I program on the subway

https://www.scd31.com/posts/programming-on-the-subway

by evakhoury • 7 months ago

259 198 7 months ago

Back in the 80s I would work on stacks of fanfold code printouts on my trips on the London underground to and from work

cadr3• 7 months ago

I used to get so much done on my BART commute. Also learned piano on a little 25 key midi keyboard until the program I was learning from started needing a 26th key.

gozzoo3• 7 months ago

That's so cool. Can you share more about this. What program and keyboard did you use? Did you proceed with more serious learning?

cadr3• 7 months ago

I used an Akai LPK25 with my iPhone (using the Camera Connection Kit and a combined usb hub/dac) and an app called Simply Piano. They make a wireless version of that now that would simplify the setup a great deal. It is a mini keyboard and the keys are quite small, but in my experience it was fine for the beginner stuff (and the keyboard is useful in general later). As I said before, I stuck with this until the app started using keys outside the range I had.

Now, as for "did I proceed with more serious learning" - I alternate though a ton of hobbies. So I moved on after that, though still go back to it from time to time. But I also have other musical interests and it was helpful to those as well.

Also did a lot of music on the commute on my iPhone with Korg Gadget (and Caustic before that). Sometimes with a keyboard, sometimes without.

firefax• 7 months ago

I used to get frustated that the train shook so loud that in combination with the sound of the train I struggled to listen to podcasts, kudos to you.

cadr3• 7 months ago

I sometimes would bring ear-protection headphones that I'd wear over my earbuds to muffle the train noise.

kevin_thibedeau• 7 months ago

I don't even have an internet connection.

Vibe coders feeling a great disturbance in the force.

mohamez• 7 months ago

Nomophobia is the word for that lol

anthk• 7 months ago

Or plain incompetence...

DoctorOW• 7 months ago

Not immediately of course, you have to wait until the robots are trained on this blogpost.

venturecruelty4• 7 months ago

Using your brain and skills to program is so 2021.

tonyedgecombe• 7 months ago

I spent six months coding up a new product in a rented office with no internet. It was a really productive period.

chrischen3• 7 months ago

With coding agents AI almost never manually type code anymore. It would be great to have a code editor that runs on my phone so I can do voice prompts and let the coding agents type stuff for me.

llbbdd• 7 months ago

I have been doing this with GitHub's copilot agent web interface on my phone; word-vomit voice prompt + instructions to always run the tests or take screenshots so I can evaluate the change works really well.

chrischen3• 7 months ago

Was it the github issues copilot integration? I found that to be slow compared to natively running copilot in the IDE.

lbrito2• 7 months ago

That sounds awful

xnx• 7 months ago

Similar to a product or engineering manager giving directions on a call from the golf course.

chrischen3• 7 months ago

To be fair with the languages I use there are only a finite number of ways a particular line or even function can be implemented due to high level algebraic data structures and strict type checking. Business logic is encoded as data requirements, which is encoded into types, which is enforced by the type checker. Even a non-AI based system can technically be made to fill in the code, but AI system allows this to sort of be generalized across many languages that did not implement auto-complete.

breckenedge• 7 months ago

Claude does this, at least on an iPhone. They added Code to the app about a month ago. I used it to get a Pebble Watch project started.

ziofill• 7 months ago

When I was living in Paris I had a 20 min ride from home to work each day. I picked up the habit to read during those 40 total minutes and I was going through books like I had never been able to, because while 40 min is not a lot, it’s about 150h per year. One easily underestimates the power of consistency.

bitmasher93• 7 months ago

I read many books a year by reading for 20-30 minutes per night before sleeping. A habit with multiple benefits (winding down and reading or commuting and reading) is very powerful for getting the most value out of your time.

bbkane• 7 months ago

Until the book gets really good and you have to keep reading past your bedtime to learn what happens (or maybe that's just me)

jorvi• 7 months ago

To offer a counterargument: I would strongly recommend aspiring and avid readers to not make reading in bed your primary / only mode of reading. It will make your brain associate books with sleep and thus make you turn drowsy the moment you have turned a few pages.

MaysonL• 7 months ago

I wore out the elbows of quite a few shirts lying on my side in bed reading. This was during the time I would go to the local science fiction bookstore every Saturday and buy three or four books, ocassionally finishing them by Monday.

mnky9800n3• 7 months ago

I stopped because I would feel sleepy and also feel like I didn’t get what I was reading and would forget the book. I suppose that’s something of a champagne problem.

theshrike793• 7 months ago

I commute to the office 1-3 times a week, it's about 30 minutes on the train + some walking.

I've gone through so many books it's crazy :)

With audiobooks I can start listening the second I step out of the door and stop while I take my jacket off in the office. With e-books I usually just read on the train.

Most books aren't that long, around 5 hours a week of reading just during your commutes is quite a bit.

ipaddr2• 7 months ago

For one year I read every free moment averaged a book every 3 days mostly biographies many on wrestling. The year I got an e-reader (alura tech). Stopped after the screen broke.

The book that stood out the most. Sugar Barons.

systems• 7 months ago

how can you read in 20 minutes, for me 20 minutes is only good enough to stare out the windows and ... zip zip 20 minutes are gone

i need a couple of hours to do any technical reading

20 minutes, maybe, maybe .. good enough if i am reading fiction or something

scubbo• 7 months ago

how can you read in 20 minutes
good enough if i am reading fiction or something

Looks like you got there in the end.

fastasucan• 7 months ago

Just do as you do when you are doing technical reading for a couple of hours, but stop after 20 minutes.

prinny_• 7 months ago

I also used to read my commute but stopped it after I finished "for whom the bell tolls". I was so moved that I ended up crying in the bus and I would have liked to experience that feeling in the privacy of my home rather in the morning bus with 9 hours still on the clock.

throwaway20374• 7 months ago

I used to religiously read The New Yorker (magazine) on my commute. I remember crying while reading about the copper mine rescue in Chile.

mnky9800n3• 7 months ago

I read the road by Cormac McCarthy on the train. That was a mistake.

famahar• 7 months ago

I do the same with language learning. Makes me actually enjoy commuting to work since I find it hard to study at home. I just pop in the headphones, take a seat, and sit for 40 mins twice a day. Sometimes I even intentionally take the non-rapid so I can study a bit more (plus the train is less packed so I'm always guaranteed a seat)

almost_usual• 7 months ago

I work/program on CalTrain but that’s pretty common. NYC subway or BART seems a bit more challenging.

It’s overall time much better spent than being stuck in a car.

saagarjha3• 7 months ago

I used to do work on Caltrain, which used to be like 3 hours of my commute and didn't have any internet, so I would carefully plan what I could do beforehand. My code deploys to a machine that's very different from my laptop, but I had a Docker container set up to cross compile things and loaded up the docs beforehand, so as long as I planned out what I wanted to do.

These days Caltrain is faster and has occasionally frustrating, but fairly good Wi-Fi, so now my constraints are that I don't have a large monitor but not really much else.

throwaway20374• 7 months ago

3 hours of Caltrain!? I assume that is 90 mins each way. San Jose to SF on a non-express train? That sounds painful!

saagarjha3• 7 months ago

I take the non-express in the morning and express in the evening, which used to be 105 and 60 minutes respectively prior to electrification. Nowadays it's 75 and 60 which is a little more reasonable. I could in theory take the last express in the morning but I think trying to squeeze in on a packed train that I have to wake up early for isn't really worth it over being able to leave the house at 10 and being guaranteed a table.

fragmede3• 7 months ago

https://a.co/d/1lCU1ha for mobile triple head.

saagarjha3• 7 months ago

I appreciate the suggestion but this is more than twice the weight of my laptop and I would much rather have light than big screen :)

dackle• 7 months ago

Here is a description of the daily commute by Michael Milken, 1980s junk bond king, as told in "Predator's Ball" by Connie Bruck:

At 5:30am each weekday in the early 1970s, a bus pulled up to a stop in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and a young man lugging a bag that bulged with papers mounted its steps. He was making the two-hour commute to New York City, where he worked at the investment banking firm of Drexel Firestone. The train would have provided a more comfortable and faster ride; but, for those very reasons, it also offered more opportunity to meet other Wall Street acquaintances. They would want to engage in the kind of idle small talk that commuters share to pass the time. The thought must have been intolerable. He did not wish to be rude, but he wanted no interruption.

As soon as he had settled into his seat, being sure to take one with an empty one adjacent, he unloaded a mountain of prospectuses and 10ks (annual Securities and Exchange Commission filings) onto the seat next to him. On winter mornings the sky was still pitch black and the light on the bus was too dim for him to be able to read. He wore a leather aviation cap with the earflaps down; he had been bald for years, and although he wore a toupee his head always felt cold on these frosty mornings. Now over his aviation cap he fitted a miner's headlamp -- strapped around the back of his head, with a huge light projecting from his forehead.

nine_k2• 7 months ago

This is dedication.

Unfortunately I can't program on a bus, I get motion sickness. Subway works very well though! It insulates me from most distractions. The only problem is that the longest subway commute I ever had was about 45 minutes; solid 2 hours would allow for so much more! :)

burningChrome2• 7 months ago

A buddy of mine had the same thing. He started taking the light rail into downtown and purposefully parked at one of the early stops instead of taking the bus in. He said he would sit and code on his side projects for around the same amount of time. In the span of a year, he knocked out several small mobile apps and several social media plugins.

He said the benefit was being able to spend more time with his family at night when he got home. He knew he would have some time on the train, so not having to crack his laptop to get in some coding after dinner allowed him to spend a lot more time handling the kids and spending time with his wife.

"Work/Life balance achieved!" he used to proclaim with a big smile when we'd sit and chat.

trinix9123• 7 months ago

I've done it a few times on city busses which I'd say are worse than subway. Less legroom, bumpier ride, more people passing by. My 13" laptop barely fit.

It's not something I'd want to do on the daily but if you really need to get something done and are running out of time (those busses get stuck in traffic for half an hour or more), it's doable.

komali22• 7 months ago

they would have to do it at a station, where they could immediately get off the train. I think, though, that this would be risky, given that subway stops generally have a lot of people getting on/off the train in the first place.

I've seen a phone jacking in this exact scenario and nobody moved to stop the guy running. Nobody on the train can help cause the doors have closed, and nobody on the platform has any idea anything just happened, or if they do the guy is well gone before they can put two and two together.

For me I always pocket my phone or e-reader at each stop, unless I'm in Japan or Taiwan.

trinix9123• 7 months ago

True, but a laptop is much more of a hassle to quickly grab and run with than a phone.

What also helps is having one that's full of stickers or overall looks fairly (ab)used. A pristine MacBook is going to be much more of a target than a random ThinkPad with a sticker, greasy keyboard and 20 scratches.

Spooky233• 7 months ago

Depends on where and when you are. Some hyped up dude is fixated on the next fix and lacks the executive function to discriminate. The more professional thieves are more discriminating.

hopelite• 7 months ago

There’s probably no market for it, but it might be interesting to make a MacBook case/cover and/or stickers that make it look old, cracked, scratched, and dirty.

It would be interesting to see if that would deter a thief.

schoen4• 7 months ago

I wonder what you could usefully do with a Kensington lock on the train. I bought one for use in cafés although I haven't used it most of the time.

You could attach it to something bulkier or something that you could put under the seat, maybe. I don't remember if New York subway seats have an exposed bar underneath that you could lock it to. I'm sure locking it to the vertical poles in the center of the car would be extremely antisocial.

avidiax2• 7 months ago

Just my opinion, but I feel Kensington locks have little value.

Sure, maybe it will deface the stolen item when it gets ripped off, but for a thief, the device is still usable, and it can be sold for parts or at a discount. We are talking about the sorts of people that steal bicycle wheels and seats.

Their utility is in keeping honest people honest. For example, keeping office workers or customers from just walking off with or moving assets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6wRhrWl_2M

ms-fellag• 7 months ago

Wear it like a belt while attaching it to the laptop (If you don't mind looking a bit ridiculous).

Although I'd highly recommend putting some cloth around it, or fitting it through the belt loops of jeans/trousers to soften the inevitable 'yank' when it comes.

btrettel• 7 months ago

Here's my experience with (attempted) theft on a train:

I once was on a MARC train at DC Union Station. Some train cars have electrical sockets, so I plugged in a bike light I had since I'd be taking a bike for the last part of the trip. The train hadn't left the station yet. I was standing near the seat with the socket. Some unassuming looking guy was walking through the train car, like probably 100 did before him, when he grabbed the light, unplugged it, and kept walking. I immediately confronted him (I was in his path) saying something like "What are you doing?" Without a word, he handed me the light and walked off the train. I found a conductor like 15 seconds later and they called security, who apparently detained the guy.

This guy was way more brazen about stealing something of little value than I had expected. I was standing near the seat and watching it! I guess he didn't expect me to be the owner.

DANmode• 7 months ago

He didn’t expect you to confront him before he was gone.

afavour• 7 months ago

I also code on the subway from time to time and this does occur to me. But there are locations in an NYC subway car you can sit that would make it very difficult for someone to grab your laptop and exit the train before the doors close. It's still a risk but it's not uncommon to see people with all kinds of valuable items (e.g. shopping bags from premium fashion stores) out in the open on the subway.

Crazy to think back to 2007 when iPhone users were advised to buy black earphones so the white ones wouldn't give them away as targets for theft. How far we've come/how commoditized our electronics have become.

goosejuice4• 7 months ago

A CS professor of mine had his laptop lifted on the train home right out of his lap. It does happen.

ibejoeb3• 7 months ago

I'm not worried about the laptop. Pretty much everyone knows that any valuable laptop is a tracking device anyway.

You should be worried about getting actually robbed, or even being attacked for no reason, while you're not paying attention.

Also, yes, nobody's going to help you. Some of it is because of general unawareness, as you point out. Then, it's difficult to know who's the aggressor. Even if that's all crystal clear, you're almost certainly going to deal with months or years of legal hell if you intervene. Successful interventions often lead to prosecutions.

neighbour• 7 months ago

any valuable laptop is a tracking device anyway.

You say this but I've seen countless videos of Apple stores getting raided by thugs who steal all the devices. We all know those devices will shut down and be inoperable but they don't know and/or care.

jamespo3• 7 months ago

What's the source for this "successful interventions often lead to prosecutions"?

mc3301• 7 months ago

I'm a Japan resident... whenever I'm outside of Japan, friends have to remind me to not "leave my laptop out like that" nor hold wads of visible cash or keep my smartphone on the table.

Cafes... I'll go to the bathroom or whatever and just leave my stuff all out on the table, meanwhile with my high-end bicycle parked unlocked and out-of-view outside.

It, of course, isn't like this EVERYWHERE in Japan, but many many places.

madaxe_again• 7 months ago

This is why I always used a clunker on the tube - early 2000s, you’d find me with a mid 90s monochrome Toshiba 386 laptop, cranking out code in vim - one handed, because the other hand supported the laptop - there are rarely seats on the tube.

Anyway. A) it was ancient and worthless and B) if anyone tried anything it was heavy enough it could do serious damage.

dmaa• 7 months ago

On my phone, I have a faceid requirement on basically any app, so getting it ripped off my hands would be just a minor inconvenience.

Laptop on the other hand... Many times working on the train i've been thinking about some accelerometer based emergency lockdown. Can't be that hard to do.

jamespo3• 7 months ago

There is software to shutdown/lock based on removal of a usb device that you have looped onto your wrist.

MuffinFlavored• 7 months ago

Between work, meetups, and social events, I have noticeably less time for side projects than I had before moving here.

Lucky you. :) Good problem to have.

ghostly_s• 7 months ago

Did this for a couple years on a 45 minute CTA commute in Chicago while I was learning to code outside my day job, it honestly made that commute not even feel burdensome. Key was that I was 1.) on the brown line, which was still running the 3200-series cars with plentiful seats, and 2.) at an early enough stop to reliably get one. And can confirm an old Thinkpad (x220 at the time) is the king of commute coding.

Wowfunhappy• 7 months ago

I’ve done this before, but you need a relatively long subway ride without any transfers. IMO, 30 minutes is just barely at the edge of being worthwhile, and only if you can get a seat right when you get on, and only if the seat isn’t so cramped that it’s actually possible to get your laptop out of your bag. This happens rarely.

But on longer trips from e.g. upper Manhattan to deep Brooklyn, particularly at off-peak hours when I have room to spread out—yeah, I’ve had some very productive sessions.

mlhpdx• 7 months ago

Not often, and not recommended, but I have coded on the cockpit table while single-handing a sailboat. Interrupting a conference call with “sorry, one moment, I have to tack out of the fleet” is its own special joy.

horizion2025• 7 months ago

I have always enjoyed it. I have even gotten comments "can you really do anything in such a short period of time" but i have found that even 20 min sessions on a commute can be effective. For a major project I did the final push on such a commute just hoping the push could complete before the train reached the tunnel without coverage, and it did

65• 7 months ago

Eh. My preferred subway activity is to listen to music and stare at the ground. I don't know... do I really need to stare at my computer screen every waking moment?

jonlam92• 7 months ago

With some noise cancelling headphones, it may actually help with focus. I'm a fan of doing things on the subway.

neomantra• 7 months ago

I love to program on my commute. When I took NJ Transit bus, when I took NY Ferry, when I took MetroNorth.

But I’ve never felt comfortable opening a laptop on the NYC subway. It wasn’t about the safety that OP describes. It was about the culture and the physical configuration (facing middle with strap hangers vs facing front/back). It just didn’t feel right in the subway.

I do miss the MetroNorth Bar Car! I could drink and code and it was jovial.

nicbou2• 7 months ago

My entire stack is meant to let me work offline in random locations. Until recently it was meant to run smoothly on a 12" Macbook. The output is also made for users on spotty internet connections. This comes from years of working while travelling. I can work offline for weeks if needed.

I sometimes do "iPad work", which is essentially researching, reviewing and annotating content on my iPad Mini. I will hop on my bike and work an hour or two in different locations, over coffee or in the sun. It's a relaxing break from working on a computer at a desk.

I do think that people should work in different places. Perhaps we'd have apps that work better on slow internet.

theshrike793• 7 months ago

IIRC there are some actual studies that say changing your physical location will actually affect your performance.

In my previous $dayjob I was That Guy who was getting pinged on chats and emails and people dropped in for "just a quick question". When I had to get work done on a deadline, I went to a cafe down the street, turned off the chats, got a massive bucket of coffee, put on my noise cancelling headphones and just ... worked. Later when the office got bigger (multiple stories in the same building), I "hid" on a couch at a complete different department for the same purpose.

That was almost 10 years ago and still my brain connects couches and cafes as deep work places :D

nicbou2• 7 months ago

It was mostly to fit my travel habits, but you might be right. Nowadays I work at a cafe with friends every Monday. It's a nice break from WFH.

Chinjut• 7 months ago

I love making money for my employer with every spare moment of my life.

htk• 7 months ago

If you took the time to read the first paragraph instead of typing this snarky comment, you'd know he's working on his personal projects.

venturecruelty4• 7 months ago

Not paying attention on the train, even in 2025 girliepop-influencer-Instragram-latte-art New York, is not the smartest. You're probably better off during rush hour, but being aware of your surroundings is never a bad idea, even in "safe" New York.

ipaddr2• 7 months ago

Do your work today and tomorrow you can fool around and have some fun. Do the minimum today so you can do the maximum tomorrow rarely makes sense.

Myzel394• 7 months ago

I was in Philadelphia for a week and also used my commute time (2 hours in total each day) to program. As a web developer who uses Github Copilot and often checks documentation online, I did not have such a good experience as OP had. Mobile data is pretty much nonexistent in Philadelphia in the subway and there are also no wifi Hotspots. Sure, it was better than nothing, but I would quite often find myself waiting for the subway to arrive at stations and hoping that there is at least some internet connectivity there.

gregsadetsky• 7 months ago

Reminds me of this metafilter thread [0] where people asked/shared less usual work locations. Hotel lobbies are a great one, as have laundromats sometimes been in the past.

An intercity train with wifi/cell service (and tea!) is an incredible focussing function as well. You got 3 hours and a beautiful not too distracting view. Go!

P.s. I also suggested to Stephen that he gets a Nathan Fielder “laptop harness” for his subway work..? Has anyone tried this?

[0] https://ask.metafilter.com/316039/Ideas-for-workspaces-pleas...

theshrike793• 7 months ago

Louis Rrossmann[0] had a massive tirade against Macbooks over a decade ago because they didn't have a battery hump in the back.

Why you ask?

I'll tell you. He edited videos on the NY subway using his Lenovo(?) laptop with a massive extra battery hump in the back, which he used as a handle to hold on to with one hand while he typed with the other.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/@rossmanngroup

teddyh• 7 months ago

Many years ago, before mobile internet was reasonable and before wireless internet was available, and before even electrical outlets were something which could be counted on to be present on trains, I took a 6 hour train ride. I had no laptop. I printed out, on paper, the entire source code of the project I was working on, and brought a red pen. I read through the whole thing, from start to finish. Many subtle bug fixes, refactorings, and efficiency improvements were made that day.

dghost-dev• 7 months ago

That’s actually pretty cool!

someone_jain_• 7 months ago

Thats pretty rad! How many papers were you hauling!?

ktzar• 7 months ago

I developed a big chunk of my Scumm games decompiler in London's central line. I was lucky (or unlucky) enough to go far enough each day to always hand an empty seat and enjoy 30 minutes of me time each way.

All on a Chromebook with crostini. Cheap, long battery life and decent keyboard.

roryirvine• 7 months ago

My experience of the central line couldn't have been more different - commuting between Bethnal Green and Holborn, often having to wait 20-25 mins on the platform, letting a dozen trains go by before finally managing to squeeze on, followed by 9 minutes crouching under someone's armpit.

No chance of reading my phone or Kindle, let alone using a laptop!

macNchz2• 7 months ago

I recently bought a GPD MicroPC 2, a 7” laptop with a real keyboard. It runs Linux just fine, and it has been a fun experience of having a “real” computer with me much more often than I otherwise would. My version of programming on the subway has been programming on a park bench—it fits in a jacket pocket, or even the back pocket of some of my pants. The keyboard is tiny but easy enough to use with thumbs, or, with some practice, two-handed touch typing on a flat surface.

It’s nice to be less tethered to a desk, while also not having to carry a backpack and heavier full laptop, but still able to remote in and do what I need to do. I really enjoy having a fully capable Linux PC in my pocket vs a smartphone.

yjftsjthsd-h• 7 months ago

GPD MicroPC 2, a 7” laptop with a real keyboard

Is it actually decent for typing on? I'm perennially tempted, but I'm somewhat skeptical of a small keyboard vs touch typing.

nathell2• 7 months ago

Another GPD MicroPC owner here. It’s not quite as comfortable as a normal-sized keyboard, but much more comfortable than it looks. It’s quite decent for occasional recreational programming, and I’ve also used it to write daily blog posts from a long-distance cycling trip.

macNchz2• 7 months ago

It's surprisingly good! I wouldn't want to type on it all day long, but it works pretty well for me. I just did a cold typing test, not having typed on it in a few days, and got 55wpm touch typing the normal way, and 40wpm with thumbs. On a regular keyboard I can type >100wpm, so it's clearly not quite there, but I much prefer it to a smartphone keyboard, and I can be much more accurate on it without any sort of autocorrect.

internet2000• 7 months ago

30 minutes is enough? I hope this person doesn't complain about "flow state" when I interrupt him by dropping by at his desk then!

btreesOfSpring• 7 months ago

When I was part of a team developing a highly durable texting protocol, those of us in NYC would regularly test messaging while riding the subway. Between stations, you didn't have network access but different devices upon entering the next station would handle and recover from the interruptions in various ways.

The subway produced so many repeatable network connection edge case problems. It was fantastic.

confusus• 7 months ago

Sounds very cool! Is that protocol still around?

bitwize• 7 months ago

I used to program on the Boston T. I had my little MSI Wind netbook and I coded a game on my commutes to and from work. I eventually ported that game to Android.

venturecruelty4• 7 months ago

This is how transplants get mugged, but okay. Why not just enjoy your hour of zen instead of constantly working?

helterskelter• 7 months ago

I do my best thinking on the bus.

don-code• 7 months ago

Doing connected work from the subway has gotten much, much easier in the last few years. I attribute that to three things:

1. Cell service has become low-latency. This is very different from "fast", which it has also become! When I started working from the train (on HSPA+), pings in the hundreds of milliseconds were the norm. My first step was usually to SSH to a remote machine, and let just the text lag on me. Nowadays, I can run a Web browser locally without issue.

2. Cell service has, at the same time, become ubiquitous in subway tunnels. When I started, there were some areas that dropped down to EDGE (unusable), and some areas that had no service at all. Now, there is exactly one place on the Boston transit system - Back Bay Station - where I lose cell service.

3. Noise cancelling tech has gotten better. It's not just about noise cancelling headphones: both of my laptops (a 2024 MBP and a ThinkPad P14s) have microphones that can filter out screeching wheels and noisy teenagers quite well. That means I can take meetings without making them miserable for the people on the other end.

These, honestly, are a huge game-changer for me. The ability to take a 30 minute meeting while commuting, where otherwise I would've had to get in early or stay late at work, actually does wonders for my ability to have a life outside of work.

isaacdl• 7 months ago

The ability to take a 30 minute meeting

At the small cost of making everyone around you miserable.

AmbroseBierce• 7 months ago

Maybe they mean those meetings when you don't talk much, just listen to everyone else

prattmic2• 7 months ago

2. Cell service has, at the same time, become ubiquitous in subway tunnels.

Not in New York, unfortunately. All of the stations have cell service, and one tunnel (14th Street L train tunnel under the East River), but everywhere else has no service between stations. It’s an annoying limitation that most cities seem to have fixed by now.

hollerith• 7 months ago

If I rode there I'd consider that a feature, not a limitation.

allkushdiet• 7 months ago

I used to do this as I commuted on the train between school and my hometown in the early 2010s. As a way to learn and pass the time.

No access to internet so mostly hacking from memory. I could use man pages for C, but Haskell was a bit more tricky.

Sometimes I’d just end up sketching things out on paper, but eventually I could complete entire modules without looking anything up. Was always a bummer to be stuck on something that I knew could be answered online in mere seconds. Good times.

mncharity• 7 months ago

I've had good conversations with strangers

Laptops sometimes have stickers. For a time, I instead had a transparent slip cover, to vary the sticker set, user-test alternatives, and throttle conversations. Science education topics (Boston/Cambridge subway). Anti-patriarchy stickers drew proto-MAGAs. Some backpacks now have low-res screens built into the back, suggesting new possibilities.

One Laptop Per Child, at its peak, generated fun continuous crowd conversations.

a pair of glasses with a screen inside of them

I've no idea what current tech is like, but I use to proselytize aphysical UIs, where a small head motion results in larger screen motion, to reduce neck swiveling.[1]

weirder

Laptop harness walking desks are a thing. And one can do hand and head tracking[2] (I had that setup at a meetup where the swag was little stick-on privacy shutters for laptop webcams :). Boston/Cambridge is perhaps culturally a best case for such games - I've not tried them in NYC... hmm.

but something very complex, [...] instead sketch out a diagram on a piece of paper [...] keep a small notebook in my bag

Same. I've tried swapping in an iPad, but it hasn't stuck.

[1] silly old demo, 5k on a bus: https://x.com/mncharity/status/1225091755667853318 [2] https://imgur.com/a/keyboard-cam-Z1VipaL

incanus773• 7 months ago

About 20 years ago, I landed my first real, high-impact job at an upstart consulting agency in Washington DC that came from the ashes of the Howard Dean campaign. Unfortunately, I had also just signed a lease on an apartment in the town I lived in, a two hour drive from downtown DC.

I spent the first year at that job commuting into DC 2-3 days/week, which involved about an hour drive, then an hour regional commuter train, then some Metro transfer and walking — then back again in the evening. I spent that train time offline (as it was 2004) learning the Apple Cocoa frameworks, as in another twist of fate, the company was entirely Apple laptop-based, which was fairly rare for 2004, and I built tools for the team and myself. The focus possible because I was offline, with comprehensive docs, was pretty intense and was a huge part of many aspects of my career to follow.

j_bum• 7 months ago

Sounds like an incredible period. Do you miss it at all?

I’ve had phases of my life where I was lucky to have periods of absolute and undisturbed focus (grad school, summers during college, etc.). It’s easy to forget how valuable that type of focus time is until it goes away!

incanus773• 7 months ago

Oh sure, lots of things to miss about that time... startup vibes, underdog causes during the worst of the Bush years, and work that ranged from the Mac stuff to Linux/BSD backend admin, PHP dev, introduction of the tech team to SVN/version control, even some music composition for a video. And close work with a bunch of folks on the team who now have their own Wikipedia pages, as well as high-profile clients. My boss left eventually in mid 2005 to go work for (then Senator) Obama and personally interviewed him for / produced his podcast, posted to his Flickr, and that sort of thing.

The commuting... not so much. Moved into DC proper after that year, which itself was a great adventure. Leaving the house at 5:30-6:00am and returning at 8:30-9:00pm was no way to live.

wwweston• 7 months ago

what else has comprehensive off-line docs these days?

lights0123• 7 months ago

https://zealdocs.org/ is surprisingly decent.

fragmede3• 7 months ago

https://devdocs.io/

mid-kid2• 7 months ago

I usually make do with `man` pages for C (very comprehensive), and the `python-docs` package in my distro (you can download a static copy of the python documentation, and even the search will work offline). As well as whatever PDF manuals I need for what I'm doing.

As I use Gentoo I also usually have the source code for anything on my system, so I can dig into that if I'm missing some docs, as there's frequently a docs/ folder in the archive.

If I'm missing documentation, I make a note of it and see if there's a way to make it available locally, somehow.

neilv• 7 months ago

Something a bit like that is part of how I got the Lisp Hacker merit badge.

I wanted a Lisp to be my new platform language for rapid systems research. And I had to spend most of each day on my laptop, from cafes and parks around town, with very little Internet access.

So I got all the docs locally, and I kludged up Emacs as a power-efficient "IDE" (including avoiding having to run a bloated Web browser), to help keep the hard drive spun down and CPU slowed.

Then I simply did a lot of programming, without distractions like open plan offices and pointless meetings. Even though I might be sitting against a tree in a busy park, and then have to move to a noisy cafe to recharge battery. Still so much less distracting and less stressful than an open plan office.

sokoloff• 7 months ago

Having started using emacs in the 80s, it’s strange to read about it being the power-efficient choice now.

I agree it was for you, but it had well-earned the “eight megabytes and constantly swapping” reputation 35 years ago.

mrb• 7 months ago

"On the subway, I'm missing a lot of my normal setup [...] I don't even have an internet connection"

There is no cellular data in the NYC subway? I had to look it up online and apparently there is but coverage is quite patchy. That's very surprising to learn, NYC being one of the most developped and richest cities in the world. By comparison, and from my experience, the Parisian metro has excellent coverage.

alexchantavy• 7 months ago

Haa don’t get me started about BART. Though maybe that’s just me problem not having Verizon.

93n• 7 months ago

I decided to cut an hour out of my in-the-office time recently, figuring that I'm sitting on the bus for any hour anyway, so I might as well use that time to knock some work out instead. Tethering is pretty good other than a predictable problem spot or two.

Much better experience than working on a plane. I've done a handful of cross-US flights this year on Alaska Airlines, and trying to do anything network-related on those flights was torture. Super spotty, high latencies, constant timeouts; very frustrating.

anonzzzies• 7 months ago

I program and did program anywhere; unlike OP, I thrive in (human) noise: if it's quiet, I cannot focus, so working at home with multi monitor setups etc works against me (music doesn't help: not random enough and I cannot talk to people when I feel the need). I prefer subways, busses, airplanes, lounges, coffeeshops, pubs etc. Offices strangely do not work as I already know those people so I get bored and creativity plummets. My setup now is the best I had ever: a rugged android tablet with week-long battery, running termux with full desktop linux (not rooted) which can run all I want. I run several llms offline on it as well to fix the workflow when I don't have my nice foldable full keyboard out (if no space). I can run everything in our framework, online and offline; when I come back online, I just sync (code AND data) and voila.

rlue3• 7 months ago

I have also contemplated wearing a keyboard on my pants and using a pair of “XR glasses” (like those by X-Real or Viture) as a display.

I would absolutely never do this in a public place, much less a crowded one.

This guy’s figured it out though.

https://evantravers.com/articles/2023/04/06/magsafe-tenting-...

wahnfrieden3• 7 months ago

I use these same tripods with magsafe stickers (to be used next on my newer Glove80 with Pro Reds). It works well. I also use them atop somewhat taller mini tripods for other ergonomic situations, or with clamps attached to my chair. It's very quick to move the keyboard halves around and use during travel where desks will not be at ergonomic heights.

rlue3• 7 months ago

Very curious what other tripods you’ve found suitable for this purpose. At my own workstation, I use a pair of adhesive dashboard mounts, which allows me to achieve some pretty extreme tenting (see https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/1p1q5xz/), but while out and about, I worry that such light boards would get jostled around on a desk/table if tented as hard as I usually do.

jwpapi• 7 months ago

Yeah I even do it in Ubers nowadays.

I actually feel like oversea flights are my most productive sessions.

I could totally see my using the train to drive through the country to work on some stuff, where I barely need internet.

It’s almost always better than my 49 inch monitor at home lol.

collinboler2• 7 months ago

I do leetcode in the browser on my phone sometimes lol. It's far from ideal, but most of the work is thinking rather than typing.

fragmede3• 7 months ago

I've done this! https://a.co/d/80C2EQ5 is the harness I use for it. It's main problem is you look like a total dork, but picking up potential partners on the subway is a faux pas anyway, so that's less of an issue, but still.

alexfoo• 7 months ago

Late 90’s I had a ~90 minute commute for a while (50min train with seat, 20min London Underground seat mostly, 15min train crammed, 10min walk).

The longer train I would use my laptop, same with the 20min underground section on the journey in (going home no chance), but for the packed train and the walk I listened to music (I still have my Diamond Rio PMP300, no idea if it still works, just remember downsampling music to 32kbps to get more on a memory card, quality was less important than quantity - I must have listened to David Gray’s album _White Ladder_ many hundreds of times).

Toshiba laptops (Satellite? I think they were before the Tecras), heavy and the battery life wasn’t much more than 90 minutes but it was just enough. Dual booting Windows and Linux. (Linux for dev work on the go…)

Obviously no mobile connectivity back then, I had to have a plan for what I was going to work on and that also involved backup plans if I ran into a blocker on the primary. Same for the way home.

A bit later I could get GPRS data rates via Infra-Red to my mobile and that just felt like magic.

I found the times I couldn’t be on my laptop (walking or on the packed train) were great for thinking problems through and often had to stop to scribble down thoughts/ideas/solutions in a notebook that I kept in the laptop bag.

Wrote so much useful code in that 18 months without the distractions of the Internet or emails or whatever.

Now I somehow find I have less time despite having virtually no commute. Technology has vastly increased the number of distractions and I have let myself succumb to them. Where I had no real choice in what music I listened to now I have too much choice. There’s always one last thing to check before I get on with a bit of work. Sometimes I wish for simpler times.

apparent• 7 months ago

White Ladder was a great study accompaniment.

acjohnson552• 7 months ago

I used to regularly do work on my laptop on the subway, and then the PATH, after I moved to NJ. You don't see a whole lot of people doing it but it's very doable. I tether to get online via my phone.

birdgoose2• 7 months ago

This is essentially how I work on hobby projects these days. My bus commute is about 45 minutes each way and I find this to be just enough time to get work done. I also try not to work on these projects outside of my commuting hours; this gives me time to mull problems over rather than jumping headlong into writing code.

The lack of internet on the bus has not really been a problem since I plan ahead and make sure any dependencies I need are already downloaded.

I use an old (2010 era) Toshiba netbook which is small enough that I'm not causing problems for my seat neighbours. It's also only got a dual-core 1GHz processor which kind of forces me to find performant solutions to problems.

Much like the author I've also been thinking about how I can make my setup more portable. I've been considering purchasing AR glasses and using my Charachorder2 so I don't even need to get the netbook out of my bag. At this stage I can't justify the cost of a pair of AR glasses though.

Some recent projects my commute has given me the time to work on:

- a text editor (OCaml, SDL)

- a 3D game (C, OpenGL)

- an x86 operating system (Zig)

throwaway20374• 7 months ago

Do you have a public GitHub profile? Those projects sound cool.

birdgoose2• 7 months ago

Sadly, only the text editor is on public source control at the moment (https://github.com/jpsheehan/ocaml-edit). The game project and operating system are ongoing until I get bored of them and move on to something else. Most of my obsessions over the last few years have been bus projects. My Tetris clone is another example (C, SDL): https://github.com/jpsheehan/tetris

meken• 7 months ago

Currently I am working on affixing a split keyboard to my pants, so that I can program while standing up.

This reminded me of the "walking desk" Stephen Wolfram uses to program:

https://content.wolfram.com/sites/43/2019/02/07-popcorn-rig1...

I tried to use a similar one during Covid and couldn't get into it at all.

TheNewAndy• 7 months ago

I wrote nearly all of https://apps.apple.com/us/app/two-birds-one-stone/id15396463... on a train without internet. It was about a half hour journey, and I found that in such a short amount of time, I would set a small goal and work in a very distraction free way to achieve it. It was very good for doing small things, but sometimes doing larger things (like big refactors) is a bit more difficult. On occasion, I would also dedicate a train ride to just writing up a todo list.

I gave myself the rule of no internet while on the train, so sometimes I would just accumulate a list of questions I wanted to answer later.

There is definitely something to it, and you can get heaps done, but it needs to be supported with some non-train time (e.g. for me, it was all the app store stuff, debugging with real hardware, etc)

hoppp• 7 months ago

30 minutes can be plenty of time for implementing a feature. If you got your priorities straight.

aj7• 7 months ago

I did my calculus homework on the subway.

ak217• 7 months ago

When I used to ride Caltrain to/from work, I would often have an uninterrupted stretch of 45+ minutes in a cozy single seat (I would always take an upper deck seat in the "gallery" car) to either doze off or use this time to focus on something. I would get so much done on those days if I managed to avoid the sun blasting too much sunlight on my screen/seat. This commuter rail experience is probably familiar to many of us, but it's specific to commuter rail - being a passenger on a subway or in a car/bus is too chaotic or bumpy to do this.

More generally, I find that switching up your surroundings is absolutely vital for your brain's ability to focus on hard tasks. I will hit a wall if I try to work multiple 10+ hour days sitting in one spot, but a comfortable spot in a different coffee shop or lounge can totally trick my brain into powering through.

throwaway20374• 7 months ago

    > This commuter rail experience is probably familiar to many of us, but it's specific to commuter rail - being a passenger on a subway or in a car/bus is too chaotic or bumpy to do this.

I second this. It is hard for me to do anything productive on a bus because the stop/start frequency is too high and more physically demanding than a train.

sammy2255• 7 months ago

I don't understand how this is possible. I've heard the New York Subway system is riddled with antisocial behaviour, homeless, drunks, people pissing everywhere, etc.

WD-42• 7 months ago

People say the same thing about BART but it’s not bad at all. Turns out people on the internet aren’t reliable.

nrhrjrjrjtntbt• 7 months ago

How dare a human be unproductive for 4% of a day.

egl2020• 7 months ago

I once had an 1.75 hour commute each way, 3.5 hours daily. I had to program during the commute---otherwise there weren't enough hours in the day to get my work done. There were periods of laptop-closed thinking, but no daydreaming or looking at the scenery. No Internet connectivity, so I had to plan carefully.

leonc28• 7 months ago

Does anyone make a mobile cursor that can be remotely controlled? Like, I can keep tapping (tab, tab, tab), and it will automatically switch and zoom to the next window.

Jean-Papoulos• 7 months ago

I switched from a 1h30 of commute by bus to 15 minutes by car a while back ; then I switched jobs and now have 1h total commute. It's kind of annoying that I can't do anything of substance during this time because I'm driving. I used to read on the bus and while I don't miss the bus, I certainly miss the reading.

tomjen3• 7 months ago

Years ago I was part of a cross-disciplinary group doing game development.

After our standup in the morning, the graphics artists would have made tons of drawings on the paper table cloth. If they had access to a pen and paper, they would be drawing.

mid-kid2• 7 months ago

I used to commute 1h40m one way, which accounted for 50mins in a train (+10min avg waiting). While I ususally did pull out my laptop, the productivity just wasn't there - I can't consistently work while groggy/vitamin-d deficient during winter mornings, or in the evening being cooked after having worked for 8 hours (I have an office job, but not programming). The seats are cramped and uncomfortable, not being able to raise my arms enough to use the keyboard without bothering the passanger next to me, so I'd have to put it away during the crowded parts of the ride, and I'd be very frustrated if the train was unusually crowded. Having your "flow" be broken by arriving at the end stop and having to rush to pack your things is awful. The only conversation someone's struck up with me was a guy who insisted he'd never understand what I was doing even if he tried.

Suffice to say, after almost two years of this, I was extremely tired and sleep deprived as this ate away at my available time more than what is reasonable. Using the time for personal projects didn't compensate for it. Never again, it's really not worth it.

fho• 7 months ago

Started a comment to write basically what you said. I've been commuting like that for five years. At the end I didn't bother trying anything productive anymore.

Losing 2-3h per day commuting is not something I am gone miss anytime soon.

vermooten• 7 months ago

Sounds like a 1-way ticket to burnout.

nathell2• 7 months ago

A few years ago, I spotted a guy on the underground in Warsaw, hacking on some code in a language I didn't recognize, but it was definitely assembly of some sort. Being shy, I resorted to throwing curious glimpses at his laptop for a few stations, but eventually curiosity got the better of me and I asked ‘sorry, is this ARM’? To which the guy replies, smiling, ‘ah no, it’s MIPS!’

Now I program casually in public spaces, including the underground, on my GPD Micro PC [0]. It, too, has attracted numerous glimpses and been a conversation starter on some occasions.

[0] https://blog.danieljanus.pl/2022/08/18/i-love-my-gpd-micro-p...

asimovDev• 7 months ago

that's a fun story! i program on the train often due to occasional long commute (hour one way), but I live in finland so people are much less likely to talk to me, a stranger on the train, out of blue. On couple occasions I wanted to talk to another coder on the train when I notice their laptop stickers (a gamejam sticker or a sticker saying that this laptop is property of company X) but felt too self-conscious to do that cause they looked very focused

davnicwil• 7 months ago

Coding on metros, trains, buses and planes is exactly the reason I always make sure my dev environments work 100% offline, with dummy services in place of the real ones.

One thing I love about coding on public transport is the sense of urgency can be fun.

Being on the verge of figuring out a bugfix or whatever when you know train is pulling into the station and you have maybe a minute to go, cracking it, quick test, bundle the laptop quickly back into your bag as you step off the train is quite a nice feeling.

cess11• 7 months ago

I've done a lot of programming in public transport. It helps to shut out the environment with blasting black metal, pick an album that is almost entirely screaming tremolos, and then run a script with a sleep or Process.send_after or something that throws up send-notify bubbles when it's about time to pack up.

TrackerFF• 7 months ago

A couple of weeks ago I was in Copenhagen, and had to take the metro back and forth a bunch of times throughout the day. I noticed some guy riding the "Cityringen" line, which goes in a loop, working on his laptop - coding in some CLI editor. Noticed the same guy a couple of times throughout the day, sitting in the same spot.

Figured he just used the metro as his workplace.

KptMarchewa• 7 months ago

Currently I am working on affixing a split keyboard to my pants, so that I can program while standing up.

This has to be satire.

sedatk2• 7 months ago

What I miss about my long commutes on public transportation in early 2000’s was the serenity of doing absolutely nothing.

It was essentially forced meditation, and it helped me a lot in reorganizing my thoughts.

I had moved next to the office later, and noticed that I’d really missed those meditative hours. I saved maybe 1.5 hours of commute every day but my net productivity had declined.

I don’t think it would be as easy to achieve the same effect today as it was back then. We now have phones and interactive ads, and that dopamine driven economy.

I miss that about those times.

mnky9800n3• 7 months ago

I go to the coffee shop without my phone and the freeing sensation is unreal

gozzoo3• 7 months ago

aren't such places too busy for meditation?

decafninja• 7 months ago

Proponents of public transportation often say how they love to be able to use it as peaceful downtime to read, work, meditate, etc.

All my experience with public transportation is having to roll the dice and more often than not losing - having to stand while packed liked sardines into a bus or subway.

MrOrelliOReilly• 7 months ago

Try a commuter train in Switzerland. I work two hours on the train every single day with no issue!

d4nyll• 7 months ago

Working on the metro makes a boring commute fly by - blink and you are at your destination already. 30 minutes each way is 1 hour a day. Over the entire year it's 250+ hours or 9 whole 16-hour days.

That's why whenever I move to a new city, I typically look to live somewhere that's at the end of the metro line. It meant in the morning commute I can _always_ get a seat.

That was one of the reasons I liked living in Hammersmith when I worked in Shoreditch/Old Street - it's at the end of the Hammersmith and City Line and I don't have to change lines. There's also the add bonus that the line is above ground until Paddington which meant I have more than enough time to load up any tabs I need to use before the Internet blackout.

In Hong Kong I worked at Central and lived in Tsuen Wan. Literally from one end of the line to the other. This had the added bonus that I was also guaranteed a seat on the way home as well.

yuhmahp• 7 months ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43894305

You can use commute time for day dreaming. It's not a waste of time

eigenspace• 7 months ago

Ever since moving to Germany, one of my favourite treats has been to jump on a train out to the countryside, program on the train, and then go for a hike, do some more programming during lunch, and then program on the train on my way home.

It's often less productive than a normal workday so i dont do it super often, but It's very enjoyable, and the change of scenery sometimes helps me get unstuck on problems.

lukax• 7 months ago

17 years ago I went to a summer vacation with my family (still a teenager). That meant 10 days without any internet connectivity. I just got my first laptop and I was allowed to take it with me. I was reverse engineering MSN Messenger's user to user and profile picture exchange protocol from TCP dumps. MSN Messenger did not use any encryption. Before I went to the vacation I recorded a bunch of sessions with Wireshark (maybe it was still Ethereal back then). Then for 10 days I was just trying to figure out from the dumps how the binary protocol worked and was writing the code without any way to test it. When I came back I just had to fix some minor bugs and it worked. Fun times.

I program on the subway

Related Stories