I was thinking more about the lovecraft copywork idea. I think it’s a no-brainer. I think a book is what is needed. For me, handwriting out a 2,000 word story or passage (at the low end) feels onerous. It needs to be buffet of passages from the stories that one can hand-copy as time permits, e.g. 20 min/per day. I asked some reasoning models to extract some passages that show strong writing technique. ...

My eldest son is saving for a new phone. Apparently hand-me-down iphones don’t cut it any more. Too many cracks, too slow. Whatever. We said he could not draw upon his savings, they’re for a first car, or something. As such, he is putting his 2024 Christmas and 2025 Chinese New year money towards this new effort. He also worked during the summer for his grandparents (washed windows) and great-auntie (front of shop in a cafe). ...

Still thinking about the practice of typing in code listing verbatim as a pedagogical tool. Quotes Some confirming quotes from reading: …I took online courses, though I made sure to type out everything as I went through them. That alone increases confidence, because you’re actually building something versus copy/pasting. Could be a psychological trick. I don’t know, but it works. – burntjamb I like: “Could be a psychological trick.” Yep! Are there any scientific studies and results of the studies on if this was just tedious work, or if the user did learn something about programming just by typing it in the computer? ...

I’ve been doing a lot of reading about “type-in programs”. There are a lot of old-timer programmers recounting their enjoyment of typing in programs from magazines and books in the 1980s and 1990s. Some highlights I enjoyed reading: Did type-in-programs or type-in-listings teach programming in the 70s and 80s or was it just tedious typing of the source code? Is there any hard data about type-in programs in the 80s? Anyone else here get started by typing in BASIC programs from Enter Magazine back in the early 80’s? Easy type-in software for a BASIC demonstration And on… Great stuff. ...

I posted to reddit, asking if other programmers learned the craft via copy work: Did you copy/transcribe code from books when learning to program? Lots of self-selecting confirmation bias + survivorship bias. E.g. those that survived (and are on reddit and comment on questions) used this method, those that didn’t, didn’t. I guess I really want to hear stories of people that don’t learn this way. The copy-and-pasters (code copypastas? the horror!). What is “copywork with code” called? Anyway, this got me thinking, “what’s this called?” ...

I was commenting on reddit how I used to type in BASIC programs back when learning the craft. I then recalled that I had an old “laptop” that only did BASIC. After some searching, I found it: It was an Epson HX-20, pictured below (photo from wiki): Oh man, it was cool. More from wiki’s history of laptops: The first significant development towards laptop computing was announced in 1981 and sold from July 1982, the 8/16-bit Epson HX-20. ...

I’m still thinking about copywork. The previous experiment (Lovecraft Copywork) was no good. In fact, it sucks, and not just because the UI is rough. Using it now feels more like a typing exercise, not like copywork. For this case to work, I think a better approach would to to create beautiful letter/a4-sized pages of text with large font that can be printed and used as a reference for the writer to hand-copy, away from the workstation. ...

I finished a book on birth-order yesterday: Why First Borns Rule the World and Last Borns Want to Change It The book was fine. Reading along, I was nodding, agreeing, pulling out examples from my life, relationships, my own family, etc. I started telling wife about this trait and that behavior in myself, in her, in our sons, etc. Then, hmmm… it all felt a little too just so. I realized that this has the smell MBTI. ...

I did the thing I tell everyone not to do. Human, I guess. Do as I say, not as I do. Advice is easier to give, than to take. During the pandemic I started reading books on fiction writing. I’ve since read 100+ books on the topic. I also started listening to podcasts on the topic, since consuming many thousands of hours of discussion. Have I written novels and short stories? ...

I read “Ernest Hemingway on Writing” yesterday. Great stuff! The final passage got me, and made me chuckle. Here’s a snippet: You must be prepared to work always without applause. […] Finally, in some other place, some other time, when you can’t work and feel like hell you will pick up the book and look in it and start to read and go on and in a little while say to your wife, “Why this stuff is bloody marvelous.” ...