5 ms·

It all depends on your average typing / coding speed. Autocompletion doesn't offer a lot to someone who knows the language framework really well and type 90+ wp

by rapind 14y ago

It all depends on your average typing / coding speed. Autocompletion doesn't offer a lot to someone who knows the language framework really well and type 90+ wpm. You may even find it's annoying more than helpful most of the time. I'm not that fast and to be honest I really don't miss code completion at all.

jules 14y ago
It's not so much about typing less as it is about interactively learning to use an API or codebase. Suppose you have a comment object and you want to get the body text of that comment. With autocompletion you can just type `comment.` and you'll immediately see whether it's called "body" or "text" or something else, instead of having to browse around the codebase (which incidentally is also easier in an IDE that understands your code, because you can put your cursor on the class name and press a "go to definition" key instead of having to find it manually). Another invaluable feature related to this is documentation as you type. I can never remember the order of the arguments to the fold function. Fortunately Visual Studio helps out: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/388822/intellisense.gif https://dl.dropbox.com/u/388822/intellisense.gif (somehow my mouse pointer shows up in white, which makes it hard to see, but if you hover over the variables you get type information & documentation).
- rapind 14y ago
  To me what you're describing are imagined problems. They aren't real problems for someone who eschews autocompletion tools. No offence intended. I would argue that the autocompletion training wheels for learning a new API are really only useful if you're rarely going to use that API again. If you're going to be using it a lot, there's actual value in spending the extra effort to learn it's functions. It'll stick more. Unless you have a photographic memory your brain will tend to discard information it had to expend no effort on, and autocompletion basically becomes background noise. I theorize that a fast typist will gain the edge after using the API 10+ times, even if they have to look it up the first couple of times, because the additional effort and focus they had to give to the task will commit it to memory (and they will potentially learn more about what the API is doing). The focus is often on typing the fewest characters, but I think that's the wrong thing to focus on most of the time when choosing an editor.
  - skrebbel 14y ago
    Most APIs I use I don't intend to use many times again. If I'd be coding against the same 5 libs over and over again, chances are big I'm coding roughly the same thing over and over again. That sounds very boring. (that, or i'm coding something low-level like a db or a protocol - but are you?)
    - rapind 14y ago
      Most APIs I use, I end up using over and over and over again in different projects / applications. Only ever using 5 libs does sound incredibly boring. However the toolbox of libraries I've accumulated repeated experience with over the years is in the hundreds, and learning more about them has proven worthwhile. I assume most developers would say the same.
  - jules 14y ago
    > I would argue that the autocompletion training wheels for learning a new API are really only useful if you're rarely going to use that API again. If you're going to be using it a lot, there's actual value in spending the extra effort to learn it's functions. Couldn't agree more with the second sentence: I actually print out a listing of common APIs and take the time to memorize them. But you just described 90% of the APIs in your first sentence. For those APIs having quick access to autocompletion lists (to see which methods an object supports) and quick access to documentation is tremendously useful. As for your theory, common sense would say that how much you learn is proportional to the time spend on it. So if you use the API 10 times by looking it up manually, and you use the API 10 times by looking it up in contextual autocomplete, then yes you're going to learn more with the manual lookup. But this is an unfair comparison: you'd spend much more time on the latter than on the former. In the same time to look up the API 10 times manually, you could have looked it up in contextual autocomplete 30 times and then you'd have memorized it just as well. I sense a lot of irrational aversion to autocomplete, that it's for slow typists, it's training wheels, and Real Men don't use it. Look at it as an incredibly quick way to look up documentation. In fact unless the method name is really long I do not use autocomplete as autocomplete at all: I fully type the method name instead of hitting a key to accept the completion. It's just a way to short circuit the process of switching to a web browser, searching for and reading the documentation of the relevant class/module, and switching back to the editor.
exim 14y ago
Even if I exactly know what to type and I can type fast, I still prefer to achieve same with 3 keystrokes rather than typing full 20-30 symbols.

by rapind 14y ago

jules 14y ago

It's not so much about typing less as it is about interactively learning to use an API or codebase. Suppose you have a comment object and you want to get the body text of that comment. With autocompletion you can just type `comment.` and you'll immediately see whether it's called "body" or "text" or something else, instead of having to browse around the codebase (which incidentally is also easier in an IDE that understands your code, because you can put your cursor on the class name and press a "go to definition" key instead of having to find it manually). Another invaluable feature related to this is documentation as you type. I can never remember the order of the arguments to the fold function. Fortunately Visual Studio helps out: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/388822/intellisense.gif https://dl.dropbox.com/u/388822/intellisense.gif (somehow my mouse pointer shows up in white, which makes it hard to see, but if you hover over the variables you get type information & documentation).

rapind 14y ago
To me what you're describing are imagined problems. They aren't real problems for someone who eschews autocompletion tools. No offence intended. I would argue that the autocompletion training wheels for learning a new API are really only useful if you're rarely going to use that API again. If you're going to be using it a lot, there's actual value in spending the extra effort to learn it's functions. It'll stick more. Unless you have a photographic memory your brain will tend to discard information it had to expend no effort on, and autocompletion basically becomes background noise. I theorize that a fast typist will gain the edge after using the API 10+ times, even if they have to look it up the first couple of times, because the additional effort and focus they had to give to the task will commit it to memory (and they will potentially learn more about what the API is doing). The focus is often on typing the fewest characters, but I think that's the wrong thing to focus on most of the time when choosing an editor.
- skrebbel 14y ago
  Most APIs I use I don't intend to use many times again. If I'd be coding against the same 5 libs over and over again, chances are big I'm coding roughly the same thing over and over again. That sounds very boring. (that, or i'm coding something low-level like a db or a protocol - but are you?)
  - rapind 14y ago
    Most APIs I use, I end up using over and over and over again in different projects / applications. Only ever using 5 libs does sound incredibly boring. However the toolbox of libraries I've accumulated repeated experience with over the years is in the hundreds, and learning more about them has proven worthwhile. I assume most developers would say the same.
- jules 14y ago
  > I would argue that the autocompletion training wheels for learning a new API are really only useful if you're rarely going to use that API again. If you're going to be using it a lot, there's actual value in spending the extra effort to learn it's functions. Couldn't agree more with the second sentence: I actually print out a listing of common APIs and take the time to memorize them. But you just described 90% of the APIs in your first sentence. For those APIs having quick access to autocompletion lists (to see which methods an object supports) and quick access to documentation is tremendously useful. As for your theory, common sense would say that how much you learn is proportional to the time spend on it. So if you use the API 10 times by looking it up manually, and you use the API 10 times by looking it up in contextual autocomplete, then yes you're going to learn more with the manual lookup. But this is an unfair comparison: you'd spend much more time on the latter than on the former. In the same time to look up the API 10 times manually, you could have looked it up in contextual autocomplete 30 times and then you'd have memorized it just as well. I sense a lot of irrational aversion to autocomplete, that it's for slow typists, it's training wheels, and Real Men don't use it. Look at it as an incredibly quick way to look up documentation. In fact unless the method name is really long I do not use autocomplete as autocomplete at all: I fully type the method name instead of hitting a key to accept the completion. It's just a way to short circuit the process of switching to a web browser, searching for and reading the documentation of the relevant class/module, and switching back to the editor.

exim 14y ago

Even if I exactly know what to type and I can type fast, I still prefer to achieve same with 3 keystrokes rather than typing full 20-30 symbols.