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I think what this misses is the very important motivation factor. Thinking in terms of "Improving my editor will let me write code 20% faster" is missing the po

I think what this misses is the very important motivation factor. Thinking in terms of "Improving my editor will let me write code 20% faster" is missing the point in my opinion. If your improved editor is more pleasant to use, you will find it much easier to find the motivation to actually use it, stay focussed, and get work done. I think this is the main reason people adopt things like Vim/Emacs, tiling WMs, CLI over GUI, etc. It's not that using the keyboard to move your windows around vs your mouse saves you a significant amount of time. It's that it makes the whole experience of using your computer feel much easier and more pleasant and it helps you maintain flow when working. The real time saving is found every time you spend an extra hour working because you feel more motivated, not in the 2 seconds you save each time you don't have to move your hand to the mouse and back. Writing at 80wpm isn't about saving a few seconds when it comes time to convert your thoughts into code. It's about not finding the process of typing text frustrating and boring.

specialist 3y ago
Exactly right. Yes and: > ...makes the whole experience of using your computer feel much easier and more pleasant... IIRC, the (mostly insufferable) NNGroup determined the feeling of speeding up when using keyboard shortcuts (vs mousing) was mostly an illusion (at least for WIMP UIs). And to your point, if keyboard (or whatever) helps gain and maintain flow state, I'd score that a win. (Further, is a placebo that works, even when you know it's just a placebo, still a placebo? Hmmm.)
groby_b 3y ago
This. Right here. I can write code just fine in ed. (Don't ask...) However, it saps away my will to live in about 15-30 minutes max. I am probably faster in vim (or Sublime, or VS.Code, or...), but not by much. But it's a much more enjoyable experience, and I can devote some extra mental space to the problem at hand instead of the tool.
hinkley 3y ago
I’ve had or witnessed many talking-past-each-other arguments between management and devs and the realization I’ve had is that They - and sometimes We - are fixated on hours and not energy. If you think in hours, then you should be able to schedule any two 20 hour tasks to a single engineer in the same week. But if those tasks require high vigilance, the developers will say no and refuse to budge. Fuck your math, I won’t agree to those. That balking could be due to deep work, vigilance due to foot guns, or coordinating a task that takes 8 hours spread over three days with lots of hurry up and wait steps. I can’t and won’t work on three of those at a time, and every time I forget and volunteer myself for that shitshow I/we pay the price. You want a trivial task to fill in the holes, and Gantt charts don’t know that.

specialist 3y ago

Exactly right. Yes and: > ...makes the whole experience of using your computer feel much easier and more pleasant... IIRC, the (mostly insufferable) NNGroup determined the feeling of speeding up when using keyboard shortcuts (vs mousing) was mostly an illusion (at least for WIMP UIs). And to your point, if keyboard (or whatever) helps gain and maintain flow state, I'd score that a win. (Further, is a placebo that works, even when you know it's just a placebo, still a placebo? Hmmm.)

groby_b 3y ago

This. Right here. I can write code just fine in ed. (Don't ask...) However, it saps away my will to live in about 15-30 minutes max. I am probably faster in vim (or Sublime, or VS.Code, or...), but not by much. But it's a much more enjoyable experience, and I can devote some extra mental space to the problem at hand instead of the tool.

hinkley 3y ago

I’ve had or witnessed many talking-past-each-other arguments between management and devs and the realization I’ve had is that They - and sometimes We - are fixated on hours and not energy. If you think in hours, then you should be able to schedule any two 20 hour tasks to a single engineer in the same week. But if those tasks require high vigilance, the developers will say no and refuse to budge. Fuck your math, I won’t agree to those. That balking could be due to deep work, vigilance due to foot guns, or coordinating a task that takes 8 hours spread over three days with lots of hurry up and wait steps. I can’t and won’t work on three of those at a time, and every time I forget and volunteer myself for that shitshow I/we pay the price. You want a trivial task to fill in the holes, and Gantt charts don’t know that.