Top all-time · #3190
Josh Davis
Personal blog · joshldavis.comprogrammingscience
Josh Davis's personal blog at joshldavis.com covers programming and science. Since 2013, 24 different Hacker News readers have linked it 34 times, most often “The Path to Dijkstra’s Handwriting (2013)”. The last post was in 2018, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (12) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Josh Davis's blog for its posts on trying to write like Edsger Dijkstra, including the path to Dijkstra's handwriting and the idea of turning handwriting into a font. Comments only point to these posts.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 12 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Writings by Josh Davis, a software engineer based out of Seattle, on programming, science, and engineering.
Most-linked posts?
- The Path to Dijkstra’s Handwriting (2013)9 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2018-06-21
- Vim Tab Madness. Buffers vs. Tabs5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2014-10-13
- The Path to Dijkstra's Handwriting2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-05-21
- Oh-my-zsh is the Disease and Antigen is the Vaccine2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-07-28
What Hacker News says?
Summarizing some discussion here before: practice, and with a goal or example. Most notably - https://joshldavis.com/2013/05/20/the-path-to-dijkstras-hand... Discussed - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20791049
Comment linking /2013/05/20/the-path-to-dijkstras-handwriting/
on “As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a notebook”Submitted The Path to Dijkstra’s Handwriting (2013) as a story · 167 points
HN discussionThese are all good tips but most of the anti-patterns seem to skew towards beginners ( e.g. don't use the arrow keys, don't navigate in insert mode). One that I think is more common among intermediate, and even advanced, users is the misuse of tabs, windows, and buffers. A lot of people have a tendency to think of each tab as corresponding to a single open file. This is very understandable because it closely matches…
Comment linking /2014/04/05/vim-tab-madness-buffers-vs-tabs/
on “Vim Anti-Patterns”Submitted Put Yourself Out There: The Myth of the Genius Programmer as a story · 145 points
HN discussionFirstly, this isn't about me. I'm not the one who started this project, I don't have any stake in maintaining it, and I'm definitely not the only one to notice that the tickets are piling up. Frankly I thought it was widely known.[0][1] As it happens, I am probably in the running for worst/poorest developer on HN, and that's using the term "developer" broadly. To the degree that I have any resources that aren't bein…
Comment linking /2014/07/26/oh-my-zsh-is-a-disease-antigen-is-the-vaccine/
on “D'Oh My Zsh – How I unexpectedly built a monster of an open source project”Submitted Phil Zimmermann Quote on Government and Crypto (1996) as a story · 11 points
HN discussionOh jesus buddy, there's always one of you. If you care that much go find a mod to ban me (or are you a mod? I don't care), and I'll go find some other corner of the internet. You're welcome to slowly turn this place into a dustbowl by bitching at people for having conversations if that's what you enjoy doing in a community, don't let me stop you, but let me remind you of this: You weren't involved in the conversatio…
Comment linking /2014/10/03/heavy-handed-hackernews/
on “Amazon Free Shipping minimum is now $49”Submitted The Similarity of the World in Gattaca and the World Elon Musk Envisions as a story · 7 points
HN discussionIn the US we have a society where people walk around wearing suffering like a badge of honor. We worship work. I was brought up in a Midwest culture where "work ethic" was everything - if you worked hard enough, you would be successful. In contrast, if you were not successful it was because you didn't work hard enough. Then, I got into tech. I hear "war stories" from people about sleeping under their desk at their c…
Comment linking /2013/08/31/never-save-anything-for-the-swim-back/
on “Burnout Is Real”Submitted Heavy-handed HackerNews: This Title Should Differ from the Article as a story · 6 points
HN discussionI remembered someone once posted about Dijkstra's handwriting being incredible, so I tracked down the link for you, see the third image on that page for an example: https://joshldavis.com/2013/05/20/the-path-to-dijkstras-hand... The whole blog is about trying to write like Dijkstra.
Comment linking /2013/05/20/the-path-to-dijkstras-handwriting/
on “The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies”Submitted Amazon’s Culture of Discomfort as a story · 5 points
HN discussionScrew my handwriting. Go straight to EWD font and skip the intermediate steps. https://joshldavis.com/2013/05/20/the-path-to-dijkstras-hand...
Comment linking /2013/05/20/the-path-to-dijkstras-handwriting/
on “Show HN: Create font in your own handwriting style”Submitted The Path to Dijkstra’s Handwriting as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI know you said that you like maintaining a super minimal .vimrc, but fwiw there's a couple of plugins that really helped me with the workflow issues you mentioned struggling with: > Jumping around in longer texts: I know the basics, like searching (/), jumping to a matching bracket (%) or jumping to specific lines (for line 10, type 10G), but I still could use symbols more often for navigation. vim-sneak is real ni…
Comment linking /2014/04/05/vim-tab-madness-buffers-vs-tabs/
on “Ten Years of Vim”Submitted An Email from Edsger Dijkstra’s Son as a story · 3 points
HN discussionHas anyone managed to assemble a workable font based on Dijkstra's handwriting? Last I checked, there we few attempts but they were all missing characters. http://joshldavis.com/2013/05/20/the-path-to-dijkstras-handw...
Comment linking /2013/05/20/the-path-to-dijkstras-handwriting/
on “Turn your handwriting into a font”Submitted Iowa, Pigs, Microchips, and Founding Silicon Valley as a story · 3 points
HN discussion"they argued about whether it’s a big enough site to include" Wow. That sounds ridiculous. But if you try and track that site ... From https://twofactorauth.org/ "Made with tea by Josh Davis..." Then you follow this "Josh Davis" link to https://joshldavis.com/ ... and you find this: " Splootysplotty: Open Source Alternative to Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky" " 'Twas haplex and kuffle problem. Projects Dalo and Jotts vo…
Comment linking /
on “2FA Notifier – Know when a site supports 2FA”Submitted Vim Tab Madness. Buffers vs. Tabs as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSomebody should upgrade it to support a nice high resolution Dijkstra handwriting font! https://joshldavis.com/2013/05/20/the-path-to-dijkstras-hand...
Comment linking /2013/05/20/the-path-to-dijkstras-handwriting/
on “Dissecting a Shader Quine”Submitted Oh-my-zsh is the Disease and Antigen is the Vaccine as a story · 3 points
HN discussionTangentially, E. W. Dijkstra's handwriting is the cleanest I've seen, and I had the same feeling you did when I came across his papers in his archive. I later came across this blog post: https://joshldavis.com/2013/05/20/the-path-to-dijkstras-hand... , which prompted me to improve my own handwriting as well.
Comment linking /2013/05/20/the-path-to-dijkstras-handwriting/
on “Coding My Handwriting”Submitted Program to an interface, not an implementation. With Rust example code. as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Vim Tab Madness. Buffers vs. Tabs (2014) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Path to Dijkstra’s Handwriting as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Vim Tab Madness. Buffers vs. Tabs as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Rise of the Gang of Four with Rust [2013] as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Vim Tab Madness. Buffers vs. Tabs as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Path to Dijkstra's Handwriting as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
