🚀 go-pugleaf

     This discussion is quite interesting, although I feel that I am off the
"norm" presented by previous posters.  Personally, I can type much faster
than I can write, and I am not a touch typist.  I am a four-finger/two-thumb
typist, and sometimes achieve great bursts of speed, as long as I can look
at the keyboard while I type.  This makes me very fast when I am typing
thoughts, and horribly slow when I am retyping something else.

     I would like to see a computer which could read my handwriting, since a
lot of the time, *I* can't read my writing.  My handwriting was never good,
and since I find myself typing almost everything I need to write, my hand-
writing has atrophied to the point where I have a hard time remembering certain
little used cursive letters, like capital Q.  If I want to be clear, I print,
which is horribly slow and tedious.  When I write out greeting cards and the
like, I usually have hand cramps after about 15 lines of text.  Now that I
can reach my parents via e-mail, I don't even need to write letters.

     My use of computers has evolved along similar lines.  When I started out,
I would write out programs in longhand, and then type them in (on an ASR-33
teletype at 110 baud!).  After a while, I would just note down psuedo-code,
and convert to real code as I typed.  Finally, I just started composing code
on the fly.  I haven't put a line of code on paper in about six years.
I compose all my code using top-down decomposition, usually after thinking
about the problem until it just "becomes obvious".

     Frankly, anything with only a written interface would be completely
unacceptable to me.  I can think of no other single thing which would 
hamper my productivity more than having to write, rather than type.

     This is on a tangent, but my discussion about my programming techniques
started me thinking (always dangerous :-).  When I am faced with a problem
to be solved (requiring some programmed solution) I sort of think about it
initially, and then don't think about it.  Sometime later, maybe days, maybe
weeks, the full solution just pops into my head, and I sit down and type all
the code in.  If I try to force the issue, and type in the code before I
am ready, the results are usually disastrous.  If I am patient, I usually
wind up with an elegant solution.

     This often works in a heirarchical manner, too.  Often, the initial
solution is the top level structure of the program, particularly in the
case of complex problems.  After I get that stubbed out, the lower level
details start filling in, in a similar manner.  Even big things I have written,
with many thousands of lines of code, all formed this way.

     I suppose my question is, is this a common problem solving method?  Do
others have this approach?  I don't know if it is the traditional "Aha!"
method, since I can "queue" jobs up in my mind and just have them get solved
in some order at a later date.  Any thoughts on this?  Am I totally weird?
What sort of interface design criteria might be applicable to take advantage
of this sort of mindset?

Chuck Musciano				ARPA  : chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com
Harris Corporation 			Usenet: ...!uunet!x102a!trantor!chuck
PO Box 37, MS 3A/1912			AT&T  : (407) 727-6131
Melbourne, FL 32902			FAX   : (407) 727-{5118,5227,4004}

Oh yeah, laugh now!  But when the millions start pouring in, I'll be the one
at Burger King, sucking down Whoppers at my own private table! --Al Bundy