Handwriting Programs in J (2017)

Posted by Bogdanp 10/28/2025

Handwriting Programs in J (2017)(www.hillelwayne.com)

27 points | 9 comments

yepguy 11/4/2025|

I've read a couple articles like this now, and my dream device is an e-ink tablet that is programmable by handwriting. Something like Emacs crossed with the Remarkable tablet crossed with a new programming language optimized for handwriting.

I don't want VR headsets. I don't want AI voice assistants. I don't want robots. I just want this.

Sadly nobody else is clamoring for it...

sprinkly-dust 11/4/2025||

The remarkable 2, especially if you downgrade the OS to the older 2.x versions, is very hackable. It runs full Linux, I followed a blog post about setting up FDE on it using go and cryptfs [1]. You can make GUI applications, people have even run XFCE, and people have fed handwriting input to another API so routing it internally shouldn't be much harder.

So yes, theoretically you can turn the reMarkable 2 into a emacs lisp machine, although it would take a considerable amount of time.

I haven't read up on the reMarkable Paper Pro, but I think the dev ecosystem for that is very much alive too.

[1] https://blog.redteam-pentesting.de/2021/remarkable-encryptio...

exographicskip 11/4/2025||

My friend/boss swears by his remarkable tablet.

I'd buy it if it had some aggressive OCR and could translate into a REPL

ofalkaed 11/4/2025||

Lenovo Duet 3/5 might be of interest, Chrome tablet with detachable keyboard. I have been working in gforth longhand lately and it is great fun.

tombert 11/4/2025||

I have tried on two different occasions to try and learn J, and I have failed both times.

It always felt like one of those things that could be extremely neat once it "clicks" for you, but I have never been able to get over the initial hump of it. I like to think I'm able to adapt to arcane programming syntax fairly quickly, but J kind of broke my brain and it never became natural to me.

Still, I do think I should probably just power through it and actually learn it, just because it feels like a loose thread I need to pull. Forth too, actually.

gnabgib 10/28/2025||

(2017) At the time (100 points, 29 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15449073

veqq 10/28/2025|

Coding on paper in general is really helpful.

P.s. Wow, I was literally just posting this!

gnabgib 10/28/2025|

The bot will always beat you

turtleyacht 10/28/2025||

Guessing the bot posting the article, not the coding bot.