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When has the number of key presses seriously been the bottleneck for anyone when developing software Look I like mechanical keyboards and editor setups as well

When has the number of key presses seriously been the bottleneck for anyone when developing software Look I like mechanical keyboards and editor setups as well, but let's not pretend it's this great panacea. It just feels nicer.

chillfox 5y ago
Same thing kinda goes for anything on the command line. The amount of commands that are 2-3 characters long really slows down learning and when it comes to it you will often be typing another 80 ish characters after the command name for options and piping anyway.
avgcorrection 5y ago
RSI has got nothing to do with “bottlenecks”. You can get repetitive stress even if you aren’t doing something at full speed or at full intensity.
xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
What on earth are you talking about? The whole point of all these tools is to reduce the amount of key presses needed. Why do you think ed -- the standard text editor -- was conceived? I jest but this is kind of the whole point of modern computer interfaces vs typewriters and punch cards. Historically it has _absolutely_ been a bottleneck, and I feel like it's being taken for granted that you can search-and-replace or use sed or your IDE's context-aware renaming/refactoring. Have you even used macros in vim (or whatever)? It's practically a modern editor's raison d'être.
infinitezest 5y ago
I would be interested to see a serious comparison between the two. This debate comes up every single time that Vim is discussed and I'm honestly not really sure where I come down on it. As a Vim user I know that editing this way _feels_ better and faster but I'm not sure how true that actually is. One thing that I can say for sure is that it has done wonders for my RSI.
theshadowknows 5y ago
Personally I spend a lot of time staring at code thinking “wtf was this person thinking when they did this…I know there was a reason but..what was it” (doubly so if I’m the one who wrote it). So I think you’re right, unless there’s a key binding to read minds too :)
- avgcorrection 5y ago
  Clearly writing stuff was so much effort for them that they/you couldn’t be bothered to comment the code/document/make a good commit message.
achikin 5y ago
It's not about the number of keystrokes, it's about the number of keystrokes pressed simultaneously - this where Vim makes a lot of difference. All that Ctrl-Alt-Shift-X stuff is what really harms hands.
- avgcorrection 5y ago
  Indeed, in my experience as well. My hands did not like the stock Emacs keybinds. All those C-x C-S-f C-c C-p were just terrible to use.
zmmmmm 5y ago
I agree with the GP and I think it's actually about the type of motions you are doing. In particular, having the cursor movement tied to hjkl means I can avoid moving my hands off the home row. After developing a low stress way to type like that (true "touch typing", like playing the piano) it means that my arms, wrists and hands are all relaxed and well positioned the whole day. I used to get RSI and the only time it affects me now is when I am forced into some activity that takes me heavily out of that flow. (part of the beauty is that vi-style motion keys or similar philosophy have promulgated into everything from browser plugins to a plethora of terminal tools like htop, ncdu, tig etc.)
- avgcorrection 5y ago
  I like modal editing, but mostly because you have to use keybinds less (especially awful ones that combine control + shift + alt). Just moving your hands to the arrow keys might be less efficient, but in my experience it has got nothing to do with RSI—you’re just moving your whole hand with your shoulders. That seems about as repetitive stress-inducing as going to fetch a cup of coffee. Of course when one plays the piano one has to move the hands by the shoulders a lot... the piano is not a stenography keyboard.

chillfox 5y ago

Same thing kinda goes for anything on the command line. The amount of commands that are 2-3 characters long really slows down learning and when it comes to it you will often be typing another 80 ish characters after the command name for options and piping anyway.

avgcorrection 5y ago

RSI has got nothing to do with “bottlenecks”. You can get repetitive stress even if you aren’t doing something at full speed or at full intensity.

xyzzy_plugh 5y ago

What on earth are you talking about? The whole point of all these tools is to reduce the amount of key presses needed. Why do you think ed -- the standard text editor -- was conceived? I jest but this is kind of the whole point of modern computer interfaces vs typewriters and punch cards. Historically it has _absolutely_ been a bottleneck, and I feel like it's being taken for granted that you can search-and-replace or use sed or your IDE's context-aware renaming/refactoring. Have you even used macros in vim (or whatever)? It's practically a modern editor's raison d'être.

infinitezest 5y ago

I would be interested to see a serious comparison between the two. This debate comes up every single time that Vim is discussed and I'm honestly not really sure where I come down on it. As a Vim user I know that editing this way _feels_ better and faster but I'm not sure how true that actually is. One thing that I can say for sure is that it has done wonders for my RSI.

theshadowknows 5y ago

Personally I spend a lot of time staring at code thinking “wtf was this person thinking when they did this…I know there was a reason but..what was it” (doubly so if I’m the one who wrote it). So I think you’re right, unless there’s a key binding to read minds too :)

avgcorrection 5y ago
Clearly writing stuff was so much effort for them that they/you couldn’t be bothered to comment the code/document/make a good commit message.

achikin 5y ago

It's not about the number of keystrokes, it's about the number of keystrokes pressed simultaneously - this where Vim makes a lot of difference. All that Ctrl-Alt-Shift-X stuff is what really harms hands.

avgcorrection 5y ago
Indeed, in my experience as well. My hands did not like the stock Emacs keybinds. All those C-x C-S-f C-c C-p were just terrible to use.

zmmmmm 5y ago

I agree with the GP and I think it's actually about the type of motions you are doing. In particular, having the cursor movement tied to hjkl means I can avoid moving my hands off the home row. After developing a low stress way to type like that (true "touch typing", like playing the piano) it means that my arms, wrists and hands are all relaxed and well positioned the whole day. I used to get RSI and the only time it affects me now is when I am forced into some activity that takes me heavily out of that flow. (part of the beauty is that vi-style motion keys or similar philosophy have promulgated into everything from browser plugins to a plethora of terminal tools like htop, ncdu, tig etc.)

avgcorrection 5y ago
I like modal editing, but mostly because you have to use keybinds less (especially awful ones that combine control + shift + alt). Just moving your hands to the arrow keys might be less efficient, but in my experience it has got nothing to do with RSI—you’re just moving your whole hand with your shoulders. That seems about as repetitive stress-inducing as going to fetch a cup of coffee. Of course when one plays the piano one has to move the hands by the shoulders a lot... the piano is not a stenography keyboard.