Show HN: I made a site where you practice typing by retyping entire novels

"[Hunter S. Thompson] chose, rather than writing original copy, to re-type books like The Great Gatsby and a lot of Norman Mailer, the Naked and the Dead, a lot of Hemingway. He would sit down there on an old type-writer and type every word of those books and he said, 'I just wanna feel what it feels like to write that we'll.'" HST: "If you type out somebody's work, you learn a lot about it. Amazingly it's like music. And from typing out parts of Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald - these were writers that were very big in my life and the lives of the people around me - so yea I wanted to learn from the best I guess." http://brianjohnspencer.blogspot.com/2014/06/hunter-s-thomps...

• dmix · 2178 days ago

  This was explained by HST in one of his letters, which was collected in the excellent three book collection of letters he sent and received to his friends. Including many famous writers. HST was always great in small rapid outputs of writing, which is captured well in his letters (similar to how his collection of articles are his most popular works, but these deserve a similar look). He obviously had some sort of ADD and later on combined with a long series of drug/alcohol addictions, so it makes sense he was better in short blurbs. Even his most famous novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas has a feeling of multiple long spurts on a typewriter. Which is always how he wrote. Always also at the very last minute of the magazine due date and/or because he was running out of money and needed the next advance. I believe this is common in creative fields. Long periods of meh and spurts of greatness. Anyway the book series is here, usually called the Gonzo Letters: https://www.goodreads.com/series/64386-the-fear-and-loathing... Only the 2nd one has a Wikipedia page for some reason (the 3rd one came out in 2014) but the first one (The Proud Highway: The Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman 1955–1967) as a young writer who is often desperate and broke was most interesting IMO, even though his life or writing wasn’t yet as it would become famous for (but definitely still as wild) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Loathing_in_America

  • splatcollision · 2178 days ago

    Still waiting for the third volume to actually drop? Can't find it available and all the amazon reviews are 5-star complaints about the delayed release :(

    • dmix · 2178 days ago

      Oh weird, I wasn't aware they still haven't release it yet. It's been 19 years since the 2nd volume. That's really odd. They didn't fulfill the preorders in 2014 either https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684873176/ I thought making it through the other two 700+ pages of letters was quite an achievement. I was planning to read the 3rd one at some later point in my life. I guess I'll still have to wait ... the title was really great too "The Mutineer: Rants, Ravings, and Missives from the Mountaintop, 1977-2005".

  • mylons · 2178 days ago

    I find this to be true with computer programming/work for me. I’m productive in bursts.

    • grugagag · 2178 days ago

      I'm productive in bursts as well. I have the feeling that in between bursts things are still computing in the background so it looks like you're not doing anything but the brain is still churning. This type of bursty productivity is very hard to account for in a corporate environment where one's productivity should be accounted for on a daily basis and laid down in cookie cutter time slots. I often wonder whether I have ADHD since I can hyperfocus when Im in a productive burst. Unfortunately/fortunately I don't tick other boxes so I'm in a limbo with the diagnosis

      • smabie · 2178 days ago

        If you goal is to get prescribed stimulants (amphetamines, ritalin, or modafinil), it's pretty trivial to get diagnosed and prescribed. Psychs hand that stuff out like candy

        • grugagag · 2178 days ago

          I tried some and I don't like their effect. Yes, I can sit down through boring stuff but the intrinsic interest becomes dries up while on these. It is true that I didn't try this treatment for extended periods of time but I may if I absolutely need to (but only temporarily, up to a couple of months or so). For now I try to enjoy my average productivity which comes in bursts and that is okay

        • toyg · 2178 days ago

          I don't know how it is in the US, but I'm scared of even trying to be diagnosed in the UK. Once you're in the system as somebody with psych problems, a lot of things can get harder. I fear the risk is not worth satiating the curiosity.

          • cbsks · 2178 days ago

            I guess that’s one benefit of the US’s terrible health system? There isn’t a single “system” so even if one doctor diagnoses you with something, a different doctor in a different office won’t have any idea about it unless you volunteer the information.

            • IggleSniggle · 2178 days ago

              Just FYI, this is increasingly less true in many respects...although the opposite problem also occurs, where there is so much noise that the important pieces for any given visit do not surface for the doc.

            • rhyswallace · 2178 days ago

              Wait the US doesn't have a centralized/shared medical records service? I never realized that! In France, I suppose like in the UK, we have our "Carte Vitale" ("Life/Vital Card"), which is scanned each visit to a doctor, hospital, pharmacy, etc, each updating your personal database nationally. It also serves as a link to your insurance provider in each location, so reimbursements are automatic.

              • smabie · 2178 days ago

                Nope, doctors can't see you medical information unless you give it to them.

                • xenospn · 2178 days ago

                  Usually by fax.

                  • vikramkr · 2178 days ago

                    Or by handing them a CD

                • Thorrez · 2178 days ago

                  There must be some sort of system that shares info some of the time. I signed up for a new doctor (haven't even visited yet) across the country from my old one, and the website of my new doctor's medical center already knows all my historical vaccine dates. I didn't give any of that information over, just my name, birthday, and SSN.

        • cbsks · 2178 days ago

          I went to my general practitioner (in the US) and got a Ritalin prescription just by saying “I have a hard time concentrating at work”. That’s it. No referral to a specialist or anything. It is a wonder drug for me. I used to spend a majority of my time farting around on the internet at work, then working long hours and scrambling to get my work done before the deadline. Now I am able to be productive more consistently and don’t miss nearly as many deadlines.

          • andruby · 2178 days ago

            Are you a “different” person while on Ritalin? My wife’s a teacher and these days a lot of kids are on Ritalin. She says the kids that “need” it are more manageable when taking it, but it does change their personality. They are less... “lively”.

            • cbsks · 2178 days ago

              That's an interesting question. I don't think so? If I was, would I notice? Nobody has ever mentioned it to me. I only take it at work so I am pretty much just sitting in front of a computer when I'm on it.

            • Jarwain · 2178 days ago

              I can say I felt more like a zombie or emotionally dampened when I was taking Concerta (which is similar to Ritalin just with a longer duration and smoother effect curve).

            • munk-a · 2178 days ago

              I absolutely feel like a different person. I started on it youngish in my preteen years and have spent a lot of time reflecting on the question of what being a different person means and my conclusion is basically: I like this person more, off the meds I'm quicker to anger which burns bridges and my concentration is absolute trash making me unable to pursue things I want to do. This person's life is better so I choose it over the other one.

              • grugagag · 2178 days ago

                Do you think you could alter all your bad habits and slowly taper off so you no longer need to depend on the meds? Or do you think over time they might loose their effectiveness?

                • munk-a · 2177 days ago

                  I don't believe so - I also struggled a bit with this question especially in my twenties - "other people are able to overcome it and focus so maybe if I put enough effort in I'd be able to do the same?" As I've aged into working in the job market it's less of a concern to me, I have strengths and weaknesses, even with meds my attention to detail and patience with the minutia is lacking. I'm concerned (especially while I was in the states) that shifting off of my meds could be a tailspin and end up being self-destructive - like hard drug use it's something that the person inside of the bubble is not able to properly judge and decisions and actions that may be clearly poor to an outside observer may be viewed positively internally. The early days of uni for me were the first time I was actually responsible for ensuring that my med supply continued and that's a big part of why I'm hesitant to try tapering off of it - it was incredibly difficult for me to find the motivation or the energy to actually fill up my prescription if I had let it lapse and the days (up to eight in the worst case) I was without meds I completely dropped the ball on schoolwork and other responsibilities. So I'm worried about tapering off since I'm concerned I might not be able to stop tapering or I would burn a lot of goodwill/financial security recovering from the tapering off if it went poorly. That all said, ADD is different for everyone with different levels of apathy and concentration, I wouldn't be surprised if mine was a particularly potent variety beyond what most folks deal with but, with meds, I'm able to cope and have a nice life. The philosophical questions about personhood don't really ever stop nagging away at you in the background, but I'm happy with things as they are - sorry if this was a bit of a downer response ;P

            • vagrantJin · 2177 days ago

              I certainly hope you are joking. The statement sends a chill down the spine. When did people forget that children are, indeed, quite human?

              • kortilla · 2177 days ago

                Not a joke. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/data.html

      • nicky0 · 2178 days ago

        I think it's quite common among programmers. At least, I have always been that way too. I can go week of unproductive time then suddenly several days of immersion.

        • grugagag · 2178 days ago

          That's the reason I avoid taking the Ritaline/Amphetamines route. I think it is normal and i wouldn't want to be a productivity machine anyway

          • entropicdrifter · 2178 days ago

            They're also bad for your heart and can really mess up your diet if you're not careful

          • sildur · 2177 days ago

            “The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long”

      • thaumasiotes · 2178 days ago

        > I have the feeling that in between bursts things are still computing in the background so it looks like you're not doing anything but the brain is still churning. This is something that's bothered me since my university put out a survey asking about time spent on homework. Suppose the following things happen: 1. A math class assigns a proof. 2. I look at the problem, fiddle around with it for 20 minutes, and get nowhere. 3. I play Final Fantasy for 6 days. 4. I go back to the problem. In 40 minutes, I have the proof worked out. How long did I spend on the proof? What if the counterfactual was 1. Proof gets assigned. 2. Look at it, do nothing. 3. The day after, sit down and spend 3 hours proving it. How long did I spend then? Are the two scenarios... different?

        • mandelbrotwurst · 2178 days ago

          I think about this in terms of how much clock time has elapsed versus how much working time I spend on something - i.e. I am very often able to trade an increase in clock time elapsed (taking more breaks) for a decrease in working time, and vice versa. As with most things, this comes with diminishing returns as you push toward minimizing one over the other. Sometimes, even negative returns, e.g. because of increased context switching costs, or confusion and general malaise caused by staring at something for too long.

          • thaumasiotes · 2178 days ago

            > I am very often able to trade an increase in clock time elapsed (taking more breaks) for a decrease in working time, and vice versa. But this is the problem with a survey of "how long does the homework take?". The question isn't well defined. The answer doesn't exist.

      • sjg007 · 2177 days ago

        ADHD is defined based on symptoms in childhood. A lot of adults discover they have ADHD when they take their kids in for testing/assessment due to school issues and the kids are diagnosed. The drugs stimulate your executive function which helps you concentrate.

  • Swizec · 2178 days ago

    You need the long periods of meh for the bursts of great to happen. The meh puts in the ground work for the good.

  • wenc · 2178 days ago

    Inspiration is lumpy, so I've adopted the Fieldstone method [1] (articulated by the prolific Gerald Weinberg). In my implementation, I collect little thoughts (shower thoughts, observations, good turns of phrases, etc.) into a single continuous Google Doc. I revisit it often and guided by my current emotions and interests, try to coalesce like-ideas and rewrite them into a large idea. Some ideas eventually snowball into something substantial. Unless you're a columnist with a deadline (with innate talent driven by adrenalin), everybody knows how difficult it is to write an essay from scratch. However if you've been collecting ideas, and have been developing and coalescing and rewriting them over and over again (often for years), the essay almost writes itself. [1] https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2016/05/04/weinberg-on-writing...

    • badtuple · 2178 days ago

      I have a similar workflow, but for a different reason. BJ Novak described in an interview how the ideation part of the process is totally different from the productive part. This spoke to me, and I've been approaching them separately ever since. When they get too inflated I either get writers/coders block or absolute spaghetti, so it's easy to see when I've grown less disciplined with the division.

      • selestify · 2178 days ago

        Do you remember where BJ Novak gave that interview? I’m curious to see what he had to say about it

• taneq · 2178 days ago

  Sounds a little bit like the process of training a GPT-3 style network...

  • derwiki · 2178 days ago

    He required copious amounts of Wild Turkey and cigarettes though

    • moron4hire · 2178 days ago

      Dunhills, if I remember correctly.

• dfan · 2178 days ago

  It was very common in the past for composers to learn the craft by copying out the musical scores of the masters. This is also why I always type in all the examples from programming books instead of cutting and pasting.

• daviddaviddavid · 2178 days ago

  The analogy with music is interesting. Superficially, the musical activity which looks most like typing is simply playing an instrument. And sight-reading does feel a bit like typing. But I wonder if he's talking about transcription in that quote. One can sight read complex music without learning anything about it if they happen to just be a good sight reader. But transcription really does force you to pay attention to structural nuances you otherwise wouldn't get just by listening to a piece of music.

  • 082349872349872 · 2178 days ago

    I think the idea is that typing is much slower than reading, so one has forced downtime in which it is possible to consider structure and choices[1]. Compare https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23528483 Qui scribit, bis legit (Maybe your sight-reading is quicker than your playing? Mine is nearly the opposite.) [1] Quintilian even finds value in exercising criticism of popular examples (because of course, even way back in the first century, The Old Days Were Better. Elsewhere Quintilian complains that people in his day only repeat a Cliff's Notes knowledge of greek authors instead of reading the originals in full.) > "It will even at times be of value to read speeches which are corrupt and faulty in style, but still meet with general admiration thanks to the perversity of modern tastes, and to point out how many expressions in them are inappropriate, obscure, high-flown, grovelling, mean, extravagant or effeminate, although they are not merely praised by the majority of critics, but, worse still, praised just because they are bad." http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%... and makes a good point about a pedagogical advantage to criticism of works other than one's own: > "I will venture to say that this particular form of exercise, if diligently pursued, will teach learners more than all the text-books of all the rhetoricians: these are no doubt of very considerable use, but being somewhat general in their scope, it is quite impossible for them to deal with all the special cases that are of almost daily occurrence. The art of war will provide a parallel: it is no doubt based on certain general principles, but it will none the less be far more useful to know the methods employed, whether wisely or the reverse, by individual generals under varying circumstances and conditions of time and place. For there are no subjects in which, as a rule, practice is not more valuable than precept. Is a teacher to declaim to provide a model for his audience, and will not more profit be derived from the reading of Cicero or Demosthenes? Is a pupil to be publicly corrected if he makes a mistake in declaiming, and will it not be more useful, and more agreeable too, to correct some actual speech? For everyone has a preference for hearing the faults of others censured rather than his own." http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%... Im demang tili peroba pash im demang finyish vide fit.

• codeisawesome · 2178 days ago

  Would be super interesting if this holds true for 'copying out' code as well... it's all the edge case handling that can get boring to re-type out without context / comments...

  • tsumnia · 2178 days ago

    It does hold out! Here is a link to my research on retyping code [1]. To summarize my findings, students that regularly completed typing exercises earned higher course grades and submitted less erroneous code. [1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3373165.3373177

    • codeisawesome · 2178 days ago

      Interesting - thanks!

• m463 · 2178 days ago

  Reminds me ... in a computer nerd way ... of "python the hard way" (which used to be very open/free, now it has changed) You would not read or download the lessons. You typed all the python in word by word. I think it really helped the learning process to type it out. It was slow and deliberate, even to mistyping and making mistakes (and fix them).

  • kyuudou · 2178 days ago

    I still have a directory tree around from doing those lessons. Given how picky python is about indent spacing, I agreed somewhat with the philosophy behind those lessons, particular for people new to coding.

  • tsumnia · 2178 days ago

    Yup! To learn music, cooking, martial arts, etc., you start by following someone else to build the muscle memory on doing the skill. As a follow-up, my own research [1] on retyping code showed students earned higher grades and submitted less erroneous code. Replicating technical skills is a common practice technique that seems to have been "lost" in current CS education. [1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3373165.3373177

• dredmorbius · 2178 days ago

  Agreed that you learn much about a work (I've retyped a few articles and books simply to get a usable copy). But copying is not the same as creating --- you'll see the finished product, and may intuit hints as to how it was created, but what you're not getting is the creation process itself : research (especially for nonfiction), structure, plotting and character (for fiction), editing, rewriting, restructuring and reordering content, additions and deletions. Writing (and reading) short disconnected bits is fairly easy: nothing interrelates strongly, composition is simple and forgiving. Longer works are complex : they have structure, arcs, need to retain interest, jumps and connections need to be plausible, the whole be consistent (unless inconsistency is used for effect), etc., etc. And you don't get this knowledge simply by copying out great works. I see a similar failure-to-grasp in some proposals for hypertext or advanced publishing systems. Reading is inherently serial , in that we follow lines of text on a page. Interactivity --- usually defined by the ability to skip between previously-written segments --- just offers more serial paths . The value of hypertext and related tools may be far more on the writing process, where vastly more sources can be referenced and cited with greater ease. Some might be incorporated into the final work, but an excess of interconnections and quotations is itself distracting. I see this as a particular blindness of Ted Nelson's Xanadu project, despite many fascinating and original elements to it.

  • kbenson · 2178 days ago

    > And you don't get this knowledge simply by copying out great works. Well, I think the point is that you may get knowledge, but nt necessarily of the type that lets you make another great work. Doing is an act of learning, whether very small amounts of learning as you do something you've done countless times before, or possibly large amounts of learning as you try something absolutely new, or learning about yourself and what you like, what you don't, what you feel is worthwhile even if you dislike it, etc. Ultimately, there's something to be learned from everything. Even the book you read that purports to teach you someething that you find worthless for the task should be illustrative of either what things are not useful for you in learning that, or how to structure something in such a way that it's hard for you to take away good meaning from it, and ultimately, some hints about what to look for next time that doesn't have the same problems. So, copying isn't necessarily creating , but it should be an act of learning , and learning should hopefully help in creating, even if it's something totally divorced from what you were originally copying.

    • dredmorbius · 2177 days ago

      I think we're mostly in agreement: copying is useful . It is not complete . And any learning process which focuses largely on output or product rather than process , shares this deficiency. To your other point, serendipitous discovery is very much a thing. I find that it is helped by haviing a conceptual structure or mental model which allows slotting new concepts from unrelated areas into a larger whole. Recent example: moralising pathologies fallacy, in wildfire: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24684652 https://joindiaspora.com/posts/b4bbef90e8c60138513c002590d8e...

      • kbenson · 2177 days ago

        We are, I wasn't intending to rebut you, but instead to expand on a a specific aspect you touched upon and tie it back to the context of the discussion in a slightly different way. > I find that it is helped by haviing a conceptual structure or mental model which allows slotting new concepts from unrelated areas into a larger whole. I very much agree. In fact, I think discovering new mental models is one of the best ways to come to new understandings about things. My entire stance on topics has changed in the past when I found on revisiting it I now had a mental model that I thought applied better/more closely than the ones available previously, and looking at the topic from that new perspective yielded a different opinion.

        • dredmorbius · 2177 days ago

          Quite. My entire stance on topics has changed in the past... I keep seeing this, revisiting topics, questions, books, etc., and immediately seeing some now-obvious relationship or aspect. It's an argument for returning, at least occasionally, to familiar ground. Though it generally helps to have journeyed elsewhere. Also for both extensive and intensive reading. Domains which focus exclusively, or even only extensively, on intensive analysis and exploration, seem more prone to going off the rails or ending up at dead ends.

• whymauri · 2178 days ago

  This is how I first learned technical writing. Found a few exceptional papers in my field, sat down, and literally just typed them out. The downside is that it's easy to 'overfit' and lose your own voice.

• atulatul · 2178 days ago

  Here is a Stephen Fry Oxford union video where he talks about trying to write from memory a scene from The Great Gatsby: https://youtu.be/oSdLfPas8dw?t=546

• ponker · 2178 days ago

  Important to note that it was on a manual typewriter. The key is making it slow, so you can observe how the author is doing what they're doing. Reading is very fast ... typing on a manual typewriter is slow enough to give you time to observe.

• yesenadam · 2178 days ago

  > Amazingly it's like music. Maybe he means like jazz musicians? (I'm one.) Every musician I know has transcribed solos. You pick some solo you like but have no idea what they're doing, transcribe it, and learn to play it along with them. Bits and pieces perhaps will rub off in your own playing. You don't want to sound like them, but it's good to be able to if you want – and for that you need to absorb their style, so your body can just go into that mode, without having to think about it. I'm a piano player but have also transcribed sax, trumpet, bass lines, gospel songs, reggae, funk, .. even taps dripping, babies crying etc etc.

  • mantap · 2178 days ago

    In language learning there's something called the "Input hypothesis" which states that we learn languages primarily by reading and listening (consuming input), rather than production of language. The reasoning is that when you produce output you are by definition producing something at your own level, so little improvement occurs. When you consume input (and transcription is a great way to do it), you are consuming input of a native speaker - or in the case of Jazz, a master player - which is at a much higher quality level than what you could produce yourself. So input drives the learning process. The exception is for motor e.g. pronunciation or playing technique, which do benefit from practice.

  • mikorym · 2178 days ago

    > transcribe solos Do you mean learn other people's songs from sheet music, or do you mean write down, from the sheet music, the same song again on blank sheet paper? Edit: Or do you mean write down the song via hearing?

    • gnat · 2178 days ago

      Transcription is the latter -- create a paper version from a recording. Same as medical transcription is typing up dictated notes.

    • SirLuxuryYacht · 2178 days ago

      Ear training gives you this skill e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhyyjRcrn84

    • yesenadam · 2178 days ago

      Transcribing solos means, you listen to the music and write it down, bit by bit. Someone's solo = their improvisation. If it's simple/slow enough that it's quicker to learn it by playing along, just do that. (I've never needed to transcribe Louis Armstrong, but have just learnt by playing along with him.) If it's very fast (e.g. Bird, Coltrane) you might need to slow it down to transcribe it. You learn how to transcribe it by doing it, it also trains your ear in recognizing melodies, harmonies, chord voicings, rhythms, forms. You can buy books of solo transcriptions, but I've found that they're absolutely useless. (and always inaccurate) Maybe it's like reading a book vs. typing it out?! hehe. At first glance I couldn't see how typing a book out would help anything, I mean, it's already written down for you! The main element of learning by working out bit by bit what it is, isn't there. But there are elements in common - it's a little like playing a solo you've written down, and you would absorb the word patterns if you typed a whole novel I guess.

  • slingnow · 2178 days ago

    Why would you take his general statement (musicians) and turn it into such a specific example (_jazz_ musicians)? You make it sound like jazz musicians are the only ones who would transcribe music to study it.

    • samatman · 2178 days ago

      It's a safe bet that it's more common among jazz musicians than among classical musicians, who have access to the sheet music for practically everything they play. Probably also more common among jazz musicians than rock musicians, who don't emphasize sheet music and music theory as much ( as much , it's certainly more prevalent than outsiders would naively think). And of course, all these categories blur together. There wasn't any reason to take his post and interpret it in absolutist terms.

  • aasasd · 2178 days ago

    In regard to typing out novels, HST went on to say that Faulkner (iirc) doesn't have an out-of-place word anywhere. So yeah, he was speaking about the style: putting down words in an interesting order.

    • tkgally · 2178 days ago

      I once read an interview with a Japanese novelist in which she said that, each day, she would copy a page or two by hand from a story by an author whose style she admired. She said that it helped her focus on sentence structure, word choice, and other details and that her own writing improved as a result. One of the authors she mentioned was Yasunari Kawabata, who is widely admired for his writing style in Japanese. I believe she also said that she got the idea to do this from the tradition of shakyō (写経), the copying of Buddhist sutras by hand [0]. I have never retyped literary texts myself, but I used to teach English literature classes to Japanese students in which I would read the texts aloud in class before we discussed them. I found that, over the years, that experience heightened my awareness of writing style and maybe improved my own writing as well. I can see how retyping might have a similar benefit. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutra_copying

  • bashwizard · 2178 days ago

    I don't think it matters what kind of musician. I'm mainly a electronic music producer and I've done exactly the same thing; recreate entire tracks from scratch from some of my favorite artists. It has helped me a lot in understanding every part of music production. Everything from designing every individual instrument to arrangement and finally mastering.

    • kotelnikov · 2176 days ago

      Hey! How do you do that? It is my dream to be able to make something as great as Worakis, Rone, N'to do. What tools do you use to recreate tracks?

      • bashwizard · 2172 days ago

        All you need is a DAW and then import the song/track you want to recreate and you're basically good to go. Been prepared that it will sound absolutely terrible for the first few months or even years.

• sndwnm · 2178 days ago

  For this to actually work you probably need to put the original text away, try to recreate a piece of it from memory, and repeat until you get it close to right. AKA the Benjamin Franklin method. Just like anyone can trace or copy a picture drawn by a master, copying text won't grant understanding. What actually matters for a creator is the ability to produce content from higher level ideas, eg from whatever mental representation you used to hold the writing or drawing in memory.

• junon · 2178 days ago

  > Amazingly it's like music Programming is the exact same way. If ever I'm in doubt of someone's design and I have an inkling of respect for them, I'll try to design the code from scratch in my head, or sometimes even redesign a toy version myself. This usually surfaces some weird property of the problem that explains their code. You can also go through their thought processes and see exactly how they made decisions along the way. I'd argue you can even infer philosophical viewpoints in some cases, too - all without actually communicating with the author. I love that about humans. One of the things I really admire about us.

• mistersquid · 2177 days ago

  This is myth and it is wrong. Writing does not proceed letter by letter, word by word, paragraph by paragraph. Earlier writing is deleted, moved, revised. Passages are moved earlier or later. Key passages are rewritten. Etc. Typing character-by-character an entire novel will likely teach you little about the act of literary creation.

  • tweetle_beetle · 2177 days ago

    I'm not sure the sources in the parent comment are making the argument that you are countering. Neither suggests to me the claim that using a touch typing website, in our case, replicates the complete process of writing literature. The second quote in the parent comment is "If you type out somebody's work, you learn a lot about it." - the focus is learning more about the finished product. And I read "I just wanna feel what it feels like to write that well." as about experiencing the quality of the finished product.

Love the idea! What about something like this but for software? Could be an interesting way to learn a new language/codebase

• Octouroboros · 2178 days ago

  Hello -- I'm glad you like it! I believe typing.io has something like this, but for programming languages.

• sasaf5 · 2178 days ago

  Also works for human languages!

• shazeubaa · 2178 days ago

  That’s exactly how I learned to code. Retyping code from Byte magazine, Dr. Dobbs, and Apple Incider.

  • yitchelle · 2178 days ago

    Second that method. It also increased my debugging skills as well when I entered one or more typos along the way.

• whoomp12342 · 2178 days ago

  yes, instead of learning dart, you will be tasked with writing microsoft excel in dart

• agustif · 2178 days ago

  https://typing.io/ This is pretty similar I think, used in the past. Can use your own code with the paying/subscription

• perl4ever · 2178 days ago

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compute ! (It says they quit doing the type-in programs after 1988)

• Cthulhu_ · 2177 days ago

  Or to improve your code writing speed and syntax familiarity; it would have to be integrated into your editor/IDE and tooling though, since I find that in some cases it helps a bit with productivity (autocomplete, auto-close, auto-format, etc).

Nice, this is very enjoyable. Will definitely pick this up again, after I get a new ergonomic keyboard. Would be nice to also type code from famous open-source projects, to practice hitting all the parens etc.

• Octouroboros · 2178 days ago

  Hey that's a really good idea! I'll add it to the ever-growing to-do list. Thanks!

  • vianneychevalie · 2178 days ago

    One of the options I would suggest is to add the possibility to type the end bracket or parenthesis before the included code,by doing some kind of conditional forward lookup

• millerm · 2178 days ago

  Though, I would add that just copying code verbatim doesn't really follow how people write code. It's not usually, or ever have I seen it, written in a linear fashion. Cursors jump up and down, you open a brace/bracket/parenthesis and almost always immediately close it, then proceed to insert code. Many languages are written from the inside out (like swizzling some lisp code together). Most people don't think "Ok, this is the code I am going to write" and proceed to type it in "page order" (I can't think of another phrase, it's early). Type hints, docs, access modifiers, can be added after the fact. Then constant refactoring occurs as things are broken out into their atomic parts. Then what you are left with is the result. It's akin to tracing a sculpture, there was a lot of work that went on before that sculpture became something beautiful. That's all. This is still a neat product. I typed a page from 1984. Makes me sad that I can't seem finish my own book or screenplays.

  • anoopelias · 2178 days ago

    Learning to type open-source code could still add value since code will have larger frequency of '(', ')', '=', '_'.... I tried learning typing typical paragraphs, got pretty fluent with it, but as soon as I tried the same with code, got stuck with those.

• rgoulter · 2178 days ago

  typing.io is one option for this.

Sometimes when I really had to memorize things including nitpicky semantics I would retype them into diff. It works reasonably well and is a moderately enjoyable (if you're in the mood) mindless task kind of like driving.

It reminds me of "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" by Borges [1]. If I re-write Ulysses from scratch, line by line, is it still the same book? Is mine better than Joyce's? 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Menard,_Author_of_the_Q...

• patrickscoleman · 2178 days ago

  I love Borges, thanks for posting this! His fiction always generates so many questions for me. Is the real writer the reader who constructs the story from the bare framework the author provides? And then is it possible for anyone to actually read the same novel?

I've practiced typing by retyping webnovels. I made it about halfway through Worm.

• jetbooster · 2178 days ago

  For context, Worm is about 3 times as long as War and Peace.

The idea is great and the execution if flawless. Great job and thanks!

After recently discovering I type with 5 fingers on the left and with just 1 on my right, this is a great way to improve! Started working on Typing Academy but the randomness of the characters can be off-putting at times. Example: “jkk asa dfg hjk ;ah”

Amazing idea, really I'm impressed. This intrigued me at first glance as a fun typing exercise, as I've always struggled with typing - I started using computers way before they started teaching typing around here, so my typing is far from the optimal 10 finger method, but I've always found typing exercises mind numbingly boring. However, as I started typing The call of Cthulhu, I'm now much more intrigued by this as a new way to read books. It is a very different literary experience from just simply reading. I'm way more attentive to the text itself, rather than just the meaning, if that makes sense. Though it's very possible that this effect is going to go away as I get more used to it. Any chance of typing out custom uploaded books? Maybe copy pasted plaintext? Also kudos on the execution, the site is really nicely made.

• Octouroboros · 2178 days ago

  Hey I'm thrilled you're enjoying the site! There are indeed plans to add a feature like that sometime in the future. Thanks!

  • cocochanel · 2177 days ago

    Uploading custom books would be a killer feature. Please do :)

• rozab · 2178 days ago

  I've always thought of typing lessons as being a thing from long before computers. Back then it was treated as a serious skill which could lead directly to employment. Now it's just something you're expected to know. I had plenty of basic IT education at school, but was never taught how to type at all.

  • technoplato · 2178 days ago

    It’s an interesting idea that we still “need” typing practice. We do it every day why would we need to practice extra? To provide an additional use case, my wife just got me an awesome and completely configurable ergonomic keyboard for my birthday and I’m considering switching to Dvorak or Coleman layouts after typing QWERY my entire life. I NEED a long form practice like this instead of just typing nonsense short blurbs of words as most typing practice provides. Super excited about this!

    • scandinavegan · 2178 days ago

      I practiced qwerty touch typing in school, but never really used it myself, rather using two-three fingers on each hand and letting them move around a lot across the keyboard. I switched to dvorak over 10 years ago and since the letters on the keys didn't match, and because it's designed to make it easy to touch type, I quickly learned. But after a year or so of dvorak, I grew tired of being extremely slow when I had to switch back to qwerty when using a shared keyboard in a conference room (imagine reading and hitting single letters in a meeting in front of people), so I switched back to qwerty. I thought that my new touch typing skill would transfer, but it didn't. I still try now and again to properly touch type, but it's slow and with a lot of mistakes. So this practice site looks very interesting to me as well! Some people say that they can easily switch back and forth between qwerty and dvorak, but it turns out that I couldn't. I still miss the speed and ease of dvorak, but I also enjoy being able to quickly use any keyboard now.

      • Symbiote · 2178 days ago

        I added the Dvorak layout to the computer in the conference room. (This is probably a more acceptable thing to do in companies where more than one language is spoken. The computer already had English-Qwerty and Danish-Qwerty installed.)

      • Arelius · 2178 days ago

        I had a similar experience switching to the Kinesis. I mean I don't think as stark as yours. I noticed the Kinesis Advantage forced my hands into a position that encouraged touch-typing, so I thought I'd give it a try and learn to touch-type while doing my normal work (Still QWERTY though) It worked! I can now touch-type greatly... Sort-of, it really only applies to the Kinesis though, when I go back to a normal staggered layout keyboard I go back to my two-three finger pecking around the keyboard. It's obviously still the same layout, so I don't think I experience it as bad as you do on a standard keyboard, but now I'm pretty much stuck on my Kinesis!

      • sajforbes · 2178 days ago

        I have a similar issue! When I learned Russian I installed the Russian keyboard layout on my computer. Because my keys (obviously) didn't match, I had to type by feel using a small diagram I printed as a reference, carefully placing index on f and j like you're supposed to. I just touch type in Russian now, but if I dare do that while typing English I stumble and lose track; I'm stuck doing it my normal messy (still faster than average) way.

    • lexicality · 2178 days ago

      > It’s an interesting idea that we still “need” typing practice. We do it every day why would we need to practice extra? We all walk every day, but most people have terrible form and efficiency and would probably injure themselves if they tried to do it for long periods without practicing...

      • technoplato · 2178 days ago

        I’m not sure if context was lost in my comment but I tend to agree with what you’re saying here and was the point of my comment.

      • spidersouris · 2178 days ago

        Does this really apply to typing, though? To what extent could one suffer from long-term injuries due to the way they're typing? I know one can suffer from repetitive strain injury if they are not using their mouse properly, but does this extend to keyboards as well?

        • lexicality · 2176 days ago

          Sadly it does! If you have poor form when typing you can put considerable stress on your wrists and compress your shoulders. That's why ergonomic keyboards are so big, weirdly shaped and sometimes split. They all try to force you into typing in a way that won't do as much damage to your body as slouching over a 10keyless microkeyboard would.

    • nostoc · 2178 days ago

      If you don't learn proper technique but type often, you will organically develop some method of typing that may work for you. But it's easy when learning a skill without guidance to end up into a local maximum. It's easy to end up in a situation where you're typing reasonably well, but could do way better with training. I'd argue that typing occupies a big enough place in our life that we should be very efficient at it.

    • terr-dav · 2178 days ago

      It took me 3 years off and on (and mostly at work) to become fluent in Dvorak. Good luck!

      • anchpop · 2178 days ago

        If you do it on and off you'll be much slower. I switched cold-turkey to Colemak and could type reasonably after a month and quickly after 3 months. The hardest part was retraining my muscle memory for keyboard shortcuts (but it wasn't so bad because in Colemak many are unchanged)

  • barbecue_sauce · 2178 days ago

    My educational experience was almost the exact opposite. Computer class was always typing or application focused, rather than IT focused; typing exercises and learning how to use ClarisWorks rather than anything about how actual computer worked.

    • TT3351 · 2178 days ago

      Similar experience here in suburban southern California public schools around the 2010s, except for one class on digital art, which was 90% packet work (funnily enough almost the equivalent of just copying out novels, but for Illustrator/Photoshop. Today I use them regularly and adeptly.)

• gwd · 2178 days ago

  > Any chance of typing out custom uploaded books? Maybe copy pasted plaintext? typeracer.com allows you to submit extracts for people to type; just not entire books.

• shavingspiders · 2178 days ago

  Have you tried reading books out loud? I found that made a surprising difference to experience of books, even just because I was devouring them much slower. Found it much easier to enjoy the 'craft' of the book too.

  • occam65 · 2178 days ago

    "Librarians hate him!"

  • Cthulhu_ · 2177 days ago

    Plus it helps train your speaking / pronunciation; if anything, there's muscles that may need to be exercised a bit.

• agumonkey · 2178 days ago

  Seconded, I use gnu typist often but the drills are too bland and I needed something like that. Superb

  • boogies · 2177 days ago

    Yay for gtypist! It comes with typefortune(1), for which you can adjust the content of the drills by installing fortune files that suit your taste. Eg. you could sudo apt install fortunes; sudo chmod -r /usr/share/games/fortunes/!(lit*); typefortune -l for something (fairly) like this.

• nestorD · 2178 days ago

  I had a similar experience doing translations. It made me a lot more aware to the fine detail of the text and sensible to the author's specificities.

Why is it that I find on certain websites (this one included) that some keystrokes aren't recognised when I use Safari? The letter 'e' not being recognised is common. Chrome works fine. This is on a Mac with Catalina and a British keyboard.

• solson4 · 2178 days ago

  Yeah, having a similar issue. Catalina, American keyboard, Firefox. Halfway through the second sentence it started flagging everything as incorrect no matter what I typed.

This is very cool. I did find that I sometimes got confused about where the insertion point was supposed to be, especially when backing up and correcting mistakes. Having the letter ahead of the point highlighted in was inducing a lot of off-by-one errors in my head. I'd prefer a normal insertion-point cursor between characters, with the correctly typed letters bolded and only the errors highlighted. Besides that, it's pretty good fun!

• Octouroboros · 2178 days ago

  Hello -- thanks for the suggestion! I'll certainly add options to toggle the cursor style (or make it invisible, even) in later updates. Thanks again!

This is great. Can you add a separate category for kids?

• Octouroboros · 2178 days ago

  Hello! If I can round up enough public domain children's books, I'll certainly add a kids category. Thanks for the suggestion!

  • tnorthcutt · 2178 days ago

    This looks like a pretty good starting list: https://concretecomputing.com/thoughts/list-of-public-domain...

    • Octouroboros · 2178 days ago

      Hey thanks -- this will be super useful!

This might have an unintended use as a copywriting tool. There’s an exercise called copyworking where you rewrite copy written by someone else to internalize the rhythm, flow, punctuation, and word choice. I use it for shorter ad copy and have found it to be very valuable. I do it with pen/paper as I find that it “sticks” better, but lots of people are resistant to that so a tool like yours might be useful.

• 082349872349872 · 2178 days ago

  A minor spoiler from Gravy Planet (1952): when the protagonist, an ad exec, is contacted by radical anti-consumption terrorists, although he despises them and everything they stand for, the very first thing he notices is that their copy sucks : > "... calm, learned, we're all men of sound judgement and deep scholarship here. It was an appeal to reason, and that's always dangerous. You can't trust reason. We threw it out of the ad profession long ago and have never missed it." so he rewrites it...

This feels like a home run, talk to some publishers about allowing their books on their for a fee and charge a subscription to type those books and maybe you've got a viable product.

• Octouroboros · 2178 days ago

  Hey that sounds like a solid idea -- I might just give that a try!

  • chrisfrantz · 2178 days ago

    Start with the startupy books and it might be easier to get ahold of the publishers. Plus you might get a bit of an influencer impact when they share on social. Think about how masterclass does it, then niche down into startups and follow the playbook. Feel free to ping me (email in profile) if you end up going down this path and need suggestions for initial folks to reach out to. Oh actually, while you’re on the front page of HN, drop a contact form on the page with something like “interested in having your book hosted?” Might “fill the funnel” with even less work. Good luck!

This is amazing, thank you. Already passed it on to my partner, as we are covid-homeschooling and teaching some typing.

• Octouroboros · 2178 days ago

  That's awesome! I hope your kid(s) like it as much as you do!

This is a great idea and exactly how I learned to touch-type when I was a teenager. I would keep a book open in front of me and type the sentences in Microsoft Word as I was reading them. Glad to see this process made seamless with your site. :)

This is an absolutely fantastic idea. I have tried many times to sit down and train my typing but it's always incredibly boring. I'm a rather fidgety person too, so it's actually quite nice to have something for my hands to do while I'm reading!

• stevesimmons · 2178 days ago

  Maybe try http://www.typingtom.com/ [1]. I found it broke up touch typing into just the right size chunks to engage me. At the start of Covid, I spent a week doing half an hour a day. My typing speed and accuracy improved out of sight. The whole process of acquiring muscle memory is quite magical. I highly recommend it. [1] This is the companion site to http://www.speedcoder.net/ , which is for coding, and presumes you start with reasonable touch typing skills on normal text.

  • breakfastduck · 2178 days ago

    Thanks, I’ll check it out!

This is great for practicing! Would it be difficult to implement a page where users could copy-paste text and use the same engine to retype them?

• Octouroboros · 2178 days ago

  Hello and thanks for giving the site a go! Something like this is planned for the future, so do keep an eye out!

Cool idea. It looks like it doesn't check if french accents have been typed. I could write the letter without its accent and it considered that it was good. And with its accent, it is good too.

• Octouroboros · 2178 days ago

  Hello! People kept asking for other languages, so I put some out but didn't have time to add an option for keystrokes on non-english letters to require the actual non-english keystroke. Rest assured it's coming soon, though. Thanks!

Looks cool. Out of interest, are you doing anything to mine the data gathered, eg building models of common typos or for user "fingerprinting" from key timing? (the latter may be a bit creepy if users aren't aware this could be done).

Neat project! Would be an interesting way to read a book. Not sure if this is a built-in feature for typing practice. But one small obstacle I encountered was that if I missed a space or I put in an extra character, but kept typing, then everything that came after was in red (wrong). May be hard to implement, but maybe letting a single mistake show in these instances without marking everything that follows as a mistake.

• birdyrooster · 2178 days ago

  My wrists hurt just thinking about doing this for any reason.

• Octouroboros · 2178 days ago

  Hello! That's definitely not supposed to be happening. If you don't mind me asking, what browser are you using? In the meantime, Chrome should work ok

  • jeremydavid · 2178 days ago

    The same thing happened to me. I'm using Chrome on a mac.

  • ineptwriter · 2178 days ago

    Thanks - I was using Firefox on a mac. But you're right, Chrome doesn't have this issue.

Nice work but i don't like when i miss a space: from that moment, even if i digit next words correctly, they result mispelled because caret is "behind" of 1 position

• Octouroboros · 2178 days ago

  Hello! If you mean that once you make a mistake, than no matter what you type afterwards is wrong, that's not supposed to happen. If you don't mind me asking, what browser are you using? In the meantime, Chrome should work ok

  • malshe · 2178 days ago

    I had this same problem on Safari 14.0

  • jkingsbery · 2178 days ago

    I have the same issue in Chrome (85.0.4183.121). It doesn't happen if you type the wrong key, it happens if you accidentally miss or add a key press. Really awesome site though!

I have learn typewriting in school. This how we learn it in 1 hour class in year. First we start with single letter and need to type 10 page of every letter. Then we start with random combination 2 letter word, every line contain different word. For few day we practice with that. Then we start practising 3,4,5 letter combination Slowly we moved to word -> line -> paragraph -> essay. Learning typing will take type.

This seems to have problems with dead keys. Typing ' and then d on US International results in 'd, but doesn't count as such and instead is an error.

• Octouroboros · 2178 days ago

  Hello! If you don't mind me asking, what browser are you experiencing this issue on?

  • ygra · 2178 days ago

    All done with US International, but should be reproducible with other keyboard layouts; just that with, e.g. a German layout it might be harder to find digraphs that can be typed by forcing a non-combination for a dead key. Firefox 81, Windows: Dead keys and the corresponding combination of letters where no single letter is defined by the keyboard layout don't even appear. I.e. I type ', and then s, which normally causes the digraph 's to appear, but here neither the ' nor the s afterwards register. Chrome 85, Windows: The key sequence registers as just one letter, but apparently not as the ', which thus is marked as an error. This was also what I've seen in Edge (Chromium-based, probably similar version number). Internet Explorer 11: Same as with Chrome. However, with the added bonus that typing a space seems to be impossible. No idea whether that browser is even on the compatibility list for that site, but it's all I have lying around here right now.

    • Octouroboros · 2177 days ago

      Thanks for your very descriptive answer! At the moment, key combinations aren't nearly as well supported as they ought to be. I'll certainly fix this in a future update. Thanks again!

Seems a very good idea. Do you have any plans on adding classical tech books?

• Octouroboros · 2178 days ago

  Hey thanks! I would, but I don't imagine many tech books are in the public domain.

  • blewboarwastake · 2178 days ago

    There arent any modern tech books in the public domain, but there are plenty with open licenses.

One thing I really miss is the ability to backspace an entire word. I expect Ctrl+backspace to delete the previous word. This works in all places that I usually type so I find it quite difficult to not have this.

• Octouroboros · 2178 days ago

  Hello! I feel the same way -- Ctrl+backspace support is planned for a future update. Thanks!

  • nhlx2 · 2178 days ago

    Awesome! I came here to say the same thing. Great work BTW!!

  • fphilipe · 2178 days ago

    While trying it out, I've realized how I rely on ctrl-h as a more comfy backspace. I think this an Emacs binding that macOS supports system-wide. Would be great if that was supported :)

• olejorgenb · 2178 days ago

  Agreed. I also suspect it's better to retype the whole word after a mistake - better to learn typing the word correctly rather than correcting the mistyped word. Absolute speed probably suffer in the short term though.

I remember in high school, we had an English teacher with very high standards. After we had turned in our first essays, she gave everyone a failing grade, and put on a show of being very disappointed with our work. Instead of whatever was next on the syllabus, our next assignment was to rewrite, with paper and pen, three separate (3-5ish page) essays written on the same prompt, which she had saved over the years as exemplary. I distinctly remember hating the idea of it, and putting off the task so I could hate it for longer. However, once I started (re-)writing, I was forced to capitulate (an experience that seems to be shared with other commenters here). While the essays were really good, they were just words on a page -- there's nothing stopping me from writing like that, too. In fact, I was writing like that right now! At the end, she shared the reasoning behind this exercise, and made us take a vow of silence to not tell the next year's students what to expect. Everybody who traced the essays got an A in the gradebook, and the kids who didn't trace usually dropped-out at that point (it was early in the year, this was the accelerated-track course). I've never had another educational moment like that, since. It was immensely humbling, in that it told all of us, who were used to being good, that we still have plenty of room to improve. Once out of high school, our egos are perhaps too large to get the most out of that kind of activity. This is a really cool idea. I'd love to see this applied to foreign languages. For example, if I'm learning German, it'd be great to do that by typing out Theodor Storm. Many of these classic books are in the public domain [1]. [1]: https://books.google.com/books?id=VXgBAAAAYAAJ&newbks=1&newb...

• whoomp12342 · 2178 days ago

  to be fair, your essays were all probably terrible and her standards were really not that high. If you don't believe me, go find a high school english teacher and have them show you what kids write. Most teachers are kind and skilled enough to know that such a rant does little good unless its obvious no one is trying

  • gen220 · 2178 days ago

    Well, they were definitely terrible by "Adult" standards, but that's not the standards that most high schoolers are held to. (And that's not the standard we were held to, I'm sure). If your standard is the median for our age group, they were probably better-than-middling. It was an advanced class, after all. Actually, I think that if nobody is trying, such an exercise would be counterproductive. In that scenario, the right thing to do would be to determine and address the reasons why nobody is trying. Like I said, it was an advanced class and people were trying, so it was relatively successful.

• Octouroboros · 2178 days ago

  Hello -- I'm glad the idea resonates with you! The site actually already supports German and other languages (though with a more limited selection). You'll find a language dropdown just above where the books are displayed. Thanks!

That's a cool idea. I once made a similar site but for a completely different purpose -- language learning. Unfortunately I never finished it but it's still in my TODO list. The workflow was: - you read the sentence - the sentence disappears - then you type from memory - every time you mistype something -- the next couple of words appears for a few seconds and you keep typing That way you not only learn to type that foreign language. But you also memorise the sentence in your short-time memory and you get a feel for sentences are created (order of words, phrases, etc.). PS. Didn't finish the site, but I did made a simplified version as an Android app: https://github.com/tkrajina/10000sentences

• whoomp12342 · 2178 days ago

  this is an amazing idea. I wonder if you could do it with an auditory fashion, I think that would be very useful too!

• 082349872349872 · 2178 days ago

  The schtick of the Pimsleur Method was to train by starting with a chunk at the end of a sentence, and prepending until one had recall of the entire sentence. That way, once you get over the hump of the newer material, still fresh in mind, it's all downhill revising the older.

Terrific idea. Would love to be able to request books.

I love the idea. Very good. I'm not seeing the autosave function work.

• Octouroboros · 2178 days ago

  Hello! The site only saves after each page. Saving in the middle of a page is planned for a future update.

Bravo! Well done!

This is a cool site, though I did notice something that I haven't seen anywhere before: the URL paths are JSON objects. Is there a reason for this? For example, for "The Call of Cthulhu", the URL is this: https://www.typelit.io/chapters/%7B%22bookTitle%22:%20%22The... Why not just use this? https://www.typelit.io/chapters/5f468ca35e91c10be0883a57/The... Also, the JSON object is fault tolerant and will display whatever you want for a title, even if there isn't a book available: https://www.typelit.io/chapters/%7B%22%64%69%73%70%6C%61%79%...

• whiddershins · 2178 days ago

  This comment can’t be read, perhaps use code block formatting, or remove the http and domain info, so we can see what you mean? The link is getting truncated when it displays.

  • SamBam · 2178 days ago

    Those links are over 200 characters long, and just look like escaped JSON, so I don't think it would help much. You could just click on them if you really wanted to know the details, but I think the question is pretty clear regardless.

  • Minor49er · 2178 days ago

    That's a fair point. I was expecting people to click or hover the links to see the examples, but for really showing how the paths are formed, this would make sense to do.

• Octouroboros · 2178 days ago

  Hey I'm glad you asked! It's the way Nextjs handles urls with more than 1 param. If I prettify the URL then for some reason the page can't access them. Don't know if they've improved on it yet (or, who knows, maybe I'm just using it wrong) but it'll be fixed eventually.

  • SamBam · 2178 days ago

    The URL parameters are: {"bookTitle": "The Call of Cthulhu", "displayTitle": "The Call of Cthulhu", "language": "English", "bookId": "5f468ca35e91c10be0883a57"} Why do you need all the others besides "bookId"? Changing "bookTitle" and "language" don't seem to do anything. Changing "displayTitle" does change the displayed title, but why can't you get that using the bookId?

  • Minor49er · 2178 days ago

    That's interesting. Thanks for pointing me towards Next.js. I wasn't aware of that framework, but I'm checking it out.

    • technoplato · 2178 days ago

      Super cool framework that is only getting better. If you’re interested in framework spelunking-check out Remix by Ryan Florence and Michael Jackson (no, not that one...). It’s actually going to be paid but I’m very excited to try it. It handles some data loading pain points among others that seem very interesting.

      • roryokane · 2178 days ago

        Link to the mentioned framework “Remix”: https://remix.run/

        • cambalache · 2178 days ago

          That is just an email collecting form. Astroturfing?

  • john_miller · 2178 days ago

    // call /MyPage?par1=hello&par2=42 const MyPage = (props: { query: { par1: string; par2: number } }) => ( <div>{`${props.query.par1}-${props.query.par2}`}</div> );

  • ffpip · 2178 days ago

    I think only the bookID is necessary

I typed a bit of Alice in Wonderland. I (touch)type slower than I read. I'd like to do this more, but I'm worried about getting RSI.

• 082349872349872 · 2178 days ago

  Don't know if it's just coincidence, but I was taught to type back in the mechanical typewriter era, and despite typing a great deal professionally haven't yet suffered from any form of RSI. (We were taught to keep our hands parallel with our forearms and had to press with force, as electrical typewriters existed by then but none were in our classroom. It was kind of like piano posture.)

Very cool, I'm also more interested in the "retype a novel to get better at writing" rather than "typing fast", but as I'm French, I'd love to type some french novels. Would you be able to add a simple DIY mode where I first copy-paste a text (for instance that I get from Gutemberg), and then it is either stored locally or uploaded to your server, so I can type it?

• Octouroboros · 2178 days ago

  Hello! There are a few French novels on the site already -- just use the language select above where the books are displayed to show them. As far as as using your own material, I'm planning on adding a feature like that sometime in the future. Thanks!

Add a "suggestion box" (link) on your website so that you keep your idea funnel alive. ;)

• Octouroboros · 2178 days ago

  Haha I barely know how to keep up with the number of features people are demanding as is!

• anthropodie · 2178 days ago

  Great idea. OP could probably also use this to convert some obscure books into their digital version.

I would do this with song texts and music scores. When you rewrite something you are interacting with it at an entirely different level, which greatly facilitates memorization.

Great idea. A suggestion: you can gamify the WPM by making it always visible and giving three indicators: a WPM of the previous page, a WPM of the previous paragraph, and a "realtime" WPM based on the average of the last 5 words or whatever. Phenomenal work!

• Octouroboros · 2178 days ago

  Hey that's a pretty good idea! I may think of way implement something like that. Thanks for the support!