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Show HN: Nomouse

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Re: Show HN: Nomouse

#71

Post by inetknght »

gwu78 wrote: post #41

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…

I applaud you, good sir. I've used Mac OS (classic) since a child, Windows since a teenager, and OS X sometimes at certain jobs. My most recent job rather forced me to use Linux... and now I find myself wishing for less and less GUI and more and more TUI.

Command lines really are far more intuitive to me than any GUI has been; my workflow in a software terminal is far more productive than any GUI application has ever allowed me to be.

Re: Show HN: Nomouse

#72

Post by yissir »

WesleyJohnson wrote: post #35

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'm a keyboard-only developer with a very high key rate, but I don't write an above-average amount of code.

My keystrokes are used on a bunch of custom shortcuts that I use to quickly navigate and read code.

Re: Show HN: Nomouse

#73

Post by jmjanzen »

WesleyJohnson wrote: post #35

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 manager set up just so, terminal multiplexer sessions all pointed in the right places; and finally, a problem -- and clear solution -- in mind. All that's left is implementation.

You start typing your solution, switching windows to compile or refresh a webpage every now and then. Things are coming together. As you proceed this way, a stroke of brilliance hits you, and you add an extra flourish that resolves an entire class of problems. Welcome to the "Flow State."

Finally, you realize you'll be needing a file from your Teamviewer session with another computer. You foreground that process, and navigate to the remote computer's file manager. So far, you haven't even had to traverse farther than three keys from the homerow.

Unfortunately, to transfer a file over Teamviewer, you'll need to use the mouse. You'll have to click three times to get to the file sharing widget, and use the mouse even more to get your remote/local directories lined up, another click elsewhere to initiate the transfer... close the little confirmation popup that's now obscuring your screen. It's not the end of the world, of course, but your dance has been interrupted.

I'm not sure you'll relate to anything I've stated above, and I'm by no means advocating "going mouseless" as objectively superior to your own preferred flow. Whatever works for you, works for you. I am hoping that my reply might help you get in the head of a keyboard jockey.

By the way, this reply was written with a rather fluffy cat sitting on my mousepad. So I'm not the only one to be inconvenienced when I have to switch to a mouse. Needless to say, George is a huge fan of vim. :)

Re: Show HN: Nomouse

#74

Post by Koshkin »

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 abuse.)

Re: Show HN: Nomouse

#75

Post by btschaegg »

WesleyJohnson wrote: post #35

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…

Funny thing, for me, this is exactly the reason why the mouse is annoying.

I use Vim-bindings pretty much anywhere privately (to the point of using qutebrowser and an awesomerc file that allows me to switch workspaces using hjkl), but am forced to use VisualStudio at work.

VsVim makes VS barely usable for me, but it still has so many usecases that are mouse-mandatory that I'm constantly cringing. When programming is mostly thinking, I want to spend my time doing that and not slowly pushing a pointer along on the screen. The whole dialog-based systems basically constantly interrupt my thinking flow, and context switches aren't free :-)

Re: Show HN: Nomouse

#76

Post by noctuid »

WesleyJohnson wrote: post #35

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…

It's not just that using the mouse is slow. The mouse is also dumb. By that I mean that you can't tell it to take intelligent actions like jump to/select/delete a particular semantic unit (e.g. a sentence). Using the keyboard allows for more intelligent actions and for composition of actions with (optionally) mnemonic keybindings. The mouse is far less precise and requires some UI for pretty much anything.

Besides, even if I'm thinking more than I'm coding that doesn't mean I'm okay with the coding part being slow.

Re: Show HN: Nomouse

#77

Post by kentt »

colanderman wrote: post #55

For those using X11 who wish to replace keyboard-shortcutless mouse clicks with keystrokes, I humbly suggest my own project SNAM: https://chris.pacejo.net/programs/snam

Oh my. I've needed this so badly. There are so many little things that still obstinately need a mouse even after I've almost completely done away with one. Thank you so much.

Re: Show HN: Nomouse

#78

Post by noctuid »

pix64 wrote: post #61
ryandrake wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot even more inefficiency: Lifting your hand off the keyboard and moving it to the mouse, [insert your above steps], then moving back to the home row.

Is scrolling through source code really faster line by line?

That's what you do with a mouse though. With a keyboard, you can move by semantic units (like a paragraph or function), use fuzzy search to jump to a specific function, etc.

Re: Show HN: Nomouse

#79

Post by blunte »

pix64 wrote: post #61
ryandrake wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot even more inefficiency: Lifting your hand off the keyboard and moving it to the mouse, [insert your above steps], then moving back to the home row.

Is scrolling through source code really faster line by line?

There are so many keyboard options for moving through source which you don't have with a mouse...

- Page up/down (and especially with home row shortcuts like in Emacs and Vi)

- Brace match jumps

- n line jumps up or down in Vim

- top/mid/bottom of view jumps

- page shifts up and down without moving the cursor

- top/bottom of file jumps

- jump directly to a line in a file

... and more

Seriously, put an Emacs or Vi power user next to a guy with an IDE and a mouse, and it's no contest.

Re: Show HN: Nomouse

#80

Post by johnfn »

WesleyJohnson wrote: post #35

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 don't understand this viewpoint.

The faster you finish the mechanical process of typing code, the faster you can get back to deliberation.

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