TOtosh·Jul 29, 2026Submission
Notation design and how it affects thought
2 points · Open discussionkai-qu
notation
OPEN SOURCE2016–2026
kai-qu / notation
notation
Collection of quotes on notation design & how it affects thought.
12Distinct people
20Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
1.9KGitHub stars
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What it is
Collection of quotes on notation design & how it affects thought.
GitHub
Where it is used
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What people are saying
This readme file, which is about how notation systems influence thought, is something I refer to again and again. It's given me a lot of insights and ideas. I recommend it!…
karaterobot used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.
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Also in these discussions
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 1:49:46 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year20 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2016-07-22 22:11:51 UTC to 2026-07-29 16:45:54 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 8 | 5 | 3 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
What Hacker News says
20 sourcesA collection of quotes on the design of notation as a tool of thought
4 points · Open discussionThis readme file, which is about how notation systems influence thought, is something I refer to again and again. It's given me a lot of insights and ideas. I recommend it!
https://github.com/kai-qu/notation
It references Iverson, but is very anecdotal and wider ranging.
In Notation as a Tool of Thought (1979)Notation design and how it affects thought
3 points · Open discussionIf you enjoy this, you might find this meta list on "notation and thought" interesting: https://github.com/k-qy/notation
In Notation as a Tool of Thought (1979)Related: https://github.com/hypotext/notation
In Notation as a Tool of Thought (1979) [pdf]Collection of Quotes on Notation Design
40 points · Open discussionNot a (serious) juggler, but I first heard about siteswap in a roundabout way, through this github repo that collects quotes about notations.
It has an excepted quote from Wright that blew my mind:
> So we decided to invent a notation for juggling. Now this didn’t happen overnight—this took some considerable time—and our early attempts were very poor. They were inadequate to describe many of the tricks we thought a notation should be able to describe. And eventually we hit on a scheme that seemed to work. And we used it to write down loads of different juggling tricks that we knew.
> We discovered that if we arranged those tricks in just the right way, they fell into a pattern. There was an underlying, unsuspected structure. As long as you had the courage to leave gaps. And this goes back to things like the Periodic Table, when Mendeley w
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as writing down all the elements—he realized that if you arranged them all according to function, then there were gaps, and that then predicted the existence of chemical elements.
> Well, we were predicting the existence of juggling tricks. And it worked! We actually found juggling tricks that no one had ever done before.
(https://github.com/hypotext/notation)
What's so cool is that you can predict gaps in knowledge by developing a notation to (honestly) describe what you do know.
Reminds me of these notes: https://github.com/hypotext/notation
In Notation as a Tool of ThoughtHere is a great set of notes on the topic: https://github.com/hypotext/notation
In Notation as a Tool of Thought (1979)Fits perfectly with Dana Scott's suggestion "a trend towards the removal of explicit parameters."
https://github.com/hypotext/notation#mathematical-notation-p...
In Why numbering should start at zero (1982)Collection of quotes on interesting notations and how they affect thought
147 points · Open discussionShowing the 15 most recent of 20 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.