---
title: "Coding on Paper"
url: https://daily.dev/posts/coding-on-paper-xmegarcgl
source_url: https://thepalindrome.org/p/coding-on-paper-a62
type: article
source: "The Palindrome"
published: 2026-06-04T08:26:16.937Z
updated: 2026-06-07T17:51:18.430Z
tags: ["productivity", "ai-coding"]
reading_time: 7
upvotes: 149
comments: 31
language: en
---

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# Coding on Paper

**[The Palindrome](https://daily.dev/sources/palindrome)** · 7 min read · 149 upvotes · 31 comments

## Summary

A personal essay arguing that coding on paper — despite being tedious and tool-free — is a valuable deliberate practice exercise. Drawing analogies to athletes training with restricted airflow and martial artists using their non-dominant hand, the author concludes that deliberately removing tools like autocomplete, LLMs, and syntax checkers forces deeper attention to detail and builds cognitive muscles that make you a better developer when those tools are available again. The core insight: coding, like writing, is a process of discovery, not just a means to produce output.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://thepalindrome.org/p/coding-on-paper-a62>

## Community discussion

Top comments from developers on daily.dev.

**@bullit2k** · 17 upvotes

> My university years 96 to 2000 we coded on paper in C exams. Good times.
> Edit : mine didn't compile

**@ezpie** · 15 upvotes

> fun fact: fortran was initially written in punched cards

**@seyoungcho** · 13 upvotes

> This is absolutely a must-do for beginners,

**@confidentcoding** · 6 upvotes

> Anything that increases friction is going to help you learn...period.
>
> Understanding comes from friction. Friction comes from being challenged and problem solving.
>
> There is no other way, which is why, ultimately, AI coding is a [trap](https://app.daily.dev/posts/agentic-coding-is-a-trap-recently-featured-on-theo-gg-hackernews-fireship--h9ys4rtgp).

**@saad786** · 6 upvotes

> I attended university from 2022 to 2026 and recently completed my studies a few months ago. During my fifth semester, I had an exam for a course called Object-Oriented Programming (OOP), where I was required to write a program in C++ for a bank account using OOP concepts, including its expected output. The entire exam, including the program, was handwritten. The program I wrote was close to around 80-100 lines. In that program, I didn't forget about user experience lines, like **_cout << "Hi, Welcome to the bank."_** or **_cout << "Thank you for depositing the money. Would you like to perform...

## Similar posts on daily.dev

- [Coding on Paper](https://daily.dev/posts/coding-on-paper-cuumxf3eg) · The Palindrome · 70 upvotes · 9 comments

---

Tags: [#productivity](https://daily.dev/tags/productivity), [#ai-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-coding)

[View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/coding-on-paper-xmegarcgl)