[sclangdon]

I don't really understand this idea of never taking your hands off the keyboard. Maybe people program differently to me, but most of the time I'm not typing anything. Most of my time is spent thinking. When my thoughts are clear and the problem is solved, then I type. And when I do, it's usually no more than a dozen lines at a time.

I get the impression from these people that they are constantly typing things. In fact, they're typing so much that they can't possibly waste valuable seconds using a mouse. I must be misunderstanding what they mean because that just can't be right.

And what's with the "you can achieve the same thing faster, without breaking your concentration" in regard to using a spell-checker or a calculator or whatever. Are you being serious? I can achieve the same thing faster? I mean how long do you think it takes to check the spelling of a word? Even if I must look it up in a physical dictionary, how long are we talking here?

Guys, seriously, slow down. You're going to burn out. I don't want to judge because I don't know you. Maybe you're a rockstar, but I'd guess that if you're really going this fast, the quality of your code is suffering.

[blackbear_]

> In fact, they're typing so much that they can't possibly waste valuable seconds using a mouse. I must be misunderstanding what they mean because that just can't be right.

Yes, you are misunderstanding. First, it's not only about typing but it's generally about doing whatever you are trying to do without unnecessary delays, including navigation between functions, files, windows, etc. Second, it's not just about saving seconds here and there: the end goal is to stay in the flow state, avoiding unnecessary interruptions and context switches. Every time you reach for the mouse and move the cursor or scroll a document you stop thinking at the problem at hand because you're focusing on the motion, and when you're done with the mouse you waste mental energy resuming your previous train of thought, maybe even forgetting something.

> Even if I must look it up in a physical dictionary, how long are we talking here?

This is actually a good example because it seriously disrupts your thinking by forcing you to pause for some seconds and completely focus on something else. I am sure proof-reading a long document in this way is much more mentally exhausting (and slower, but again speed is not the point).

[marssaxman]

Your experience is very different from mine!

Using a mouse does not distract me at all. I don't think about it, consciously, any more than I think about the motions my fingers make as I operate the keyboard. I'm not thinking about the tools, I'm thinking about what I'm doing through the tools; my hands move automatically.

I suppose it is like learning a musical instrument. At first you have to learn how to operate the instrument, practicing the motions to build up muscle memory. Then you start learning to play notes through the instrument. Eventually you stop thinking about the instrument, or the notes, because all that has become habit, and you just think about the music you are making; the instrument feels like an extension of your body.

If you have had a long-standing preference to use only the keyboard, and not the mouse, perhaps the mouse feels distracting for you because it is not part of the instrument you have learned to play. Of course this could be a self-perpetuating tendency.

[Bost]

> Every time you reach for the mouse and move the cursor or scroll a document you stop thinking at the problem at hand because [...]

... because I have well over 200 of own keybindings in my spacemacs dotfile already and quite a few of them don't do what I need in some particular situation or some underlying package got broken or, or, or...

> you're focusing on the motion, and when you're done with the mouse you waste mental energy resuming your previous train of thought, maybe even forgetting something.

That's because it's already half past 3 p.m and except having two or three coffees, I haven't eaten anything yet.

Besides, I highly doubt if I don't get any Nobel- or Turing-Award it's because I don't keep my fingers on the home row.

[aidos]

If you’re thinking, you don’t even need to be at the computer.

I can’t speak for others, but I keep my hands on the keyboard a lot of the time because I’m reading. As a (neo)vim geek, the key is to be really good at moving through the code. Being able to jump from where you are to where you want to be in a file far away without stopping allows you to read the code in a more linear way than it’s written.

[jraph]

It's also about doing less movement with the arm. I just got a big screen and my desire to avoid the mouse just increased a lot (increasing the cursor speed mitigates this a bit however). An external keyboard (that has a numpad) may force you to spread the arm a bit more than what is ideal.

It's also less cognitive load when the keyboard shortcuts are internalized. This may be worth it for operations you do a lot.

> Even if I must look it up in a physical dictionary, how long are we talking here?

This, however, takes an infinite time.

[boudin]

It's not really about speed, it's more about preferences. I'm a keyboard type of guy, I just find using a keyboard nicer, that's it. I don't like having to move windows around with a mouse, I find the keyboard experience better. Same with scrolling, I find using up and down keys much nicer than a wheel as well. It doesn't mean that one way is the right way and the other is wrong, it's like taste I guess.

[alexalx666]

Magic Mouse continuous scroll experience was a game changer, if I had to go back to basic mice I would prefer keyboard for everything

[marssaxman]

I have long wondered the same. What are people doing which makes them so concerned with the efficiency of their editors? I spend the great majority of my work time reading and thinking. When it seems that solving a problem will require me to change a great deal of code, that's generally a sign that I haven't done enough thinking yet. On the rare occasion that I do need to write a lot of new code at once, it's not that big a deal to just... type it out!

I have had a few co-workers who seemed to spend a great deal of time typing, but I have not generally been impressed with the quality of their work. In fact, the most incompetent developer I have ever met, an enthusiastic proponent of his favorite editor and its automation features, was also the most prolific, routinely churning out hundreds or even thousands of lines of awful, bloated, bug-ridden code a day.

The field of software development is large and varied, so of course it is possible that there are competent people doing solid work which really does involve a tremendous amount of fiddly editing, thereby justifying the otherwise inexplicable degree of attention given to sophisticated editors; but I cannot imagine what their working lives are like, and I hope I never have to find out.

[tbiehn]

The whole thing actually goes back to smoking weed. The ‘no mouse ethos’ goes at least as far back as the ratpoison window manager and this historic post: https://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/inspiration.html Tiling window managers, living in terminals, vi, that Firefox with vi keybinding - all part of this THC cult. I recall some other ideologically foundational work where the author talked about being able to work one handed with this type of setup, in this case I think performance is taking a back seat to joint-smoking ergonomics.

[rewgs]

Did you miss the part in the link you posted where he says that he’s joking?

[vector_spaces]

I am similar to you with regard to process and how much I output at a time, but in my case having to fuss with the mouse a whole bunch makes it that much easier for me to lose my train of thought.

That said, I don't optimize heavily against this the way some folks do. I use emacs and org-mode and GNOME (well, whatever the System76 folks are calling their reskinned GNOME desktop :)) which I think provide a nice balance. Emacs lets me switch between files with a couple keystrokes rather than having to dig through 10 tabs, and GNOME I think encourages an alt-tab based workflow. I still use the mouse for most other things though.