4 ms·

For me at least it's more than "simply satisfying". It gets the UI out of the way. It's removing a number of mild distractions and nuisances that are otherwise

by Reelin 6y ago

For me at least it's more than "simply satisfying". It gets the UI out of the way. It's removing a number of mild distractions and nuisances that are otherwise there all the time. It's not about typing speed at all (for me). It's about having a clean and orderly working environment where the number of frustrations have been minimized.

blub 6y ago
On the other hand it's typically quite easy to customize the UI of IDEs and hide menus and such to the point that it's possible to tune out whatever is left. Therefore I'm tempted to look at this problem not from a technical but rather from a social perspective: I consider this preoccupation with editors as a kind of fixation and way of exercising power in a straightforward way as a part of an increasingly complex and unfriendly environment. We can't customize the stupid Scrum processes guiding our lives, can't customize the management which often is rather clueless about what we're doing, can't avoid that most software projects are ultimately pointless even if they claim they're changing the world and empowering users. But we can certainly customize our editors. And then there's the social pressure from the typical hacker circles which would happily dictate what programming languages, tools and paradigms are good and which are bad. Of course this scaffolding all comes crashing down when one looks at the results and there's no discernible difference between the quality or success of projects where various editors or processes or languages are used. So the focus moves to personal benefits, personal preferences and programming as craft and so on. But it's all just a game programmers play, isn't it?
- Reelin 6y ago
  > customize the UI of IDEs and hide menus and such That's not even half of it. TUI programs are designed to be keyboard driven from the start, not as an afterthought. All the IDEs I'm aware of are hopelessly outclassed here. There's also things like registers, column editing, and the buffer abstraction which make common tasks less cumbersome. The list continues. It's not that one tool can be used for a task that the other can't; rather it's just better at it from my perspective (given my particular workflow and toolchain). For me, there's a significant ergonomic difference which makes for a more pleasant process overall. Is keeping a clean and orderly workspace "just a game"? What about using the best (from your perspective) tool for the job? I imagine different people will care about these things to different degrees. As you point out, perhaps for some there's primarily another motive (exercise control, irritate a coworker, maintain an appearance, ...). That's not mutually exclusive though and it's hardly unique to programming.

by Reelin 6y ago

blub 6y ago

On the other hand it's typically quite easy to customize the UI of IDEs and hide menus and such to the point that it's possible to tune out whatever is left. Therefore I'm tempted to look at this problem not from a technical but rather from a social perspective: I consider this preoccupation with editors as a kind of fixation and way of exercising power in a straightforward way as a part of an increasingly complex and unfriendly environment. We can't customize the stupid Scrum processes guiding our lives, can't customize the management which often is rather clueless about what we're doing, can't avoid that most software projects are ultimately pointless even if they claim they're changing the world and empowering users. But we can certainly customize our editors. And then there's the social pressure from the typical hacker circles which would happily dictate what programming languages, tools and paradigms are good and which are bad. Of course this scaffolding all comes crashing down when one looks at the results and there's no discernible difference between the quality or success of projects where various editors or processes or languages are used. So the focus moves to personal benefits, personal preferences and programming as craft and so on. But it's all just a game programmers play, isn't it?

Reelin 6y ago
> customize the UI of IDEs and hide menus and such That's not even half of it. TUI programs are designed to be keyboard driven from the start, not as an afterthought. All the IDEs I'm aware of are hopelessly outclassed here. There's also things like registers, column editing, and the buffer abstraction which make common tasks less cumbersome. The list continues. It's not that one tool can be used for a task that the other can't; rather it's just better at it from my perspective (given my particular workflow and toolchain). For me, there's a significant ergonomic difference which makes for a more pleasant process overall. Is keeping a clean and orderly workspace "just a game"? What about using the best (from your perspective) tool for the job? I imagine different people will care about these things to different degrees. As you point out, perhaps for some there's primarily another motive (exercise control, irritate a coworker, maintain an appearance, ...). That's not mutually exclusive though and it's hardly unique to programming.