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Comment by chrisco255 | Hacker News Reader

I think writing in HTML is very frustrating. It can be particularly difficult to write it on a mobile device due to lack of easy access to special symbols.

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On the flip side, last time I wrote some in an editor with decent HTML-authoring autocomplete, it was so fast I wondered why we bother with weird compile-to-HTML templating languages anymore. It wasn't really any slower than writing Pug or whatever, and the result IMO was more readable.

Let's face it, mobile devices are primarily for consuming, not producing.

What’s more frustrating, writing in HTML or writing in a more concise format and having to maintain some build pipeline?

I guess the answer depends on many factors; personal preferences and also the project’s context play a big role; personally I’m surprised how often I choose HTML.

Markdown is probably a happy medium - markdown itself looks pretty much like normal writing in usenet or email, just formatted visually, and the 'build pipeline' is something like "markdown foo.md > foo.html"

>It can be particularly difficult to write it on a mobile device due to lack of easy access to special symbols.

I'm assuming this excludes laptops, so we're talking tablets/smartphones? If so, out of curiosity, how often are you writing code on a smart phone/tablet? I've never written a line of any code on anything other than a laptop (when travelling) or desktop.

Fixed production on a terminal running in my phone. Would not recommend.

Seconded.

Ssh on a phone is better than no ssh, but good lord is it frustrating.

I would never willingly edit HTML (or anything else for machine consumption) on a phone, that's what real keyboards are for.

Sometimes this is a good thing. Makes you stop. Sit down. Activates your analytical mind.

Mobile's deficiencies in UI and networking were bad enough when they were just mobile's problem. But now people just assume everything should be gimped so that mobile can keep up.

I'm sure there are 3rd party keyboards that optimize for different use cases, such as angle braces and double quotes.

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