I don't have very tidy handwriting, and for most things this is fine: there's enough redundancy in language that it will be clear from context what is a t and what is a +. When writing calculations, however, there's often a lot less redundancy and so it's more worth it to make sure distinctions aren't being lost. One way to handle this would be to have clean handwriting overall, but what I do instead is use glyphs that are more robust and remain distinct even if written poorly. [1]
Here are what I do with some tricky glyphs:
ijt+l1I2z7;
It's nice if these are clear to other people, but the main goal is for them not to be confused with each other. Things to help this:
- i includes a right hook
- j is normal
- t includes a right hook
- + is normal
- l is loopy/cursive
- 1 is a straight line
- I has top and bottom lines
- 2 is normal
- z has a cross
- 7 has a cross
(zt + 2ij)/7Il
and still be able to read back what I wrote. This is also something I need when transcribing whiteboard coding interviews at work: [2]
for (int j = i; j < t + z; j++)
You might notice that I don't use this for the i or t in int. It's just for variables.
[1] I don't think this is original to me, but it's also something I picked up
gradually as I realized that certain forms were more reliable.
[2] Yes, candidates write code on whiteboards, we transcribe it on paper, and then we type it into a computer for others to review. Someday candidates will write on laptops, I guess, but it was weird that we were doing it in 2010, and we're still doing it in 2018, so who knows.
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