Hacker News Reader

When I can fit my program on the screen, I don't make any mistakes.

I think this is true of most programmers.

While "hello world" type programs tend to be the pedagogical example, kOS demonstrates that the complexity of such a one-screen low-defect program is much higher than people previously thought.

View on HN

Not being facetious, but does this extend to using larger screens, multiple screens, wider columns or multiple windows, and smaller fonts? Or was one screen just meant as an estimate for 200 lines or so?

I think it is the act of scrolling or window-switching or head-moving that is the cost. To that end, I find using a MBA screen to be perfectly adequate for programming because it fits entirely in my field of view.

My screen is about 55 lines tall and maybe 170 characters wide. I sometimes shrink or increase the font slightly to make programs fit on screen.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com