Hacker News Reader

I never thought of that, but on reflection I think you're exactly right that hand-drawing is a good way to focus the reader's attention on the content of the text and not on the surrounding visual context. With a screenshot, the user might be consciously or unconsciously wondering why the terminal window looks different if it's a different OS/terminal emulator/font.

View on HN

Agreed. I hadn't really thought of that either and consider me convinced of the point made.

That issue would be better solved by just typing the text in a code block, no?

I feel that goes too far in the other extreme. They might not be able associate the examples with their own environment if the prompt is different (besides username and host; a different $PS1). Having the window representation makes for having more to associate, like "yes! I too have a window with a bit of text at the top and empty space below and to the right!" Having drawings also allowed for those arrows and text to explain the content, so that's great.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com