91–100 of 173 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It looks like the issue is the text-browser aspect, not the no-javascript aspect, there's no text displayed in the upvote anchor:
I constructed a proper URL and submitted an upvote. upvote " rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/vote?id=13847301&how=up&auth=f4...
I've never understood the sentiment that using a mouse is bad. I see blog posts all the time about how a programmer's job is more thinking than writing code and/or writing good programs is also about taking out just as much code as you put in. So if writing programs is a deliberate and methodical process that - I'd argue it's also slow. Why then is there antithesis that mice slow you down and you need keyboard shortc…
"We've done a cool $50 million of R&D on the Apple Human Interface. We discovered, among other things, two pertinent facts: (1) Test subjects consistently report that keyboarding is faster than mousing. (2) The stopwatch consistently proves mousing is faster than keyboarding."
http://www.asktog.com/TOI/toi06KeyboardVMouse1.html
It's very easy on HN to find the pro-keyboard arguments. The pro-mouse argument is, more or less, that the context switch that really costs you time isn't the one involving the mouse, but the one involving remembering and/or finding the keyboard shortcut or function key.
Vim and Emacs style movement commands are faster than the mouse in certain contexts, but I'm dubious that's universally true. "I want to jump to line 123" is easy, but what about "I want to move the cursor to the open brace character right there"? No matter how much of a seasoned pro you may be, you're going to have to think for a moment about how to do to that: "let me count the '{' characters between the current point and where I want it to be. Three, so '3/{'." The mouse may make you move your hand, but it doesn't make you have to stop and count.
(It's also worth remembering that while mouse selection may not be as rich as "select within brackets" type commands, nearly all editors do have basic semantic mouse selection: double-click and drag to select by word, triple-click and drag to select by line. This can be a lot faster than you might think.)
I've never understood the sentiment that using a mouse is bad. I see blog posts all the time about how a programmer's job is more thinking than writing code and/or writing good programs is also about taking out just as much code as you put in. So if writing programs is a deliberate and methodical process that - I'd argue it's also slow. Why then is there antithesis that mice slow you down and you need keyboard shortc…
I suspect a lot more of it is perception than people imagine: keeping your hands on the keyboard all the time seems like it intuitively must be faster. Early research in human-computer interfaces suggests that this isn't actually the case, though. From 1989: "We've done a cool $50 million of R&D on the Apple Human Interface. We discovered, among other things, two pertinent facts: (1) Test subjects consistently report…
Shortcat - https://shortcatapp.com - lets you access nearly all parts of Mac GUI from the keyboard. Together with the 'Command + Shift + ?' help menu, you don't need a mouse. There's a lot of good info here: https://github.com/orta/keyboard_shortcuts/blob/master/READM...
For me, the most obvious/immediate "bang for the buck" is enabling bluetooth when I sit at my desk. If I don't, and use my Macbook from the living room, the distance is just awkward enough, on bad RF interference days, to continuously get the "Connection lost" and "Reconnected" message for the mouse.
If I could upvote this, I would. Text-only browser (no Javascript) means I cannot upvote. This might be an unpopular opinion, but it is one based in real experience: If you can ditch the mouse, then you can ditch the GUI. I have not used a mouse on my personal computers in over 20 years. This transition started as an experiment when I was sitting in an airport with a laptop back in the late 90's. Remember those tiny…
> Remember those tiny joysticks implanted in the keyboards? You mean this? https://xkcd.com/243/
I've never understood the sentiment that using a mouse is bad. I see blog posts all the time about how a programmer's job is more thinking than writing code and/or writing good programs is also about taking out just as much code as you put in. So if writing programs is a deliberate and methodical process that - I'd argue it's also slow. Why then is there antithesis that mice slow you down and you need keyboard shortc…
For example, I can very quickly run a "full build" by pressing Shift+F6 and simultaneously turn my attention to the build output. Doing the same with the mouse, I would need to move the mouse pointer to the "Build" menu, after possibly spending a few seconds awkwardly looking for the pointer across multiple screens which vary in resolution/scale, click, move again down to the "Rebuild Solution" and click. Then at some later point in time, possibly have to reach out and move the mouse for the sole reason of getting the pointer out of the way of my field of view.
True anecdote: more than once, doing the operation the "GUI" way in the past, while trying to find the right windows, has truly derailed my train of thought as to what my next operation was to be.
Also, I may just be an old-schooler as well, cutting my teeth on command line OSes and network environments (Netware v3.11 anyone?)
I've never understood the sentiment that using a mouse is bad. I see blog posts all the time about how a programmer's job is more thinking than writing code and/or writing good programs is also about taking out just as much code as you put in. So if writing programs is a deliberate and methodical process that - I'd argue it's also slow. Why then is there antithesis that mice slow you down and you need keyboard shortc…
I think I can speak from a position of genuine dislike of mouse usage. I enjoy it for certain things, like perusing the web, or clicking through tickets while sipping on a morning coffee. The mouse is a great invention, and I would never want to get rid of it completely. That said (subjectivity ahead), the mouse becomes annoying only when I'm done thinking, and it's time for doing. Imagine you've got your window mana…
I might be a professional when I'm in the zone at the office, but will become a regular user browsing out of curiosity at night.
tldr: the efficiency of the keyboard is contextual.
I've never understood the sentiment that using a mouse is bad. I see blog posts all the time about how a programmer's job is more thinking than writing code and/or writing good programs is also about taking out just as much code as you put in. So if writing programs is a deliberate and methodical process that - I'd argue it's also slow. Why then is there antithesis that mice slow you down and you need keyboard shortc…
The responses to your query make me think keyboard-only is rice.
Interestingly enough, there has been an opposite trend, in software engineering, to have the user rely on the mouse for pretty much everything except typing text. One curious example is Plan 9's text editor called Acme , where to perform certain actions you even have to click more than one mouse button simultaneously, a.k.a.'chords'. (I am not sure how long an average mouse would be able to withstand this kind of abu…
F5 Up F2
Left Down Right
Tab Delete Backspace
Enter Space ESC
After I discovered extensions/addons for vim-like control of browsers few years ago, I've completely changed how I browse the web. I rarely even use the mouse anymore. Only when I want to save an image or save a file (from a misconfigured server that doesn't auto-download) do I still use a mouse. For everything else, you simply don't need a mouse at all. My favorites: vimari - Safari port of vimium: https://guyht.git…
But after reading this sub-thread, I decided to give it ago, and I've been absolutely blown away, such a pleasurable experience!
I've started using Feedbin for my RSS feeds lately, which makes great use of vim-bindings, and I've enjoyed using that site more than any other partly for that reason. Now I get that on every site - and as a bonus, adding an exception (so that I could continue using Feedbin's bindings) was easy.
The only thing that seems to be missing is a way to edit large text fields (like this one) in vim-mode. Though I understand there are separate plugins people swear by for that, so perhaps they work in conjunction, I'll have to explore that next.