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Comment by pjmlp | Hacker News Reader

I still look forward to have programming environments on tablets that are able to use pen input, instead of forcing us to carry a bluetooth keyboard.

Apparently not something that anyone cares as business opportunity, because most likely most folks wouldn't pay for it, sadly.

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I'm definitely faster at typing than writing though — especially so when it comes to something like code that often requires in-place editing, shuffling statements around etc.

I do like to work with paper & pen but moreso for ideation, diagramming, or todo lists rather than more "structured" inputs.

Naturally the idea is to explore new concepts a mix of diagrams and coding,

Basically what Brett Victor in recent times, and others have been trying to do for decades,

"Grail on Rand Tablet from 1968 demo"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Cq8S3jzJiQ

Or "Programmable Ink" at Strange Loop 2022,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifYuvgXZ108

There used to exist a graphical based Lisp for iPad, Lisping, unfortunely the app is long gone as it wasn't kept up to date with the OS.

Here is on old thread discussing it, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3802131

The new iPad Calculator, is a more recent example of such ideas.

Man that would be horrible UX, I wouldn't pay for that. I'd only use it if someone paid ME to do it

Different strokes for different folks.

Can you touch draw 120 WPM?

No, nor do I care to type that fast.

Have the secretary typewriter contests from the 1950's come back into fashion?

They have in the form of monkeytype wpm scores. I think these are generally based on an a-z lower case test, so I doubt it's a realistic indicator of someone's actual typing speed.

I can't imagine people code at an equivalent to 120wpm.

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