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Comment by philmcc | Hacker News Reader

So... I'm a "learn by stackexchange" dev and really enjoyed tracking this person's thought process.

I find that most tutorial/explanations come fully baked with the the problems -predictively- solved, as opposed to reactively solved, if that makes sense -- The difference between ("In order to prevent this problem, we'll do X" as opposed to "Hmm that's not working. Why is that? Ah. Okay perhaps we can do W... no, that won't work and here's (y, zing) why, let's try X")

Author's blog notwithstanding, where are other places to read other developers essentially plain-speak their way through problem solving / program architecture in a similar fashion?

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Author here -- I'm glad you like the post! There are more like you describe out there, though they tend to be scattered around the Internet.

https://jvns.ca/ often gets mentioned on HN and has a large volume of posts that follow the format "let's assume both you and I don't know anything - how do we figure this out?". http://jamie-wong.com/, a coworker, has a few good ones on graphics/numerical stuff.

Characterizing unique IDs with emojis instead of an abstract number was inspired by Tim Babb who has a good blog post on Kalman Filters: http://www.bzarg.com/p/how-a-kalman-filter-works-in-pictures...

Explaining a concept in person really helps, as you get immediate feedback if they look confused and it helps you figure out in what order you need to introduce concepts. In the case of this project, I was working on it alongside other people who were working their side projects. So I had the chance to explain what I was working on very frequently as we asked each other what we were up to, but I'm still learning to write this way intentionally.

I wrote an article [1] in this style a while back.

I started with a problem that I had no idea how to solve (finding elemental spellings for words like "CrYPtOgRaPHEr"). I started with the most straightforward approach I could think of, and wrote the article gradually as I went through the process of finding better and better solutions.

I ended up learning about data structures, reasoning about time complexity, and using tools to profile Python programs.

There wouldn't have been much to write about if I had just 'gotten things to work', then moved on. I found that writing the article forced me to strive for much deeper understanding than I might have otherwise.

I'm eager to read the other links posted in response to your question.

[1]: https://www.amin.space/blog/2017/5/elemental_speller/

> where are other places to read other developers essentially plain-speak their way through problem solving / program architecture in a similar fashion?

Livecoding is becoming more and more of a trend. When I do it on my YouTube channel I follow exactly this approach.

I basically use it as an excuse to play with new tech or to try building stuff I need. Except I also turn on the stream and talk out loud like the audience was my rubber ducky.

Brent Simmons has an interesting habit of writing blog posts in order to help him think about the problems. His blog is http://inessential.com, which includes some non-technical stuff too. For the start, open one of his “diary” pages from the bottom of the page, like “Vesper Sync Diary”.

My for-fee screencast letscodejavascript.com is exactly that, with a focus on design and rigorous development practice, and coincidentally is about a collaborative drawing app.

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