February 11, 2026
Ink vs Ctrl+F: choose your fighter
Using an Engineering Notebook
Engineers feud: pen-and-paper purists vs. keyboard warriors
TLDR: A developer champions handwritten engineering notebooks, but a poll shows most people don’t use them or don’t know what they are. Comments split between pen lovers who say writing boosts memory, typists who love search and backups, and hybrids who carry two notebooks—making productivity a spicy analog vs digital showdown.
The internet is fighting over… paper? A developer swears that a handwritten engineering notebook is their secret weapon, yet a poll shows only 25% use one, 40% don’t, and 34% don’t even know what it is. Cue the comment brawl: analog romantics vs keyboard warriors.
Team Pen says writing sparks memory and clarity. woodruffw cheered that “writing itself drives strong memory formation,” and claimed their old pages can teleport them back to what they were thinking. Others backed the vibe: it’s the thinking-through, not the later reread, that matters. But the digital crowd came in hot. nytesky admitted there’s a strong notebook culture at work, yet says the actual writing “distracts” compared to typing—with bonus search and backups. dizzant kept it minimalist: one plaintext file per week, neatly dated, bullets for arguments, and zero fuss.
Then the hybrids entered the chat. ElevenLathe pitched a two-notebook system—tiny pocket scribbles for the chaos, a “permanent” book for the canon—earning nods from both camps. Meanwhile, albert_e confessed most handwritten notes “never get read,” and joked that few colleagues even carry notebooks. The memes? Endless: “Ctrl+F vs crumpled pages,” “whiteboard brain vs wrist cramps,” and “ink-stained productivity.” It’s official: the hottest productivity tool right now might be… your pen.
Key Points
- •The author uses a physical engineering notebook as a core productivity practice in software work.
- •A poll found 25% use engineering notebooks, 40% do not, and 34% are unfamiliar, suggesting low adoption.
- •An engineering notebook is defined by detailed, dated, real-time, append-only entries that serve as the original record.
- •The practice began for the author in 2016 during consulting and continues across corporate and client work.
- •Writing by hand is described as aiding memory and thinking, and the notebook is used to plan code changes before implementation.