paper [...] keep a small notebook in my bag Same. I've tried swapping in an iPad, but it hasn't stuck. [1] silly old demo, 5k on a bus: https://x.com/mncharity/status/1225091755667853318 https://x.com/mncharity/status/1225091755667853318 [2] https://imgur.com/a/keyboard-cam-Z1VipaL https://imgur.com/a/keyboard-cam-Z1VipaL
- incanus77 10mo agoAbout 20 years ago, I landed my first real, high-impact job at an upstart consulting agency in Washington DC that came from the ashes of the Howard Dean campaign. Unfortunately, I had also just signed a lease on an apartment in the town I lived in, a two hour drive from downtown DC. I spent the first year at that job commuting into DC 2-3 days/week, which involved about an hour drive, then an hour regional commuter train, then some Metro transfer and walking — then back again in the evening. I spent that train time offline (as it was 2004) learning the Apple Cocoa frameworks, as in another twist of fate, the company was entirely Apple laptop-based, which was fairly rare for 2004, and I built tools for the team and myself. The focus possible because I was offline, with comprehensive docs, was pretty intense and was a huge part of many aspects of my career to follow.
- j_bum 10mo agoSounds like an incredible period. Do you miss it at all? I’ve had phases of my life where I was lucky to have periods of absolute and undisturbed focus (grad school, summers during college, etc.). It’s easy to forget how valuable that type of focus time is until it goes away!
- incanus77 10mo agoOh sure, lots of things to miss about that time... startup vibes, underdog causes during the worst of the Bush years, and work that ranged from the Mac stuff to Linux/BSD backend admin, PHP dev, introduction of the tech team to SVN/version control, even some music composition for a video. And close work with a bunch of folks on the team who now have their own Wikipedia pages, as well as high-profile clients. My boss left eventually in mid 2005 to go work for (then Senator) Obama and personally interviewed him for / produced his podcast, posted to his Flickr, and that sort of thing. The commuting... not so much. Moved into DC proper after that year, which itself was a great adventure. Leaving the house at 5:30-6:00am and returning at 8:30-9:00pm was no way to live.
- wwweston 10mo agowhat else has comprehensive off-line docs these days?
- mrb 10mo ago"On the subway, I'm missing a lot of my normal setup [...] I don't even have an internet connection" There is no cellular data in the NYC subway? I had to look it up online and apparently there is but coverage is quite patchy. That's very surprising to learn, NYC being one of the most developped and richest cities in the world. By comparison, and from my experience, the Parisian metro has excellent coverage.
- alexchantavy 10mo agoHaa don’t get me started about BART. Though maybe that’s just me problem not having Verizon.
- 93n 10mo agoI decided to cut an hour out of my in-the-office time recently, figuring that I'm sitting on the bus for any hour anyway, so I might as well use that time to knock some work out instead. Tethering is pretty good other than a predictable problem spot or two. Much better experience than working on a plane. I've done a handful of cross-US flights this year on Alaska Airlines, and trying to do anything network-related on those flights was torture. Super spotty, high latencies, constant timeouts; very frustrating.
- anonzzzies 10mo agoI program and did program anywhere; unlike OP, I thrive in (human) noise: if it's quiet, I cannot focus, so working at home with multi monitor setups etc works against me (music doesn't help: not random enough and I cannot talk to people when I feel the need). I prefer subways, busses, airplanes, lounges, coffeeshops, pubs etc. Offices strangely do not work as I already know those people so I get bored and creativity plummets. My setup now is the best I had ever: a rugged android tablet with week-long battery, running termux with full desktop linux (not rooted) which can run all I want. I run several llms offline on it as well to fix the workflow when I don't have my nice foldable full keyboard out (if no space). I can run everything in our framework, online and offline; when I come back online, I just sync (code AND data) and voila.
- collinboler2 10mo agoI do leetcode in the browser on my phone sometimes lol. It's far from ideal, but most of the work is thinking rather than typing.
- rlue 10mo agoI have also contemplated wearing a keyboard on my pants and using a pair of “XR glasses” (like those by X-Real or Viture) as a display. I would absolutely never do this in a public place, much less a crowded one. This guy’s figured it out though. https://evantravers.com/articles/2023/04/06/magsafe-tenting-and-wearable-keyboards/ https://evantravers.com/articles/2023/04/06/magsafe-tenting-...
- wahnfrieden 10mo agoI use these same tripods with magsafe stickers (to be used next on my newer Glove80 with Pro Reds). It works well. I also use them atop somewhat taller mini tripods for other ergonomic situations, or with clamps attached to my chair. It's very quick to move the keyboard halves around and use during travel where desks will not be at ergonomic heights.
- rlue 10mo agoVery curious what other tripods you’ve found suitable for this purpose. At my own workstation, I use a pair of adhesive dashboard mounts, which allows me to achieve some pretty extreme tenting (see https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/1p1q5xz/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/1p1q5xz/), but while out and about, I worry that such light boards would get jostled around on a desk/table if tented as hard as I usually do.
- wahnfrieden 10mo agoI use two of these: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B077JX7GBL?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_3 https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B077JX7GBL?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_d... it lets me tent at nearly 90 deg which is great. And it is also good for reclining on my LC4, where I use two Perriand berger stools as armrests and a Levo laptop stand. For something sturdier I use Ulanzi super clamps with extensions. The Glove80 (which is fantastic, as a 15 year Kinesis Aadvantage user prior) also has a tripod mounting kit which I haven't tried yet.
- 10mo ago
- jwpapi 10mo agoYeah I even do it in Ubers nowadays. I actually feel like oversea flights are my most productive sessions. I could totally see my using the train to drive through the country to work on some stuff, where I barely need internet. It’s almost always better than my 49 inch monitor at home lol.
- fragmede 10mo agoI've done this! https://a.co/d/80C2EQ5 https://a.co/d/80C2EQ5 is the harness I use for it. It's main problem is you look like a total dork, but picking up potential partners on the subway is a faux pas anyway, so that's less of an issue, but still.
- alexfoo 10mo agoLate 90’s I had a ~90 minute commute for a while (50min train with seat, 20min London Underground seat mostly, 15min train crammed, 10min walk). The longer train I would use my laptop, same with the 20min underground section on the journey in (going home no chance), but for the packed train and the walk I listened to music (I still have my Diamond Rio PMP300, no idea if it still works, just remember downsampling music to 32kbps to get more on a memory card, quality was less important than quantity - I must have listened to David Gray’s album _White Ladder_ many hundreds of times). Toshiba laptops (Satellite? I think they were before the Tecras), heavy and the battery life wasn’t much more than 90 minutes but it was just enough. Dual booting Windows and Linux. (Linux for dev work on the go…) Obviously no mobile connectivity back then, I had to have a plan for what I was going to work on and that also involved backup plans if I ran into a blocker on the primary. Same for the way home. A bit later I could get GPRS data rates via Infra-Red to my mobile and that just felt like magic. I found the times I couldn’t be on my laptop (walking or on the packed train) were great for thinking problems through and often had to stop to scribble down thoughts/ideas/solutions in a notebook that I kept in the laptop bag. Wrote so much useful code in that 18 months without the distractions of the Internet or emails or whatever. Now I somehow find I have less time despite having virtually no commute. Technology has vastly increased the number of distractions and I have let myself succumb to them. Where I had no real choice in what music I listened to now I have too much choice. There’s always one last thing to check before I get on with a bit of work. Sometimes I wish for simpler times.
- apparent 10mo agoWhite Ladder was a great study accompaniment.
- acjohnson55 10mo agoI used to regularly do work on my laptop on the subway, and then the PATH, after I moved to NJ. You don't see a whole lot of people doing it but it's very doable. I tether to get online via my phone.
- birdgoose 10mo agoThis is essentially how I work on hobby projects these days. My bus commute is about 45 minutes each way and I find this to be just enough time to get work done. I also try not to work on these projects outside of my commuting hours; this gives me time to mull problems over rather than jumping headlong into writing code. The lack of internet on the bus has not really been a problem since I plan ahead and make sure any dependencies I need are already downloaded. I use an old (2010 era) Toshiba netbook which is small enough that I'm not causing problems for my seat neighbours. It's also only got a dual-core 1GHz processor which kind of forces me to find performant solutions to problems. Much like the author I've also been thinking about how I can make my setup more portable. I've been considering purchasing AR glasses and using my Charachorder2 so I don't even need to get the netbook out of my bag. At this stage I can't justify the cost of a pair of AR glasses though. Some recent projects my commute has given me the time to work on: - a text editor (OCaml, SDL) - a 3D game (C, OpenGL) - an x86 operating system (Zig)
- throwaway2037 10mo agoDo you have a public GitHub profile? Those projects sound cool.
- birdgoose 10mo agoSadly, only the text editor is on public source control at the moment (https://github.com/jpsheehan/ocaml-edit https://github.com/jpsheehan/ocaml-edit). The game project and operating system are ongoing until I get bored of them and move on to something else. Most of my obsessions over the last few years have been bus projects. My Tetris clone is another example (C, SDL): https://github.com/jpsheehan/tetris https://github.com/jpsheehan/tetris
- meken 10mo ago> Currently I am working on affixing a split keyboard to my pants, so that I can program while standing up. This reminded me of the "walking desk" Stephen Wolfram uses to program: https://content.wolfram.com/sites/43/2019/02/07-popcorn-rig1.png https://content.wolfram.com/sites/43/2019/02/07-popcorn-rig1... I tried to use a similar one during Covid and couldn't get into it at all.
- TheNewAndy 10mo agoI wrote nearly all of https://apps.apple.com/us/app/two-birds-one-stone/id1539646329 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/two-birds-one-stone/id15396463... on a train without internet. It was about a half hour journey, and I found that in such a short amount of time, I would set a small goal and work in a very distraction free way to achieve it. It was very good for doing small things, but sometimes doing larger things (like big refactors) is a bit more difficult. On occasion, I would also dedicate a train ride to just writing up a todo list. I gave myself the rule of no internet while on the train, so sometimes I would just accumulate a list of questions I wanted to answer later. There is definitely something to it, and you can get heaps done, but it needs to be supported with some non-train time (e.g. for me, it was all the app store stuff, debugging with real hardware, etc)
- hoppp 10mo ago30 minutes can be plenty of time for implementing a feature. If you got your priorities straight.
- ak217 10mo agoWhen I used to ride Caltrain to/from work, I would often have an uninterrupted stretch of 45+ minutes in a cozy single seat (I would always take an upper deck seat in the "gallery" car) to either doze off or use this time to focus on something. I would get so much done on those days if I managed to avoid the sun blasting too much sunlight on my screen/seat. This commuter rail experience is probably familiar to many of us, but it's specific to commuter rail - being a passenger on a subway or in a car/bus is too chaotic or bumpy to do this. More generally, I find that switching up your surroundings is absolutely vital for your brain's ability to focus on hard tasks. I will hit a wall if I try to work multiple 10+ hour days sitting in one spot, but a comfortable spot in a different coffee shop or lounge can totally trick my brain into powering through.
- throwaway2037 10mo ago> This commuter rail experience is probably familiar to many of us, but it's specific to commuter rail - being a passenger on a subway or in a car/bus is too chaotic or bumpy to do this. I second this. It is hard for me to do anything productive on a bus because the stop/start frequency is too high and more physically demanding than a train.
- sammy2255 10mo agoI don't understand how this is possible. I've heard the New York Subway system is riddled with antisocial behaviour, homeless, drunks, people pissing everywhere, etc.
- WD-42 10mo agoPeople say the same thing about BART but it’s not bad at all. Turns out people on the internet aren’t reliable.
- nrhrjrjrjtntbt 10mo agoHow dare a human be unproductive for 4% of a day.
- egl2020 10mo agoI once had an 1.75 hour commute each way, 3.5 hours daily. I had to program during the commute---otherwise there weren't enough hours in the day to get my work done. There were periods of laptop-closed thinking, but no daydreaming or looking at the scenery. No Internet connectivity, so I had to plan carefully.
- leonc28 10mo agoDoes anyone make a mobile cursor that can be remotely controlled? Like, I can keep tapping (tab, tab, tab), and it will automatically switch and zoom to the next window.
- Jean-Papoulos 10mo agoI switched from a 1h30 of commute by bus to 15 minutes by car a while back ; then I switched jobs and now have 1h total commute. It's kind of annoying that I can't do anything of substance during this time because I'm driving. I used to read on the bus and while I don't miss the bus, I certainly miss the reading.
- szundi 10mo ago[dead]
- tomjen3 10mo agoYears ago I was part of a cross-disciplinary group doing game development. After our standup in the morning, the graphics artists would have made tons of drawings on the paper table cloth. If they had access to a pen and paper, they would be drawing.
- mid-kid 10mo agoI used to commute 1h40m one way, which accounted for 50mins in a train (+10min avg waiting). While I ususally did pull out my laptop, the productivity just wasn't there - I can't consistently work while groggy/vitamin-d deficient during winter mornings, or in the evening being cooked after having worked for 8 hours (I have an office job, but not programming). The seats are cramped and uncomfortable, not being able to raise my arms enough to use the keyboard without bothering the passanger next to me, so I'd have to put it away during the crowded parts of the ride, and I'd be very frustrated if the train was unusually crowded. Having your "flow" be broken by arriving at the end stop and having to rush to pack your things is awful. The only conversation someone's struck up with me was a guy who insisted he'd never understand what I was doing even if he tried. Suffice to say, after almost two years of this, I was extremely tired and sleep deprived as this ate away at my available time more than what is reasonable. Using the time for personal projects didn't compensate for it. Never again, it's really not worth it.
- fho 10mo agoStarted a comment to write basically what you said. I've been commuting like that for five years. At the end I didn't bother trying anything productive anymore. Losing 2-3h per day commuting is not something I am gone miss anytime soon.
- vermooten 10mo agoSounds like a 1-way ticket to burnout.
- nathell 10mo agoA few years ago, I spotted a guy on the underground in Warsaw, hacking on some code in a language I didn't recognize, but it was definitely assembly of some sort. Being shy, I resorted to throwing curious glimpses at his laptop for a few stations, but eventually curiosity got the better of me and I asked ‘sorry, is this ARM’? To which the guy replies, smiling, ‘ah no, it’s MIPS!’ Now I program casually in public spaces, including the underground, on my GPD Micro PC [0]. It, too, has attracted numerous glimpses and been a conversation starter on some occasions. [0]: https://blog.danieljanus.pl/2022/08/18/i-love-my-gpd-micro-pc/ https://blog.danieljanus.pl/2022/08/18/i-love-my-gpd-micro-p...
- asimovDev 10mo agothat's a fun story! i program on the train often due to occasional long commute (hour one way), but I live in finland so people are much less likely to talk to me, a stranger on the train, out of blue. On couple occasions I wanted to talk to another coder on the train when I notice their laptop stickers (a gamejam sticker or a sticker saying that this laptop is property of company X) but felt too self-conscious to do that cause they looked very focused
- davnicwil 10mo agoCoding on metros, trains, buses and planes is exactly the reason I always make sure my dev environments work 100% offline, with dummy services in place of the real ones. One thing I love about coding on public transport is the sense of urgency can be fun. Being on the verge of figuring out a bugfix or whatever when you know train is pulling into the station and you have maybe a minute to go, cracking it, quick test, bundle the laptop quickly back into your bag as you step off the train is quite a nice feeling.
- cess11 10mo agoI've done a lot of programming in public transport. It helps to shut out the environment with blasting black metal, pick an album that is almost entirely screaming tremolos, and then run a script with a sleep or Process.send_after or something that throws up send-notify bubbles when it's about time to pack up.
- TrackerFF 10mo agoA couple of weeks ago I was in Copenhagen, and had to take the metro back and forth a bunch of times throughout the day. I noticed some guy riding the "Cityringen" line, which goes in a loop, working on his laptop - coding in some CLI editor. Noticed the same guy a couple of times throughout the day, sitting in the same spot. Figured he just used the metro as his workplace.
- KptMarchewa 10mo ago>Currently I am working on affixing a split keyboard to my pants, so that I can program while standing up. This has to be satire.
- sedatk 10mo agoWhat I miss about my long commutes on public transportation in early 2000’s was the serenity of doing absolutely nothing. It was essentially forced meditation, and it helped me a lot in reorganizing my thoughts. I had moved next to the office later, and noticed that I’d really missed those meditative hours. I saved maybe 1.5 hours of commute every day but my net productivity had declined. I don’t think it would be as easy to achieve the same effect today as it was back then. We now have phones and interactive ads, and that dopamine driven economy. I miss that about those times.
- mnky9800n 10mo agoI go to the coffee shop without my phone and the freeing sensation is unreal
- gozzoo 10mo agoaren't such places too busy for meditation?
- sedatk 10mo agoFor quite meditation types, perhaps, but mindfulness meditation, for example, doesn't require stripping away nuisance, but acknowledging it while keeping a mindful state instead.
- gozzoo 10mo agoYes, but I suppose there shoudln't bee too many things happening in order to acknolege them, preferebly only the things in you mind. I've been trying somithing similar, but more active - beach walks in the in the early eavning. there are still people there but not too many. my goal was to acknoledge everything and enjoy the moment. i was not quite successfull though, it was still too much for me to acheive tranquility :)
- decafninja 10mo agoProponents of public transportation often say how they love to be able to use it as peaceful downtime to read, work, meditate, etc. All my experience with public transportation is having to roll the dice and more often than not losing - having to stand while packed liked sardines into a bus or subway.
- MrOrelliOReilly 10mo agoTry a commuter train in Switzerland. I work two hours on the train every single day with no issue!
- d4nyll 10mo agoWorking on the metro makes a boring commute fly by - blink and you are at your destination already. 30 minutes each way is 1 hour a day. Over the entire year it's 250+ hours or 9 whole 16-hour days. That's why whenever I move to a new city, I typically look to live somewhere that's at the end of the metro line. It meant in the morning commute I can _always_ get a seat. That was one of the reasons I liked living in Hammersmith when I worked in Shoreditch/Old Street - it's at the end of the Hammersmith and City Line and I don't have to change lines. There's also the add bonus that the line is above ground until Paddington which meant I have more than enough time to load up any tabs I need to use before the Internet blackout. In Hong Kong I worked at Central and lived in Tsuen Wan. Literally from one end of the line to the other. This had the added bonus that I was also guaranteed a seat on the way home as well.
- yuhmahp 10mo agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43894305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43894305 You can use commute time for day dreaming. It's not a waste of time
- eigenspace 10mo agoEver since moving to Germany, one of my favourite treats has been to jump on a train out to the countryside, program on the train, and then go for a hike, do some more programming during lunch, and then program on the train on my way home. It's often less productive than a normal workday so i dont do it super often, but It's very enjoyable, and the change of scenery sometimes helps me get unstuck on problems.
- lukax 10mo ago17 years ago I went to a summer vacation with my family (still a teenager). That meant 10 days without any internet connectivity. I just got my first laptop and I was allowed to take it with me. I was reverse engineering MSN Messenger's user to user and profile picture exchange protocol from TCP dumps. MSN Messenger did not use any encryption. Before I went to the vacation I recorded a bunch of sessions with Wireshark (maybe it was still Ethereal back then). Then for 10 days I was just trying to figure out from the dumps how the binary protocol worked and was writing the code without any way to test it. When I came back I just had to fix some minor bugs and it worked. Fun times.