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TBH, my first reaction to this comment was "somebody's wrong on the Internet". But luckily, reflection won over reaction, and gave me enough pause to realize wh

TBH, my first reaction to this comment was "somebody's wrong on the Internet". But luckily, reflection won over reaction, and gave me enough pause to realize what's really happening. I have no idea where this notion of "shunning the mouse" came from. The simple fact is that when you're "in the zone", the mouse gets in the way. After having read and re-read other peoples code, and occasionally also having read half a dozen research papers, you are finally ready to dump all the code that has been brewing in your head. At that point, you are a typist. All the for-loops and switch-cases and function calls are jostling around in your head, and you want to serialize them into source code as fast as you can. When you're doing that, forget the mouse even the arrow keys are too far away. All you want is "do what I mean" with "the thing at point". Everything else just disappears outside your region of focus. So yeah, the mouse is awesome when you're browsing and reading code. But when you're typing code, the home row is the fastest way to get it all out. EDIT: s/two/too/ far away

ok_dad 5y ago
> The simple fact is that when you're "in the zone", the mouse gets in the way. On the other hand, I use the mouse a lot while coding and I would say you’re wrong here, for me. I prefer the ability to not have to think about memorized keys when coding. I go into a state of flow based on what I believe is a combo between visualizing and imagining the code in an object form or something similar, so using a mouse is more natural since I’m still visualizing the mouse menu and the areas I have to click on instead of context switching into the mode where I try to remember keys I often look at the keyboard when typing, too, due to my way of flowing. I personally think it’s because my brain works a bit more visually and my imagination is pretty good, so I am able to map the imaginary code flow in my mind to the text version, so using a mouse to me is like navigating between the two. My mind takes the logic and is able to translate that to mouse movements easily to reach the part of the code I’m thinking about abstractly. Personally, I’ve tried to be a better typist and tried to use emacs or vim, but I always go back to the way I do things and I’ve just decided my brain works a bit differently than many coders. To each their own, I say; so do whatever works for you and I’ll keep using my way.

ok_dad 5y ago

> The simple fact is that when you're "in the zone", the mouse gets in the way. On the other hand, I use the mouse a lot while coding and I would say you’re wrong here, for me. I prefer the ability to not have to think about memorized keys when coding. I go into a state of flow based on what I believe is a combo between visualizing and imagining the code in an object form or something similar, so using a mouse is more natural since I’m still visualizing the mouse menu and the areas I have to click on instead of context switching into the mode where I try to remember keys I often look at the keyboard when typing, too, due to my way of flowing. I personally think it’s because my brain works a bit more visually and my imagination is pretty good, so I am able to map the imaginary code flow in my mind to the text version, so using a mouse to me is like navigating between the two. My mind takes the logic and is able to translate that to mouse movements easily to reach the part of the code I’m thinking about abstractly. Personally, I’ve tried to be a better typist and tried to use emacs or vim, but I always go back to the way I do things and I’ve just decided my brain works a bit differently than many coders. To each their own, I say; so do whatever works for you and I’ll keep using my way.