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its a productivity thing, would you rather type text with a physical keyboard or would you rather use a virtual keyboard and mouse? you can miss more easily wi

its a productivity thing, would you rather type text with a physical keyboard or would you rather use a virtual keyboard and mouse? you can miss more easily with a mouse and have to adjust the position of the cursor to line up on two axis before any action

kstenerud 2y ago
That's a false dichotomy. I'd rather have a physical keyboard and a physical mouse (or touchpad). The "line up the two axis" thing is immaterial, and has no practical impact on actual productivity.
- dartos 2y ago
  Minimal impact and no impact different. “Line up the two axes” was kind of a silly way to put it, but the position you aim your cursor varies quite often, but where you type on a keyboard doesn’t. You can develop muscle memory for the latter. It’s why hotkeys are so widely used.
pjmlp 2y ago
Why bringing virtual keyboard into the picture, we aren't talking about tablets and phones.
codingdave 2y ago
That is a really biased way to spin things. Of course virtual keyboards are the worst of both worlds. And lining up a mouse on multiple axes is just an odd way to look at it -- on a keyboard you need to line up your fingertip on three axes for every keystroke, if you are wanting to go to that level of detail.
- dartos 2y ago
  I don’t think it’s very biased. When using a mouse you need to completely move your hand to another device, and aim that device at an arbitrary position. With a keyboard the positions you move your fingers are fixed and because of that, you can develop muscle memory and type very quickly without thinking about where to move your fingers. It’s called “touch typing.” There’s no such thing for using a mouse since the target position of the mouse movement can vary wildly from website to website and can vary based on the position of a given window.
  - codingdave 2y ago
    Using a mouse is completely natural if you do it often. So is using a pen on a tablet. Whatever you use, you get so used to it that is it an extension of your own hands or whatever you use to control input. Your own bias is showing in the assumption that you can develop muscle memory for keys but not other input devices, or that because links are in different places, the mouse becomes cumbersome.
    - dartos 2y ago
      You can’t develop muscle memory when your target movement isn’t the same. Using a mouse is natural as in intuitive. You don’t need to really tech someone to use a mouse. It’s easy in that way. But that’s not the same as muscle memory. Using my hands is very natural, but when learning guitar, I still need to be conscious of what position my hand is going to be in. After a while, since my hand is constantly going to the exact same position, I develop muscle memory and no longer need to be conscious of where my hand is going. I feel like I shouldn’t need to explain muscle memory with analogy.
  - jorvi 2y ago
    Touchpads exist. A mouse (or rather, a floating cursor) is often a much more efficient way to get your cursor in position than slamming your arrow or hjkl keys multiple dozens of times.
    - dartos 2y ago
      Touchpads don’t solve for muscle memory for the same reasons mouses don’t. And yeah, of course. Most people who use keyboard based workflows dont just use hjkl to move a cursor around. In vim, for example, there are many more text-centric ways of moving around a document. Using a keyboard is generally much faster. Try using your daily code editor without any hot keys at all. No F5, no Ctrl-s, none of that.
      - jorvi 2y ago
        > Touchpads don’t solve for muscle memory for the same reasons mouses don’t. Uh, what? I have my touchpad tuned so that one swipe from top left to bottom right is exactly equal to going from the top left to bottom right of my display. And aside from that, how do you think people play FPS games, that they think about every mouse movement and then do it? > Most people who use keyboard based workflows dont just use hjkl to move a cursor around. > Try using your daily code editor One of the few usecases where you can do that, and in general is extremely heavily biased towards keyboard use. Having a touchpad or mouse is great because it is adaptable and versatile. It doesn’t require the application developer to have accommodated every step a keyboard user wants to optimize for. Not to mention there is no “quickly” using your keyboard with one hand if you constantly need to hold modifier keys :) > Using a keyboard is generally much faster. That was my point, it is until it isn’t. On any application without Vim or EMacs bindings I’ll happily be leaping over hundreds of lines of text with one or two swipes whilst you are sitting there, going taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap with horrid inefficiency.
JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago
I guess it depends on the kind of application. I use the keyboard a lot, but I'd kill myself if I had to use the git command-line interface. Once I bought Sublime Merge, I stopped learning what was (and still is) a waste of time to me. I'm faster with a global visual description and a mouse for some tools.
- skydhash 2y ago
  While Sublime Merge is a nice piece of software, Magit is the very best example of a power user tool. Fast, versatile, and intuitive.

kstenerud 2y ago

That's a false dichotomy. I'd rather have a physical keyboard and a physical mouse (or touchpad). The "line up the two axis" thing is immaterial, and has no practical impact on actual productivity.

dartos 2y ago
Minimal impact and no impact different. “Line up the two axes” was kind of a silly way to put it, but the position you aim your cursor varies quite often, but where you type on a keyboard doesn’t. You can develop muscle memory for the latter. It’s why hotkeys are so widely used.

pjmlp 2y ago

Why bringing virtual keyboard into the picture, we aren't talking about tablets and phones.

codingdave 2y ago

That is a really biased way to spin things. Of course virtual keyboards are the worst of both worlds. And lining up a mouse on multiple axes is just an odd way to look at it -- on a keyboard you need to line up your fingertip on three axes for every keystroke, if you are wanting to go to that level of detail.

dartos 2y ago
I don’t think it’s very biased. When using a mouse you need to completely move your hand to another device, and aim that device at an arbitrary position. With a keyboard the positions you move your fingers are fixed and because of that, you can develop muscle memory and type very quickly without thinking about where to move your fingers. It’s called “touch typing.” There’s no such thing for using a mouse since the target position of the mouse movement can vary wildly from website to website and can vary based on the position of a given window.
- codingdave 2y ago
  Using a mouse is completely natural if you do it often. So is using a pen on a tablet. Whatever you use, you get so used to it that is it an extension of your own hands or whatever you use to control input. Your own bias is showing in the assumption that you can develop muscle memory for keys but not other input devices, or that because links are in different places, the mouse becomes cumbersome.
  - dartos 2y ago
    You can’t develop muscle memory when your target movement isn’t the same. Using a mouse is natural as in intuitive. You don’t need to really tech someone to use a mouse. It’s easy in that way. But that’s not the same as muscle memory. Using my hands is very natural, but when learning guitar, I still need to be conscious of what position my hand is going to be in. After a while, since my hand is constantly going to the exact same position, I develop muscle memory and no longer need to be conscious of where my hand is going. I feel like I shouldn’t need to explain muscle memory with analogy.
- jorvi 2y ago
  Touchpads exist. A mouse (or rather, a floating cursor) is often a much more efficient way to get your cursor in position than slamming your arrow or hjkl keys multiple dozens of times.
  - dartos 2y ago
    Touchpads don’t solve for muscle memory for the same reasons mouses don’t. And yeah, of course. Most people who use keyboard based workflows dont just use hjkl to move a cursor around. In vim, for example, there are many more text-centric ways of moving around a document. Using a keyboard is generally much faster. Try using your daily code editor without any hot keys at all. No F5, no Ctrl-s, none of that.
    - jorvi 2y ago
      > Touchpads don’t solve for muscle memory for the same reasons mouses don’t. Uh, what? I have my touchpad tuned so that one swipe from top left to bottom right is exactly equal to going from the top left to bottom right of my display. And aside from that, how do you think people play FPS games, that they think about every mouse movement and then do it? > Most people who use keyboard based workflows dont just use hjkl to move a cursor around. > Try using your daily code editor One of the few usecases where you can do that, and in general is extremely heavily biased towards keyboard use. Having a touchpad or mouse is great because it is adaptable and versatile. It doesn’t require the application developer to have accommodated every step a keyboard user wants to optimize for. Not to mention there is no “quickly” using your keyboard with one hand if you constantly need to hold modifier keys :) > Using a keyboard is generally much faster. That was my point, it is until it isn’t. On any application without Vim or EMacs bindings I’ll happily be leaping over hundreds of lines of text with one or two swipes whilst you are sitting there, going taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap with horrid inefficiency.

JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago

I guess it depends on the kind of application. I use the keyboard a lot, but I'd kill myself if I had to use the git command-line interface. Once I bought Sublime Merge, I stopped learning what was (and still is) a waste of time to me. I'm faster with a global visual description and a mouse for some tools.

skydhash 2y ago
While Sublime Merge is a nice piece of software, Magit is the very best example of a power user tool. Fast, versatile, and intuitive.