7 ms·

Developers (seemingly a lot of them?) use a touchpad as their primary input device on a regular basis? I guess this is an example of being in my own bubble, bu

Developers (seemingly a lot of them?) use a touchpad as their primary input device on a regular basis? I guess this is an example of being in my own bubble, but I can't stand touchpads. I've used the touchpad on MacBook, like, twice in 2 years.

kevincox 6y ago
It's definitely personal preference. I love touchpads and actually use a drawing tablet (with finger support) as a large touchpad when I am at my desk. I have a mouse nearby because it works better for some things but most of the time use the touchpad.
newsbinator 6y ago
Full stack dev, 8 ~ 12 hours a day on my 2015 MBP 13" touchpad. No regrets.
- bradstewart 6y ago
  Interesting. Despite my efforts to consider that people have different preferences for almost everything in life, I am constantly surprised by my assumumptions about how other people do things that turn out to be very wrong. It didn't even occur to me that someone who uses a computer all day long would use a touchpad, even though millions of people own one, Apple continues making them bigger, and the only thing "wrong" with them is that _I_ can't figure out how to click things on the first (or 5th) try.
  - Al-Khwarizmi 6y ago
    You are not alone. I don't even consider buying any laptop other than a ThinkPad due to the lack of TrackPoint and being forced to use a touchpad if I don't have a mouse for some reason. I always make a mess with touchpads, including Mac and non-Mac ones.
  - kergonath 6y ago
    My main problems with touch pads in general is that they are not smooth enough (meaning that rubbing your fingers in them for a few hours gets unpleasant), they have clicky buttons that need to much force to activate (which strains the finger you use most to click), they are too small so things like drag and drop often require intermediate steps, they are not sensitive enough (so you often need to repeat gestures, particularly 2-finger scroll; tapping almost never works the first time). Apple’s touch pads (at least the recent ones) have none of these problems and are as smooth, responsive and reliable as good smartphones. They are actually useable as a main input device, not only in a pinch.
  - fingerlocks 6y ago
    I wonder if you’re suffering from past experiences of touch pads from the 1990s? I was a slow adopter for similar reasons. Remind yourself that it works exactly like the screen of an iPhone or iPad, that’s when it clicked for me.
    - bradstewart 6y ago
      Modern touchpads are significantly improved compared to the old generations (even from 5 years ago). It's not that touchpads are bad input devices (like they used to be), it's that I'm bad at touchpads. I could probably get used to them if I had any reason to, but I have no idea where I would even put my laptop to use it comfortably with an external monitor. I like my mouse and I have no problems with it, so no sense in buying an external touchpad. If I did a lot of work like scrubbing through audio/video or something that benefited from multitouch gestures like pinch-to-zoom, then maybe I'd consider it.
    - recursive 6y ago
      I also prefer mouses to touch screens. My laptop has both, but I use a mouse about 100x as often as the touch screen.
    - koyote 6y ago
      But even on a phone/tablet selecting text is a massive pain. Selecting stuff, dragging stuff, quickly flicking the cursor from one screen to the next: those are all things I assume every developer does at least a couple of times an hour. They are also things that, for me, are very clumsy when using a trackpad.
  - SilasX 6y ago
    (Not your comment's parent) Apple making touchpads bigger is why I stick to their 13" 2015 MacBook air! When I got a recent Pro for work, it was nearly unusable from the oversized, oversensitive trackpad. Yes, even after setting all the options that (I was assured) would make it stop picking up unintended presses. When typing, I'd unavoidably brush the trackpad and cause the cursor to move somewhere and click, redirecting my input. Like your comment's parent, I used the trackpad because I prefer doing everything from the keyboard and so prefer the trackpaid for things that require a mouse-like interface.
    - jetpks 6y ago
      Not saying I can make this better for your use case, but I'm curious if you use tap to click? i.e. click with a simple touch. I love the big track pads and also hate the tap to click setting (I want to press to click) and don't have this problem.
      - newsbinator 6y ago
        I'm the reverse- I always set tap to click and remove force click and haptic feedback. Just a tap, like on a phone, and I've clicked. I do keep the click sound on though, for feedback.
      - SilasX 6y ago
        I wasn’t aware of this distinction and never saw something like that in the options. I think it was press to click.
- x87678r 6y ago
  using laptop screen? How is your posture?
  - newsbinator 6y ago
    Absurdly bad, I'll admit. But after 15+ years of this, still no noticeable problems.
    - x87678r 6y ago
      Late 20s I got bad upper back, I've been careful ever since.
liability 6y ago
I would expect devs who use macbooks to generally use them the same way as the general population generally uses them. I can't think of a plausible reason to suspect that developers specifically might prefer traditional mice. One demographic I would expect traditional mouse usage from would be gamers. When I play a first person game I always use my trusty old intellimouse. Otherwise, I use the trackpad unless I'm simultaneously using my mechanical keyboard, but if my keyboard had an attached trackpad I'd probably be using that. But mousing in general just isn't a very important to my workflows and trackpads work just as well as mice for nearly all tasks. Arguably they work better for some since you don't have to move your hand far from the laptop's keyboard to use the trackpad, while using a dedicated mouse means taking your hand completely off the keyboard.
- zeveb 6y ago
  > I can't think of a plausible reason to suspect that developers specifically might prefer traditional mice. I imagine that developers would prefer mice if people who use computers intensively and knowledgeably prefer mice, and I suspect people who use computers intensively and knowledgeably do prefer mice, the same way that I believe we prefer good keyboards and good monitors.
  - sumtechguy 6y ago
    For my day to day noodling around I use a track-pad. But for dev work I use a mouse. The click drag bits are wildly better with a mouse. For example text highlighting and moving things around in the GUI.
  - liability 6y ago
    I prefer good mice and good trackpads to poor mice and poor trackpads. But trackpads vs mice? Your comment insinuates a that a clear good/bad dichotomy exists here but I don't think that's generally the case. My above comment notes one context where I do believe that's true, but in the general case? For standard desktop interactions? I don't think mice are objectively better. If anything the proximity of a trackpad makes it better, but that's certainly debatable.
CydeWeys 6y ago
I'm definitely in the mouse club. Using a touchpad all day long makes my fingers cramp up. It's fine for couch laptopping, but when I'm sitting at a desk I use a display, mouse, and mechanical keyboard for an overall better (and more ergonomic) experience.

kevincox 6y ago

It's definitely personal preference. I love touchpads and actually use a drawing tablet (with finger support) as a large touchpad when I am at my desk. I have a mouse nearby because it works better for some things but most of the time use the touchpad.

newsbinator 6y ago

Full stack dev, 8 ~ 12 hours a day on my 2015 MBP 13" touchpad. No regrets.

bradstewart 6y ago
Interesting. Despite my efforts to consider that people have different preferences for almost everything in life, I am constantly surprised by my assumumptions about how other people do things that turn out to be very wrong. It didn't even occur to me that someone who uses a computer all day long would use a touchpad, even though millions of people own one, Apple continues making them bigger, and the only thing "wrong" with them is that _I_ can't figure out how to click things on the first (or 5th) try.
- Al-Khwarizmi 6y ago
  You are not alone. I don't even consider buying any laptop other than a ThinkPad due to the lack of TrackPoint and being forced to use a touchpad if I don't have a mouse for some reason. I always make a mess with touchpads, including Mac and non-Mac ones.
- kergonath 6y ago
  My main problems with touch pads in general is that they are not smooth enough (meaning that rubbing your fingers in them for a few hours gets unpleasant), they have clicky buttons that need to much force to activate (which strains the finger you use most to click), they are too small so things like drag and drop often require intermediate steps, they are not sensitive enough (so you often need to repeat gestures, particularly 2-finger scroll; tapping almost never works the first time). Apple’s touch pads (at least the recent ones) have none of these problems and are as smooth, responsive and reliable as good smartphones. They are actually useable as a main input device, not only in a pinch.
- fingerlocks 6y ago
  I wonder if you’re suffering from past experiences of touch pads from the 1990s? I was a slow adopter for similar reasons. Remind yourself that it works exactly like the screen of an iPhone or iPad, that’s when it clicked for me.
  - bradstewart 6y ago
    Modern touchpads are significantly improved compared to the old generations (even from 5 years ago). It's not that touchpads are bad input devices (like they used to be), it's that I'm bad at touchpads. I could probably get used to them if I had any reason to, but I have no idea where I would even put my laptop to use it comfortably with an external monitor. I like my mouse and I have no problems with it, so no sense in buying an external touchpad. If I did a lot of work like scrubbing through audio/video or something that benefited from multitouch gestures like pinch-to-zoom, then maybe I'd consider it.
  - recursive 6y ago
    I also prefer mouses to touch screens. My laptop has both, but I use a mouse about 100x as often as the touch screen.
  - koyote 6y ago
    But even on a phone/tablet selecting text is a massive pain. Selecting stuff, dragging stuff, quickly flicking the cursor from one screen to the next: those are all things I assume every developer does at least a couple of times an hour. They are also things that, for me, are very clumsy when using a trackpad.
- SilasX 6y ago
  (Not your comment's parent) Apple making touchpads bigger is why I stick to their 13" 2015 MacBook air! When I got a recent Pro for work, it was nearly unusable from the oversized, oversensitive trackpad. Yes, even after setting all the options that (I was assured) would make it stop picking up unintended presses. When typing, I'd unavoidably brush the trackpad and cause the cursor to move somewhere and click, redirecting my input. Like your comment's parent, I used the trackpad because I prefer doing everything from the keyboard and so prefer the trackpaid for things that require a mouse-like interface.
  - jetpks 6y ago
    Not saying I can make this better for your use case, but I'm curious if you use tap to click? i.e. click with a simple touch. I love the big track pads and also hate the tap to click setting (I want to press to click) and don't have this problem.
    - newsbinator 6y ago
      I'm the reverse- I always set tap to click and remove force click and haptic feedback. Just a tap, like on a phone, and I've clicked. I do keep the click sound on though, for feedback.
    - SilasX 6y ago
      I wasn’t aware of this distinction and never saw something like that in the options. I think it was press to click.
x87678r 6y ago
using laptop screen? How is your posture?
- newsbinator 6y ago
  Absurdly bad, I'll admit. But after 15+ years of this, still no noticeable problems.
  - x87678r 6y ago
    Late 20s I got bad upper back, I've been careful ever since.

liability 6y ago

I would expect devs who use macbooks to generally use them the same way as the general population generally uses them. I can't think of a plausible reason to suspect that developers specifically might prefer traditional mice. One demographic I would expect traditional mouse usage from would be gamers. When I play a first person game I always use my trusty old intellimouse. Otherwise, I use the trackpad unless I'm simultaneously using my mechanical keyboard, but if my keyboard had an attached trackpad I'd probably be using that. But mousing in general just isn't a very important to my workflows and trackpads work just as well as mice for nearly all tasks. Arguably they work better for some since you don't have to move your hand far from the laptop's keyboard to use the trackpad, while using a dedicated mouse means taking your hand completely off the keyboard.

zeveb 6y ago
> I can't think of a plausible reason to suspect that developers specifically might prefer traditional mice. I imagine that developers would prefer mice if people who use computers intensively and knowledgeably prefer mice, and I suspect people who use computers intensively and knowledgeably do prefer mice, the same way that I believe we prefer good keyboards and good monitors.
- sumtechguy 6y ago
  For my day to day noodling around I use a track-pad. But for dev work I use a mouse. The click drag bits are wildly better with a mouse. For example text highlighting and moving things around in the GUI.
- liability 6y ago
  I prefer good mice and good trackpads to poor mice and poor trackpads. But trackpads vs mice? Your comment insinuates a that a clear good/bad dichotomy exists here but I don't think that's generally the case. My above comment notes one context where I do believe that's true, but in the general case? For standard desktop interactions? I don't think mice are objectively better. If anything the proximity of a trackpad makes it better, but that's certainly debatable.

CydeWeys 6y ago

I'm definitely in the mouse club. Using a touchpad all day long makes my fingers cramp up. It's fine for couch laptopping, but when I'm sitting at a desk I use a display, mouse, and mechanical keyboard for an overall better (and more ergonomic) experience.