I attempted this. I didn't really find it more productive. It only really managed to annoy my boss at the time.
Show HN: I wrote an entire book to build a mouseless dev environment
51–60 of 221 posts
Re: Show HN: I wrote an entire book to build a mouseless dev environment
#52"I don't want to try i3 or Vim. What's the point using less of the mouse? Such a waste of time!" That was me, 6 years ago. My colleagues were pushing me to try the tools they were already using for years. They are very good developers, so at the end they convinced me to look at them. I had to admit I was wrong. I fell in love with these tools. From there, I built my system step by step, configured it as I wanted, acc…
I was fully mouseless with a tiling window manager (larswm) back in the 1990's. It was very nice, but these days I am very happy with my mouse and graphical tools. Maybe it's senility.
Re: Show HN: I wrote an entire book to build a mouseless dev environment
#53Nice! Does the book provide instructions on how to install and configure Arch from scratch?
Re: Show HN: I wrote an entire book to build a mouseless dev environment
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
For those of us who can type very quickly, every movement of the hand away from the keyboard (to the mouse) and back has a high cost in terms of lost typing opportunity. If speed and subconscious operation are the goal, then it's best to stick to as much keyboard only as possible, or alternately to learn to maximize the one hand keyboard + mouse approach (which can actually be very fast once you know your tools).
For most of us mortals, typing is not the bottleneck when we are writing code, an article or whatever. In any case, keyboard-only interfaces make the assumption that you know all of the shortcuts for each program you use. And boy they are inconsistent. They also offer zero discoverability for someone that did not read the manual (see the vim jokes). I like software that offers both good pointer UI + robust keyboard s…
With all due respect, as a self-identified mortal, typing often IS the bottleneck when I'm coding. This is why I often write pseudocode on paper or a whiteboard, before typing things out. Not sustained typing, but in bursts. Particularly when there's some complicated logic. When I reach that moment when I finally have a breakthrough and clearly understand what I need to do.. that moment is fleeting, and it's vitally important that I get it written down before I forget. Like waking up from a dream.
Re: Show HN: I wrote an entire book to build a mouseless dev environment
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Navigating code using Vim keyboard commands (in Vim itself or another editor with a Vim plugin, like VS Code) is actually efficient and comfy once you become fluent with it. I also use a Vim Firefox extension to minimize my mouse use browsing the internet. (That said, creating a fully mouseless Arch Linux desktop environment is way more hardcore than anything I want to do, especially considering the less-than-stellar…
> I also use a Vim Firefox extension to minimize my mouse use browsing the internet. Which one? Vimium-FF? How well does it compare to Vimium in Chromium? I've been wanting to switch from Chromium to Firefox but can't live without Vimium. If it works well, I'll make the switch.
I've only ever used Vimium-FF, so I'm not sure how it compares to the Chromium version, but it worked well enough. Now I use Tridactyl. Check it out. It takes the concept a lot further than Vimium.
Re: Show HN: I wrote an entire book to build a mouseless dev environment
#56Life is too short to program in 80 characters wide.
Re: Show HN: I wrote an entire book to build a mouseless dev environment
#57For what it's worth, I think there is a lot of space between what you use and what might work for other people. It's not that there is anything wrong with Arch. Rather Ubuntu is probably easier for many people. The general idea here is Linux. Similarly, there are several tiling window managers. A neutral description of the options and links to resources might have broader appeal. Text editors are another place where…
Using i3 with Ubuntu made me realise it doesn't matter all that much for me. CentOS, Ubuntu, Arch, it all looks about the same to my toolset.
Re: Show HN: I wrote an entire book to build a mouseless dev environment
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
For those of us who can type very quickly, every movement of the hand away from the keyboard (to the mouse) and back has a high cost in terms of lost typing opportunity. If speed and subconscious operation are the goal, then it's best to stick to as much keyboard only as possible, or alternately to learn to maximize the one hand keyboard + mouse approach (which can actually be very fast once you know your tools).
For most of us mortals, typing is not the bottleneck when we are writing code, an article or whatever. In any case, keyboard-only interfaces make the assumption that you know all of the shortcuts for each program you use. And boy they are inconsistent. They also offer zero discoverability for someone that did not read the manual (see the vim jokes). I like software that offers both good pointer UI + robust keyboard s…
I don't think vim could speedup your typing speed (unless you are using macro/`.`). I think the benefit of vim is mostly about code navigation, and this is the bottleneck (at least for me) when writing code: jumping around definitions, from and to different region, without having to reach the mouse and click on different buttons.
Good pointer UI + robust keyboard shortcut is quite good, but sadly most of the GUI applications do not allow you to use a consistent set of keys in different controls, but with vim you can. (use shortcut to open up some form and suddenly the shortcut changes, and rarely you can configure those shortcuts). And having a normal mode really appeals to me, as I don't have to reach ctrl/alt that often with normal mode.
Re: Show HN: I wrote an entire book to build a mouseless dev environment
#59I never got the hate of mouse in the dev community. Isn’t most of work browsing code and Googling things? Making a mouse a way to navigate way more efficient than a keyboard? It seems retrograde.
For me personally it's just slower and more cumbersome. I don't even buy into the whole ecosystem, just i3 and vimium for chrome, and I feel way more concise. For me it's about doing precisely want I wanted quickly and not wasting time humouring the GUI.
Someone brought up the difference between modern UIs on here, mentioning that you are often clicking, then waiting, then clicking, then waiting. With a CLI tool you can do all your actions up front and in sequence and then let it run. You don't have to be present for the waiting.
Re: Show HN: I wrote an entire book to build a mouseless dev environment
#60Is it possible to disable mouse input in VSCode / Idea? A neat plugin would replace all click actions to show corresponding shortcut keys.