You can take as read that all my posts are prefixed with "In my opinion". I find it unnecessary to type that out on every post.
Taking a format that only a computer can interpret, code, and choosing to write it down on a medium a computer can't read, hand-writing, is not typically a productive exercise.
Even in interviews I'd rather hand a candidate a laptop.
There are more worthwhile things to hand-write, such as sequence diagrams, and there are more worthwhile places to write code, such as an IDE.
If someone is finding it easier to write code on paper than in an IDE, I'd rather not ignore that signal and try to discover why their IDE is proving such an impediment.
Maybe it takes 10 minutes to start up, maybe it throws up so many errors for each syntax mistake that it's distracting and hard to see the wood for the trees. Maybe it doesn't actually produce useful output. Maybe it doesn't have real time debugging and step-through.
Who knows, but something is causing it to be mentally easier to write down the same code on paper than the IDE, and that's not something that should be ignored, that's something that should be fixed.
I personally tend to think better when I'm away from the computer.
Coding on the IDE helps me to experiment and quickly put something together that works.
But thinking while writing things down or while walking is a slower process, so it helps me focus on nothing but the problem obvious edge cases, different solution designs, etc...
So by thinking about the code away from the IDE first, then by polishing my ideas on the IDE, I usually end up with higher quality code.
But since it's less fun to do things that way, I just tend to do everything on my IDE.
You can take as read that all my posts are prefixed with "In my opinion". I find it unnecessary to type that out on every post.
Its obviously a given - except where people are commenting in a way that indicates they are expressing the one true way, as you did, and have done again.
The OP's way is not for me, but I'm ok with it being for them.
I agree that if there is a problem in their process or workflow that is influencing an inferior (for them) approach it is better to try to help them fix it.
Taking a format that only a computer can interpret, code, and choosing to write it down on a medium a computer can't read, hand-writing, is not typically a productive exercise.
Even in interviews I'd rather hand a candidate a laptop.
There are more worthwhile things to hand-write, such as sequence diagrams, and there are more worthwhile places to write code, such as an IDE.
If someone is finding it easier to write code on paper than in an IDE, I'd rather not ignore that signal and try to discover why their IDE is proving such an impediment.
Maybe it takes 10 minutes to start up, maybe it throws up so many errors for each syntax mistake that it's distracting and hard to see the wood for the trees. Maybe it doesn't actually produce useful output. Maybe it doesn't have real time debugging and step-through.
Who knows, but something is causing it to be mentally easier to write down the same code on paper than the IDE, and that's not something that should be ignored, that's something that should be fixed.