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That's a very good argument, but I have another one, also often dismissed: if you navigate using your keyboard's arrow keys (which can be more productive than m
by mojuba 7y ago
That's a very good argument, but I have another one, also often dismissed: if you navigate using your keyboard's arrow keys (which can be more productive than mouse/trackpad) then jumping over tabs to reach text is just way faster. Spaces kind of force you to use your mouse more.
- mysterydip 7y agoI tend to use ctrl+left or right to skip to the next non-whitespace character (depending on your editor).
- mojuba 7y agoYes, editors usually provide a function for that. But a lot of the times, say you go down where code is indented one level deeper and all you need is to just go right once. That's always faster than any combination of keys your editor can provide.
- viraptor 7y agoMany editors skip the whole indentation level when using arrows. The actual encoding is irrelevant for them. Atom calls this setting "atomic soft tabs", I believe.
- xiwenc 7y agoAssuming you're not using some very basic text editor; good ones have skip word. For instance 'w' in vim, or 'ctrl + right' in vscode.
- mojuba 7y agoTrue, but nothing is simpler than an arrow key.
- prepend 7y agoW is as simple as an arrow key.
- afiori 7y agoBut switching between input mode and text mode is not (for me, at least, as an untrained user) I deeply appreciate the automation vim & co. offer, but many people, like me, simply have no interest in climbing up the learning curve for editors.
- prepend 7y agoThat’s a great point, but learning arrow key function varies based on the app I use. So if I have to learn arrow to move around indents, I may as well learn the command to move between words. I struggle with trying to get others to change their files because a particular program I like and use a lot handles their file a certain way. This reminds me of the olden days of the old Microsoft way where the solution seemed to be around making every app respond in the way way so it was possible to guarantee what arrow does across all apps. But that way lost and now files are used in all sorts of weird wonderful ways.
- pieix 7y agoThis is not really true; ‘w’ is one row up from the home row and is easily accessible with the middle or ring finger. An arrow key is a hand-shift or an awkward pinky stretch away. Vim keybindings were explicitly designed to be simpler than arrow keys once you’ve gotten over the learning curve.
- mojuba 7y agoUnfortunately vim is not very useful for coding and debugging iOS apps. Or Android, or Windows for that matter.
- organsnyder 7y agoI haven't done any iOS development, so perhaps I'm expecting too much; but surely there is an IDE that has a vim-mode plugin? Every IDE/editor I've used—all JetBrains products, Atom, Visual Studio, Eclipse...—has a vim plugin readily available. They're rarely perfect (they tend to behave weirdly with IDE autocompletion and the like), but they're more than adequate for basic text navigation.
- userbinator 7y agoThat's actually one of my arguments against tabs --- the sudden "acceleration" of the cursor when it runs through a series of tabs is quite disorienting because it means you can't estimate as easily how long it'll take to get to a certain point.
- IshKebab 7y agoAtom handles this correctly, but it's the only editor that does, so I agree - tabs are better.