
The Path to Dijkstra’s Handwriting (2013) - bangonkeyboard
https://joshldavis.com/2013/05/20/the-path-to-dijkstras-handwriting/
======
wrp
If you have a serious problem with your handwriting, or are just serious about
improving your handwriting, try _Teach Yourself Better Handwriting_ by
Rosemary Sassoon. She is both a historian of handwriting and a physical
therapist (for handwriting). Instead of presenting a model alphabet to copy,
she has you analyze your natural writing style and figure out how to improve
it. Her focus is to both improve the look of your writing and help you become
more comfortable/fast.

~~~
gumby
Thanks for this reference. I write a lot of notes (and then struggle to
transcribe them). I am considering getting that book and practicing on an iPad
(which has a different experience than pen on paper) and perhaps teach myself
something reliable that can replace manual transcription.

Back in the Palm days my Graffiti handwriting was (perforce!) pretty clear,
but it wasn't that great to use.

~~~
mcguire
I get mocked because I still use a sigma for a capital E.

~~~
clircle
Then how do you write a Sigma?

~~~
gumby
You know I draw capital Alpha the same way I draw capital roman letter A and
people don't seem to be confused.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
It gets annoying if you do math or physics or whatever. Otherwise, no one will
get confused.

------
jonahx
This anecdote from one of Dijkstra's students made the article for me:

> The final was an oral final and after going through a few questions to his
> satisfaction he said “You seem competent, but your handwriting is horrible…”
> The remaining 30 mins of my final exam by Dijkstra was me writing phrases
> repeatedly on a pad of paper while he said, ‘no, you need to round the o’s a
> bit more, the A is misformed, etc…’.

> It was surreal. I’m sad he died.

------
richardjdare
I spent my childhood upsetting people who think there is some moral
significance to handwriting.

After a chance meeting with a physiotherapist, I finally got diagnosed with
dyspraxia ("clumsy child syndrome" for us old people) at the age of 16, and
managed to get a few grudging apologies from the sarcastic teachers who made
my life miserable for so long.

I admire Dijkstra's work, but I do think he'd probably hate me. I spent every
morning break for years at primary school doing handwriting exercises like in
the article, while the other kids played outside. I never got any better.

Funnily enough since leaving school it hasn't mattered one bit.

~~~
Xelbair
Over here kids got 'benefits'(extra time for tests etc) for having such
disabilities - over-diagnosing was very common.

It was a nightmare for people, like me, who genuinely had this syndrome. Every
teacher was sure that everyone was faking it and that they were lazy.

I would seriously trade all that extra time for at least readable handwriting.
I, like you, spent plenty of my time practicing - in my case by transcribing
books.

Heck, i had once to retake an exam at university - it consisted of me
basically slowly taking my original one and writing it cleanly.

~~~
richardjdare
I left school in '93\. Throughout my school career I was the only person I
knew who was diagnosed with anything like that. I only got diagnosed after
talking to a physio who was treating my brother. Once that happened I started
being treated a lot differently, and got to use a nifty little Amstrad[1]
laptop to work on. Pity it happened so late, I might have enjoyed school more.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_NC100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_NC100)

------
euske
I tend to think that handwriting tells a lot about one's upbringing and
educational backgrounds. I was born left-handed but my parents forced me to
use the right hand to write letters (a common practice in Japan at the time).
I always make an excuse for me being a terrible handwriter because of that.
But hey, I can now write while eating! (I still use chopsticks with my left
hand.) Anyway, there's a lot of characters (not pun intended) that one can
learn from one's kanji writing, because its blocky shape tends to reveal how
rigid you follow the right stroke order, etc.

And then I found that the handwriting by Chinese people is awesome. They're
very stylish and it appears that they still treat kanji writing much like
calligraphy in China, while in Japan we mostly treat them as blocks. I wonder
what secret they teach to kids in their schools.

~~~
bangonkeyboard
_> I was born left-handed but my parents forced me to use the right hand to
write letters (a common practice in Japan at the time)._

One hassle that Western left-handed writers have to deal with is avoiding
smudging their just-written characters as their hands advance to the right. As
traditional Japanese is written top-down and right-left, I would have thought
lefties were at an advantage in that regard.

~~~
slim
your hand is not supposed to touch the paper. practice with a fountain pen

~~~
mcv
First time I'm hearing that. But even if it's true, right-handers don't care,
because nobody will ever notice.

~~~
posterboy
i managed to smudge the ink of the previous line regardless. the weight needs
to be center so half the hand needs to balance half above the line you are
writing. or you turn the paper. or ... there are so many different handstyles.

------
kashyapc
Speaking of handwriting ... I recently took up Copperplate (also called
"English Roundhand") calligraphy. It is one of the oldest European scripts,
originated in 17th century England.

Here are a couple of samples from my practice (of 3 weeks) :-)

[https://kashyapc.fedorapeople.org/Copperplate_practice_1.jpg](https://kashyapc.fedorapeople.org/Copperplate_practice_1.jpg)

[https://kashyapc.fedorapeople.org/Copperplate_practice_2.jpg](https://kashyapc.fedorapeople.org/Copperplate_practice_2.jpg)

What inspired me was this book called _Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts_
[1], which has samples of great calligraphy from centuries old manuscripts,
among many other interesting things. (Previously mentioned it on HN here[2].)

And I am learning Copperplate script itself from a wonderful book, _Mastering
Copperplate Calligraphy_ , by Eleanor Winters.

I'm thoroughly enjoying the entire process. Including the experience of using
a proper nib, calligraphic ink and the oblique nib holder. The oblique pen
holder (can be seen in the first image linked above) is really helpful, as
Copperplate script requires letters be at a 55 degree angle; also lets you
avoid having your wrist twisted in an awkward way.

[1] [https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/213/213069/meetings-with-
rem...](https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/213/213069/meetings-with-remarkable-
manuscripts/9780141977492.html)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20332914](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20332914)

~~~
numlock86
May I ask where you come from? Back the days this is what I was learning as a
kid in school and - from my subjective and biased perspective - I always
considered this basic handwriting and not "calligraphy". (You know what I mean
...) Thanks for sharing!

~~~
kashyapc
I originally come from India; now live in Western Europe. I used the term
"calligraphy" (although, my scribbling doesn't deserve that term) because
that's what the book I'm learning from (mentioned earlier) calls it.

In school did you learn writing with pressure-and-release strokes? I'm
referring to how hard you press on the nib to control the ink flow, using a
dip pen. If so, more power to you :-) (The other day, a colleague from the UK
also mentioned that they learnt "calligraphy" in school, not sure what kind it
was, though.)

On this being a "basic handwriting", while I'm still a novice in Copperplate,
if you squint hard in my example, all the upstrokes are (supposed to be) thin,
and the down strokes, thick—they are not uniform, and most calligraphic
scripts involve these pressure-and-release strokes. As you would know, it
requires a precise control. I'm _far_ from it; it takes a _months_ of
dedicated practice to get that smooth flow of ink.

Also, note that with Copperplate, it _looks_ like you wrote a word, or even a
letter, in one go, but it's not the case—almost _all_ letters require you to
lift your pen _several_ times over the course of a word, let alone a sentence.
(E.g. writing the Copperplate lowercase 'k' requires you to lift your pen
three times.)

Maybe basic Copperplate practice letter strokes (for lowercase) in the right-
most column here gives a better picture of it:
[https://kashyapc.fedorapeople.org/Copperplate-lowercase-
prac...](https://kashyapc.fedorapeople.org/Copperplate-lowercase-practice.jpg)

~~~
numlock86
> In school did you learn writing with pressure-and-release strokes? I'm
> referring to how hard you press on the nib to control the ink flow, using a
> dip pen.

Yes. That was actually the part on which you got your grades for. Tough days.

> E.g. writing the Copperplate lowercase 'k' requires you to lift your pen
> three times.

Some letters have variants. There are variants of 'k' I know of with only two
or one lifts and at least one that doesn't need a lift at all, albeit not
looking as good but still considered Copperplate.

------
mcguire
" _Next I found an image of the complete alphabet in Dijkstra’s handwriting by
someone who turned his handwriting into a font._ "

Luca Cardelli
([http://lucacardelli.name/indexArtifacts.html](http://lucacardelli.name/indexArtifacts.html)).

------
ridaj
I was given almost the opposite advice by a math teacher. Considering that
speed was very important during exams, he urged us to spend no time with
pretty calligraphy or presentation when turning in papers. Basically anything
that could be read was good, but we needed to be fast. For example, if I'd
turned in a paper with underlined text where the line is interrupted to avoid
crossing the descenders of p's and g's, I'd probably have been told that it
would be a good idea to let the flourishes go and be faster, since there were
no points awarded for presentation. To date, I still use this advice when
taking notes for myself.

~~~
astrobe_
There are many things wrong with that. Speed is not the most important thing
during exams. If it does, it means one of two wrong things (sometimes both):
\- Poorly designed exam: Too many questions and not enough time to complete it
for the average student, \- Poor student skills: the student takes too much
time on each question. Solving speed is part of the skills, but one should not
"cheat" by sacrificing calligraphy or presentation.

Being able to write something that is readable for others (do whatever you
want when writing for yourself) is part of basic skills just like being able
to read a text in a reasonable amount of time.

Your teacher was terribly wrong, they should have awarded points for
presentation, spelling and grammar (assuming they can evaluate that too; in my
country the culture of "good science people can have terrible spelling" is a
scourge).

~~~
ridaj
You make it sound like he told us it was ok to be unreadable and make spelling
mistakes... No, we needed to be readable, always. And attentive to
presentation, on occasion, but only when it mattered.

I'm very grateful now for the ability to take notes quickly in meetings where
things go really fast and I don't have a chance to ask people to repeat what
they said. But of course if I'm sending those notes out later, I'll take the
time to format them properly.

------
LanceH
One thing I did that helped me improve a lot was to start using a pen with a
smaller point. This required greater precision to connect stroke. I had to
improve the whole stroke and not just fudge it at the finish with a thicker
line.

I highly recommend a smaller point if you're doing math with exponents on
exponents.

~~~
mkl
Interesting. I found the opposite! With a thick point you have no choice but
to shape things well and keep loops open, or the lines overlap and you end up
with a messy blob.

I do most of my writing giving maths lectures and preparing for them, and I do
all my writing digitally (mostly on a Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12.2, under a
document camera in lectures), so I have a record of the improvement in my
writing (e.g. the same lecture examples 6-7 times, spaced a few months apart
each). I use the two previous semesters/years' versions in preparation, and
the improvement is clear and steady. I started with fairly thin lines,
comparable to a thick ballpoint, and have ended up settling on fairly thick
felt-tipped pen width, like a Sharpie.

When I'm writing for myself I tend to use a thinner pen (and write smaller and
more compressed together).

------
rgovostes
Having few reasons to use a pencil or pen since leaving high school, a decade
and change later I still have a callus on my right middle finger, but using a
writing implement is uncomfortable.

With computer keyboards and touchscreen smartphones used for the majority of
written communication, I wonder if penmanship is worse now than at any time in
human history. If cursive is still taught, it's probably not for much longer.

During the SATs, we had to write in cursive some statement that we did not
receive outside help. Everyone joked afterwards about how tedious it was and
how we overflowed the space in which to write because we weren't practiced at
making tight loops.

~~~
lucb1e
> I wonder if penmanship is worse now than at any time in human history

As another datapoint, I write a few times per year. I'm not sure if my
handwriting got worse (it has always been on the lower end of legible), but I
do forget how to write letters. I have to consciously think how an M or a K
goes, or how a U fits onto a W. It has also always been slow, nearly slow
enough to cause real trouble in exams. On the other hand (pun not intended),
typing is something I do faster than anyone else I know in real life, so it's
not that me or my hands are slow in general.

------
audiometry
If he has to write in a hurry, I wonder how much his font reverts to the old
habit. This strikes me as something built in quite deep in muscle/nervous
system. Unlikely to trivially change it.

~~~
egypturnash
My experience is that a lot of these new habits do stick; I’ve put effort into
changing my handwriting, including completely changing a few letters, and when
I write quickly they do look sloppier but they’re nicer than when I was a kid
who could barely hold a pencil.

Do it enough and you reprogram the nervous system.

~~~
exmadscientist
You're absolutely correct. I had the opposite problem to the article author:
in high school, my handwriting was neater than it needed to be, but too slow.
So I made a conscious effort to mimic one of my teachers, whose handwriting
had a good balance of legibility and quickness. I noticed that she ligatured a
lot -- changing the form of one letter so it would flow smoothly into the next
-- and so I tried to do the same. It worked: I was soon able to write quite a
lot faster; and it stuck: years later, I still write mostly the same way.

A similar change happened in college and graduate school: my science education
(see username) required distinguishing a lot of characters most people don't
need to distinguish often, like 'ω' and 'w' and 'v', or 'x' and 'X' and 'χ',
and between '2' and five different forms of 'z'/'Z' (that one happened during
statistical mechanics class...). With just a little bit of conscious effort, I
could permanently change how I wrote letters. I didn't even need to explicitly
practice: the natural use during note-taking and homework assignments form was
plenty sufficient, at least for me.

Your nervous system really can reprogram itself!

A couple semi-related tips for anyone who wants better handwriting:

1\. Just go slower. Your handwriting is probably perfectly legible to others
if you allow yourself the time to do so.

2\. Realize when it does and doesn't matter. A doctor writing a critical
prescription by hand (not that they do that these days) is very different from
scribbling on a sheet of scratch paper that you'll throw out as soon as you've
figured out what you're doing.

3\. Try a fountain pen or felt-tip marker. These require zero pressure to
write, just contact. That makes things take a lot less effort, so your muscles
can work on shaping the letters instead of pushing a pen. Rollerball pens
aren't half bad, but fountain pens are still the gold standard for a reason.

~~~
egypturnash
I will just note that fountain pens tend to require thinking about your stroke
direction a bit more than other pens; it’s pretty easy to dig into the paper
when going upwards. There can also be issues with getting the flow going; most
cursive scripts date from a time when fountain pens were pretty much the only
option, and are designed around these issues.

If you don’t want a cursive script then you could also look into the faces
found in old Speedball lettering manuals.

~~~
radeklew
Flow issues sound like a problem with the pen, and there shouldn't be enough
pressure on the nib for it to dig in like that.

/r/fountainpens is a really nice community with lots of guides to
troubleshooting pens, as well as recommendations for beginners. If anyone's
curious reading this, the Platinum Preppy is a very good, very inexpensive
fountain pen that gets recommended a lot.

------
a3n
[https://handwritingsuccess.com/write-
now/](https://handwritingsuccess.com/write-now/)

Teaches you how to print in a simple italic hand, then the same in cursive by
connecting the letters you learned when printing.

Avoids curly 2s and Qs, e.g, as unclear.

Interesting bits of writing history.

Entire book written by hand in the subject style.

------
fouc
We should find people that can write the fastest in a very legible way,
without being full-on cursive. And then extract their writing style out as a
font and copy that style.

------
de_watcher
I've got a friend from an era of hand-drawn technical blueprints. He's using
that hideous blueprint font for all handwriting.

~~~
ftio
I took technical drawing classes in high school and haven’t written a
lowercase letter since! Don’t hate! :)

------
gowld
> I think I got to a point in fourth grade where it just stopped getting
> better unlike most people.

Surely that should be _like most people_ ?

~~~
grimgrin
If most people don’t improve their hand writing at all beyond 9-10 years of
age, I find that surprising and interesting

Certainly varies with people and probably each generation?

------
knolax
From the pictures in the article his handwriting seems to have an uncanny
valley effect to them where the letters are extremely uniform but still
clearly handwritten. It kinda produces the same response as seeing Comic Sans
if I'm completely honest.

------
roschdal
Someone should make a Dijkstra font!

~~~
brennebeck
Posted elsewhere in the thread:
[http://lucacardelli.name/indexArtifacts.html](http://lucacardelli.name/indexArtifacts.html)

------
posterboy
The title's pun is terrible.

------
Havoc
>Here’s a sample of what his handwriting looked like

wow that's clean AF. Respect

------
person_of_color
Anyone think Dijkstra's handwriting looks like a 6th grade girl? I can't stand
it.

Give me something more stylish, for sure.

~~~
GuB-42
Now that you mention it, girls tend to have better handwriting.

I remember that at my school copies of notes taken by girls were particularly
popular for that reason.

For me it seemed so obvious that I never wondered why it is the case. Or if it
really is the case for that matter.

~~~
mkl
Girls definitely have better handwriting IME, and men and women differ
stylistically too. When marking exams I can almost always correctly identify
students as being male or female (or having learned to write in Chinese or
Arabic, which each leave distinctive characteristics) before I see the name on
the cover when I'm done.

~~~
MivLives
What are some of the identifying characteristics?

~~~
mkl
Chinese has particular stroke orders that often carry over into English (e.g.
cross the t before drawing the vertical) which leads to all kinds of
differences when writing quickly, as the lines from the pen not leaving the
paper are in different places. There are often also quite distinctive curving
diagonal lines.

Arabic, being written right to left, requires quite a different hand position,
which leads to very vertical strokes (not slanted to the right).

Some other distinctive features I've noticed are that beautiful cursive is
likely to be someone Indian, and very small, fine, and vertical, likely
Indonesian. I'm sure handwriting experts can tell a lot more than me.

