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Developer wrote 25k lines of Neovim plugin code using phone and touchscreen

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Re: Developer wrote 25k lines of Neovim plugin code using phone and touchscreen

#51

Post by cess11 »

I think there's a lot of us that do more or less serious programming on our handhelds. The author of Picolisp does a lot of development on a tablet, and has created his own software keyboard: https://software-lab.de/penti.html

I've been using it for years, and have solved crises at work with it and Termux by SSH:ing from my phone into a box attached to the right VPN and jumped from there to control over production. Tablets are really nice in this area, they have a lot of battery time and one can lay in bed and do the stuff in vim, tmux, &c. as one usually does, just a little bit slower due to software keyboards being a bit less efficient.

Re: Developer wrote 25k lines of Neovim plugin code using phone and touchscreen

#52

Post by theden »

I've done development on a Nokia n900, but with an external keyboard — can't imagine using an on-screen keyboard, or even a tiny physical one!

Funny thing is, I don't know if some high sec work envs are much better, where developers have to nest remote through machines (of different OSes) just to get a terminal...

Re: Developer wrote 25k lines of Neovim plugin code using phone and touchscreen

#54

Post by ddalex »

ruthmarx wrote: post #45
rochak wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man, if this is true, I truly salute his dedication for pushing through and contributing to open source. Not many, despite having all the means available to them, have the drive to "just do it". markview.nvim is a great plugin that does one thing and does it well. Edit: Seems like there is an open issue [1] to get him a PC to code on. Just one more reason why I love the community. [1]: https://github.com/OXY2DEV/m…

If he doesn't have a PC how/why was he motivated to write a neovim plugin in the first place?

he's using neovim on his phone....

Re: Developer wrote 25k lines of Neovim plugin code using phone and touchscreen

#55

Post by barosl »

I also write code using my phone when I'm on a bus or the subway. It requires some patience but after getting used to it, the experience is surprisingly pleasant especially if you're familiar with terminal-based tools. My environment consists of:

  - Galaxy S24 Ultra
  - Termius: I think it is the best terminal emulator and SSH client on Android. The sad thing is that the paid version is a bit too expensive. ($10 per month, no permanent option)
  - tmux: Mobile connections are brittle so it is a must.
  - Vim: Allows me to navigate the code freely without using arrow keys, which is really useful on the touch keyboard.
Not that of a big deal, but the thing that I think is more pleasant on the phone than on the PC is that I can use my fingerprint to log in to the remote server. The fingerprint is stored in the TPM so it is safe. It feels magical!

Edit: The biggest pain point for me was the limited width of the smartphone screen. It is a bit hard to skim over the code quickly because most lines are severely cut. Text wrapping helps this but personally I hate text wrapping. Keeping landscape mode is not an option because the code area is completely hidden when the touch keyboard is displayed. That's why foldable phones are great for coding, as they have a wider screen. My previous phone was Galaxy Fold and it was a wonderful coding machine.

Re: Developer wrote 25k lines of Neovim plugin code using phone and touchscreen

#56

Post by pandemic_region »

GuB-42 wrote: post #35
pandemic_region wrote: post #26

Back in the 90's, I created something like a mortgage calculator on my HP48gx. It was about 1500 "lines" (a line being maybe at most 30 chars) , all keyed in using only the calculator. The mind is capable of many things.

The HP48 has a pretty good keyboard. I remember someone who typed as fast as most people would do on a full keyboard, using some weird kind of touch typing with the hands vertically positioned on both sides of the calculator. The problem is more about the software. The HP48 is pretty slow, and has a tendency to lose your data a bit too easily. There are some editors written in assembly that are good enough though, an…

Yes, the keyboard space was large enough that you could get into a routine of using both hands. Scrolling through the code was a nightmare though, it was not the fastest IDE at the time.

Re: Developer wrote 25k lines of Neovim plugin code using phone and touchscreen

#57

Post by almostnormal »

ivjw wrote: post #18

Whenever I want to put something down, I open the browser on my phone, type in the address bar, then hit . Later I synch them along with the other tabs when I have access to the desktop. This routine developed totally unintentionally and has been somehow more productive than all the fancy notetaking apps I'd used. Maybe it's something about the claustrophobically tiny input slot that makes me want to widen it as much…

> Whenever I want to put something down, I open the browser on my phone [...]

I write a mail (usually subject only) to myself. Actually, to noone, because my mobile devices Bcc myself. The notes are accessible from any device I can access my mailbox with, with no additional tools or servers for note keeping needed.

Re: Developer wrote 25k lines of Neovim plugin code using phone and touchscreen

#58

Post by [deleted] »

ruthmarx wrote: post #45
rochak wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man, if this is true, I truly salute his dedication for pushing through and contributing to open source. Not many, despite having all the means available to them, have the drive to "just do it". markview.nvim is a great plugin that does one thing and does it well. Edit: Seems like there is an open issue [1] to get him a PC to code on. Just one more reason why I love the community. [1]: https://github.com/OXY2DEV/m…

If he doesn't have a PC how/why was he motivated to write a neovim plugin in the first place?

[deleted]
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