[atoav]

Also: isn't the UX of a pencil very close to the UNIX philosophy of having little tools that do one thing and one thing well, and work together with other things?

In that sense most software today isn't a pencil. It is more like a fully furbished office where you are not allowed to use a pencil but you have to use a silly oversized rubber-ballpen with decorative feathers instead. Oh and the paper is made of plastic and you are not allowed to change it because the guy at the door will beat you with a stick. On the bright side the filing cabinet might be the best you have ever seen — but you really aren't enjoying it all that much because you feel forced to write on plastic with a goofy pen that changes colours every 4 months. Ah, and you are forbidden to take the plastic writings out of the room (again the man with the stick).

I cannot believe that it is 2020 and the best thing we came up with is still just a text based shell (nothing against those, they are great, but I'd love to see the same modularity in typical GUI applications).

[ryandrake]

If 2020 Silicon Valley had to invent the pencil, it would be shaped like a smartphone, include chat apps and "social," require special paper to write with, and send everything the user writes back to the company's server.

[Izkata]

Something like these, perhaps?

https://www.thearchitectsguide.com/articles/best-smart-pen

(#7 includes saving to Slack)

[malikwaqas758]

something like these? https://bestjigsawguide.com/