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Vim: Seven habits of effective text editing (2000)

moolenaar.net

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Re: Vim: Seven habits of effective text editing (2000)

#21

Post by e12e »

brucephillips wrote: post #4
gshakir wrote: post #2

If there was a eighth one, I would add learning to touch type. Groking VIM becomes easy when you can type fast.

Do there exist modern information workers who can't touch type?

I'm very happy I attended an optional touch type class in high-school (on typewriters, actually). My recommendation for kids would probably be to learn to touch type, on a better layout (eg dvorak, colemak, workman).

Either way, proper touch typing is more than typing fast, it's also about "sustainable typing": posture, strain, reducing rsi - as well as being free to copy (read text to type in, not having to look at the keyboard or the screen where typed text is displayed).

I've not met many people that proper touch type, even programmers. Even if being able to copy a page of example code from a magazine/book is a useful skill.

Re: Vim: Seven habits of effective text editing (2000)

#22

Post by Moru »

gshakir wrote: post #2

If there was a eighth one, I would add learning to touch type. Groking VIM becomes easy when you can type fast.

I'm surprised this isn't the first. But I guess this is a clear given. Everyone should learn to touch-type, it's so easy and gives your mind the freedom to concentrate on whatever it is you are trying to accomplish instead of finding characters on the keyboard.

Re: Vim: Seven habits of effective text editing (2000)

#24

Post by brucephillips »

e12e wrote: post #21
brucephillips wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do there exist modern information workers who can't touch type?

I'm very happy I attended an optional touch type class in high-school (on typewriters, actually). My recommendation for kids would probably be to learn to touch type, on a better layout (eg dvorak, colemak, workman). Either way, proper touch typing is more than typing fast, it's also about "sustainable typing": posture, strain, reducing rsi - as well as being free to copy (read text to type in, not having to look at…

You're describing ergonomics, not touch typing.

Re: Vim: Seven habits of effective text editing (2000)

#25

Post by aidos »

okket wrote: post #15

Previous discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15532457 (~2 months ago, 237 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4620065 (~5 years ago, 66 comments) All submissions: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=moolenaar.net

Your first link is actually only a couple of months ago

Re: Vim: Seven habits of effective text editing (2000)

#26

Post by jmcphers »

For programming, I've found that my time spent navigating the code dominates the time I spend editing it. Bram's recommendation is to generate a tags file right away for every project to keep this time down, and it's excellent advice.

The problem with this, however, is that it's a pain to remember to generate and update the tags database. Thankfully, you can configure Git so that it builds a tags database for you automatically whenever you clone a repo, and updates it in the background every time you commit, pull, or push.

Instructions here from Tim Pope:

http://tbaggery.com/2011/08/08/effortless-ctags-with-git.htm...

I'm partial to GNU Global, myself, which adds a basic "find references" command, slightly better parsing, and incremental DB updates. Also relatively easy to set up for effortless navigation:

https://csl.name/post/gtags/

Re: Vim: Seven habits of effective text editing (2000)

#27

Post by xxpor »

brucephillips wrote: post #4
gshakir wrote: post #2

If there was a eighth one, I would add learning to touch type. Groking VIM becomes easy when you can type fast.

Do there exist modern information workers who can't touch type?

I hunt and peck but I don’t need to look at the keyboard

Re: Vim: Seven habits of effective text editing (2000)

#29

Post by barbs »

gshakir wrote: post #2

If there was a eighth one, I would add learning to touch type. Groking VIM becomes easy when you can type fast.

He does mention this at the end of the article.

One last remark to remind you of what happens when people ignore all the above: I still see people who spend half their day behind a VDU looking up at their screen, then down at two fingers, then up at the screen, etc. - and then wonder why they get so tired... Type with ten fingers! It's not just faster, it also is much less tiresome. Using a computer program for one hour each day, it only takes a couple of weeks to learn to touch-type.

Re: Vim: Seven habits of effective text editing (2000)

#30

Post by Moru »

brucephillips wrote: post #24
e12e wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very happy I attended an optional touch type class in high-school (on typewriters, actually). My recommendation for kids would probably be to learn to touch type, on a better layout (eg dvorak, colemak, workman). Either way, proper touch typing is more than typing fast, it's also about "sustainable typing": posture, strain, reducing rsi - as well as being free to copy (read text to type in, not having to look at…

You're describing ergonomics, not touch typing.

Ergonomic typing is usually part of the touchtyping class. At least when I was in school 30 odd years ago. I think it was obligatory for everyone but can't remember any grades. Most didn't bother though. (Sweden)
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