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This series is also discussed in the wiki for Plan9, the perhaps infamously mouse-centric OS: https://9p.io/wiki/plan9/Mouse_vs._keyboard/index.html https://9p

by marttt 7y ago

This series is also discussed in the wiki for Plan9, the perhaps infamously mouse-centric OS: https://9p.io/wiki/plan9/Mouse_vs._keyboard/index.html https://9p.io/wiki/plan9/Mouse_vs._keyboard/index.html A take-home message from there: "In the experience of many Plan 9 users, using the mouse in Plan 9 for an extended period of time and then going back to using vi in Unix highlights the amount of time you spend watching the screen as you cursor around with hjkl. Having broken out of the hypnosis that Tog describes, I just get frustrated beyond belief. Yes, I am watching the cursor move so I should be occupied, but all I can think is ``damnit, if I could just click where I want to go I'd be there by now.'' " See also high-brow three button mousing in Acme, Plan9's text editor: https://youtu.be/dP1xVpMPn8M https://youtu.be/dP1xVpMPn8M I'm a long time Plan9 fanboy, but I find myself more leaning towards line editors (Pla9's sam in terminal mode), partly to avoid watching the cursor all the time. In a line editor, you have to carry the structure in your head, and it is liberating and calming in a strange way. Ken Thompson, prominent sam user, has been attributed saying "I don't want to see the state of the file when I'm editing." I really like this; then again, I am not a real coder, just a hobbyist and writer of words. So I have no idea how realistic it would be to use console sam or ed for daily professional coding. The way line editors resemble a typewriter can be an excellent cure to the so-called writer's blocks, though. (See the interview containing Ken Thompson's quote: http://web.archive.org/web/20080103071208/http://www.dcs.qmul.ac.uk/~george/history/ http://web.archive.org/web/20080103071208/http://www.dcs.qmu...)

laughinghan 7y ago
> vi in Unix highlights the amount of time you spend watching the screen as you cursor around with hjkl vi is four decades old. It's not the pinnacle of keyboard-driven interface design, vast improvements have been made since then. For example, I use vim-sneak, which lets you jump to anywhere on your screen in 3 keystrokes flat 99% of the time (and the 1% of the time where you miss, well, 99% of those times, just one more keystroke is all it takes to get to the right spot): https://github.com/justinmk/vim-sneak https://github.com/justinmk/vim-sneak I also use relative line numbers, so I can select or delete most blocks of text in 3 or 4 keystrokes, for example d4j deletes the current line and the next 4 lines (5 lines total), or d23k deletes the current line and the previous 23 lines (24 lines total): https://jeffkreeftmeijer.com/vim-number/ https://jeffkreeftmeijer.com/vim-number/ Obviously number of keystrokes isn't the only factor that determines operation speed. This is actually exemplified by my second example, commands like "d23k" actually work out-of-the-box even in original vi, the problem is that counting 23 lines by eye is way slower than selecting 24 lines with a mouse by eye, which is solved by relative line numbers.

by marttt 7y ago

laughinghan 7y ago

> vi in Unix highlights the amount of time you spend watching the screen as you cursor around with hjkl vi is four decades old. It's not the pinnacle of keyboard-driven interface design, vast improvements have been made since then. For example, I use vim-sneak, which lets you jump to anywhere on your screen in 3 keystrokes flat 99% of the time (and the 1% of the time where you miss, well, 99% of those times, just one more keystroke is all it takes to get to the right spot): https://github.com/justinmk/vim-sneak https://github.com/justinmk/vim-sneak I also use relative line numbers, so I can select or delete most blocks of text in 3 or 4 keystrokes, for example d4j deletes the current line and the next 4 lines (5 lines total), or d23k deletes the current line and the previous 23 lines (24 lines total): https://jeffkreeftmeijer.com/vim-number/ https://jeffkreeftmeijer.com/vim-number/ Obviously number of keystrokes isn't the only factor that determines operation speed. This is actually exemplified by my second example, commands like "d23k" actually work out-of-the-box even in original vi, the problem is that counting 23 lines by eye is way slower than selecting 24 lines with a mouse by eye, which is solved by relative line numbers.