Free Idea: Code equivalent to Morning Pages/750 Words | Hacker News Reader

Free Idea: Code equivalent to Morning Pages/750 Words

jessenoller.com

26 pointsjnoller9 comments

It wouldn't work because the processes of coding and writing are different. In writing, yes, "keeping the hand moving" is important. If you're stuck, a good way to get unstuck is to just keep writing, and wait for your subconscious to hit upon something that your conscious mind can use as a seed to craft a story around.

Programming is not at all like that. In programming, getting "stuck" is a signal to stop writing code. Its a signal to stop and rethink your approach, or at least step back and think about the problem before jumping back into coding. You can't write yourself out of a programming problem, but you certainly can write yourself into one.

I often have trouble getting my motor started on my current major project, but banging on a different idea for half an hour puts me in a good coding groove which I can then carry over into momentum on my major project.

750 code words would be more about starting than about being stuck.

Exactly right; this isn't about being stuck. Or trying to unstick you. I don't write 750 words/day to "unstick" myself from writing a blog post. I do it to bang my head on something else a little bit to keep the juices flowing.

Why would you need an online service to do that, if the point is just to write code for you that you're not going to share with anyone? Or did I miss something?

(I don't understand the point of 750words.com either, for that matter, except if you're not satisfied with a text file and quick scripts for reminders and word counts: but if you want to do a diary like 750words.com about coding and getting your hands dirty, why wouldn't people just code the thing they want?)

You don't need a service like that; just like you don't need 750 words to write three pages a day; and you don't need facebook to stay in contact with your friends.

This isn't about need - most little one off ideas like this aren't about that. First, it's about encouraging the idea (keep the hand moving/practice a kata) via a nice, simple online tool. Second, it's a central, online service - ala google docs, drop box, etc where you could, every day, just upload a snippet of code you toyed with.

So; no - you and I don't need an online service to do this. No one does. No one needs an online calendar or online service that hosts a private journal. This is more about the idea and encouraging that idea and practice than making a profitable service millions flock to.

Make a nice little tool to share the idea, and a service that encourages the idea. Sure, someone might code the thing they want to make (e.g. the app/service itself) but if the original idea helped spur them to do so, then I've happily succeeded in planting the idea in someone's head, and hopefully they will also do so in turn.

Or one could simply use a ready made blog-platform like Wordpress which supports a majority of the features listed and maybe modify it a little

> Allow signup/signin

Check.

> Allow public sharing of journals/non public

Private and public posts.

> Allow submitted “ideas”

Use comments for getting those.

>Make it look decent

Thousands of free and premium themes available.

Or they could use posterous, livejournal, blogger - or an internal text file. There's a million things that could do it, the idea is to make one tailored for it and tailored to the idea. Sometimes a custom built system can beat a generalized system made to "sorta do it".

My most common scenario for kick-starting my creative coding is to bust open the REPL and brain dump the more difficult concepts just to see if they're feasible. I use the REPL so I can quickly debug code and see immediate results.

There's no way I could just jot down 750 words of code without having executed it at least once. Normally, I'd probably have executed my code every 10 new words of code - so like, 75 times by the time I write 750 words. I just don't see a non-REPL editor helping me in this way.

I know there are in-browser REPLs for languages like Ruby and Python, etc. Perhaps if it had one of those in it, or something, then it'd make more sense for me to try it.

IIRC, The Pragmatic Programmer suggests writing morning pages. It's been a while since I read it, though so I could be wrong.

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