5 ms·
Used to work with two programmers: First would type out a few lines of code incredibly fast with lots of mistakes (and not bothering to backspace over wrongnes
by samlittlewood 9y ago
Used to work with two programmers:
First would type out a few lines of code incredibly fast with lots of mistakes (and not bothering to backspace over wrongness) - then go back and clear up damage using notepad level editing.
Second would stare fixedly at screen for several seconds, whilst remaining still as a statue, then carefully emit the minimum string of editing commands to achieve the change.
Their actual rate of progress was pretty much identical.
- mikegerwitz 9y ago> Second would stare fixedly at screen for several seconds, whilst remaining still as a statue That eliminates many of the benefits. Was your coworker relatively new to Vim? Or maybe pondering what change to make, not how to actually make it? This is what I've seen from a coworker who was learning Vim and forcing themselves to learn the "proper" way to do things. I don't consider that to be a bad thing, provided that you balance it with actually getting work done. I always do whatever allows me to edit the line without or with relatively short pause. That might be efficient vim commands, or it might be sloppy if the line isn't formatted in such a way that it fits my muscle memory. If I'm dissatisfied with the edit and think there might be a better way, I research it after the fact so I can later practice and know for next time. This comes with experience; I've been using Vim for over a decade. Any pause in my editing is because I'm actually figuring out what change to make, not how to make that change.
- samlittlewood 9y agoThey were reasonably experienced, but had an appetite for optimization beyond what most people would consider reasonable. In defense however, the task at hand was creating graphics microcode, so that mindset did pay off. As you rightly point out - there is a reasonable middle ground.
- fogleman 9y agoSurely there's a middle ground...
- yen223 9y agoI used to work with 3 programmers .....
- whipoodle 9y agoThe midpoint between x and x is x.
- tedunangst 9y agoExcept there are two different x values here. It is the y value that is the same. What is the y value for an x between the two endpoints?
- whipoodle 9y agoGGP stated "the rate of progress was pretty much identical", so are there two x values?
- brandonhsiao 9y agox is text editing style, y is efficiency.
- whipoodle 9y agoWell, I say x is efficiency.
- __s 9y agoI've been using Prettier. Write out a mess of code, hit save, code formats itself
- bemmu 9y agoAnd where would these two programmers be now? The second one was investing to become faster in the future.
- nikofeyn 9y agohow can you claim that? the first could have been converging all these years to make zero mistakes the first time around.
- brandonmenc 9y ago> The second one was investing to become faster in the future. There's definitely an upper limit to human text manipulation speed, and I would be downright shocked if the difference between "fastest vi user" was even a single order of magnitude better than "experienced mouse user."