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The whole argument of “wasting time” reaching for the mouse has never made sense to me. In a decade of programming its never been a bottleneck for me. Maybe I’

The whole argument of “wasting time” reaching for the mouse has never made sense to me. In a decade of programming its never been a bottleneck for me. Maybe I’m an outlier here but the whole thinking, planning, and experimenting takes way longer than my hands can move.

oblio 9y ago
You're not an outlier... The only time when editing takes longer than thinking is when you're processing textual data dump files in their various shapes and forms (logs, database dumps as SQL, etc.). For code thinking definitely takes longer than actually editing :)
swiley 9y ago
It's not about wasting time, pointing devices are less precise which means they demand more attention and are less flexible.
- metaobject 9y ago
  Going with your theory, I'd say that pointing devices are more precise which means they require more brain-CPU cycles to operate ... pixel-space is large and you must position it within some delta of the target widget you're trying to use. Whereas in emacs, say, it's a quick "C-x o" to change to the next/other buffer.
  - swiley 9y ago
    Right, they're more precise and less accurate.
jeromenerf 9y ago
I think it depends on the task at hand, whether you are jumping around or focused on a long piece; exploring or debugging ... Anyway, not everything takes place in the editor. "The acme user interface for programmers" (http://acme.cat-v.org/ http://acme.cat-v.org/) is a good inspiration. It focuses on mouse usage and shows how most systems are as nicely integrated as they could be. I have hacked together a setup that mimicks acme using a tiling wm, vim (and its amazing remote features), a plumber and a terminal that can send the current selection to the plumber. This way I use vim as I like but I can send it some path:line:col from anywhere with a right click.
- somezero 9y ago
  Could you explain more about integrating acme ideas into a tiling wm, or possibly share your dotfiles? I've tried doing that with i3, but the window manager has less than optimal mouse support to say the least, and wmii is dead.
  - jeromenerf 9y ago
    See https://st.suckless.org/patches/right_click_to_plumb/ https://st.suckless.org/patches/right_click_to_plumb/ The setup requires: - a terminal that is aware of its shell current working directory (OSC7) (I use st or tmux and zsh) - a terminal that would call a plumbing command with the current selection on a mouse right click (I use st or tmux) - a plumbing command that would call the appropriate action given the selection string passed in (I use a script and plan9 plumber) - an editor that supports being called from the plumbing script (I use acme or vim remote with vim-fetch plugin) - an eventual tiling wm or tmux for window management My dotfiles aren't public but I guess I could try and package them if you're interested. PM me at the email on the suckless page.
bradford 9y ago
For me it's not about wasting time, it's that frequently switching between mouse and keyboard is a repetitive stress injury waiting to happen. The accumulated damage that can occur after doing it everyday for a few years really creeps up on you.
- joshribakoff 9y ago
  I concur. If you already have RSI like me (thank you Blizzard games), reaching for the mouse is literally a pain point already.

oblio 9y ago

You're not an outlier... The only time when editing takes longer than thinking is when you're processing textual data dump files in their various shapes and forms (logs, database dumps as SQL, etc.). For code thinking definitely takes longer than actually editing :)

swiley 9y ago

It's not about wasting time, pointing devices are less precise which means they demand more attention and are less flexible.

metaobject 9y ago
Going with your theory, I'd say that pointing devices are more precise which means they require more brain-CPU cycles to operate ... pixel-space is large and you must position it within some delta of the target widget you're trying to use. Whereas in emacs, say, it's a quick "C-x o" to change to the next/other buffer.
- swiley 9y ago
  Right, they're more precise and less accurate.

jeromenerf 9y ago

I think it depends on the task at hand, whether you are jumping around or focused on a long piece; exploring or debugging ... Anyway, not everything takes place in the editor. "The acme user interface for programmers" (http://acme.cat-v.org/ http://acme.cat-v.org/) is a good inspiration. It focuses on mouse usage and shows how most systems are as nicely integrated as they could be. I have hacked together a setup that mimicks acme using a tiling wm, vim (and its amazing remote features), a plumber and a terminal that can send the current selection to the plumber. This way I use vim as I like but I can send it some path:line:col from anywhere with a right click.

somezero 9y ago
Could you explain more about integrating acme ideas into a tiling wm, or possibly share your dotfiles? I've tried doing that with i3, but the window manager has less than optimal mouse support to say the least, and wmii is dead.
- jeromenerf 9y ago
  See https://st.suckless.org/patches/right_click_to_plumb/ https://st.suckless.org/patches/right_click_to_plumb/ The setup requires: - a terminal that is aware of its shell current working directory (OSC7) (I use st or tmux and zsh) - a terminal that would call a plumbing command with the current selection on a mouse right click (I use st or tmux) - a plumbing command that would call the appropriate action given the selection string passed in (I use a script and plan9 plumber) - an editor that supports being called from the plumbing script (I use acme or vim remote with vim-fetch plugin) - an eventual tiling wm or tmux for window management My dotfiles aren't public but I guess I could try and package them if you're interested. PM me at the email on the suckless page.

bradford 9y ago

For me it's not about wasting time, it's that frequently switching between mouse and keyboard is a repetitive stress injury waiting to happen. The accumulated damage that can occur after doing it everyday for a few years really creeps up on you.

joshribakoff 9y ago
I concur. If you already have RSI like me (thank you Blizzard games), reaching for the mouse is literally a pain point already.