What surprised me on the human side was how easy it was to learn another layout. So it seems that re-association is not the same thing as actually learning the keyboard the first time around. Watching the brain learn was a fun process. Would recommend it!
Typing with pleasure
21–30 of 35 posts
Re: Typing with pleasure
#22This is a really cool writeup. It's probably worth noting that humans don't notice latency under about 100ms and the table at the end shows all the editors surveyed coming in under that number. That said, I've noticed severe latency problems while trying out Atom, and almost never have problems with Vim (unless I try to edit a massive file in it). But for me the latency problems I notice usually aren't typing ones, b…
You perceive sensory inputs within a 100ms window as occurring simultaneously. That does not mean that you cannot notice the difference between a 10ms latency and 50ms latency. Your may well perceive variations of latency, just not on a conscious level as a delay. The author asserts that high subliminal latency leads to higher discomfort and decreased productivity. I cannot find any studies on this right now, but it…
> Your may well perceive variations of latency, just not on a conscious level as a delay.
I agree. If you "want" to feel it consciously don't type text on a keyboard but play a melody on a midi keyboard. A latency of 10 ms, let alone 100 ms, feels horrible. For instance, a 1/16 note at 140 bpm has a duration of 107 ms!
I find it quite fascinating that recording midi in, say, cubase is possible at a lower latency than editing a text file in Atom.
Re: Typing with pleasure
#23Great to see this quantified! My pet peeve is laggy interfaces. I'm not surprised to see Atom on there, because browsers do seem to have a big problem with this. Ubuntu seems to have a big problem with this too, e.g. in the native "gedit". Back in the Ubuntu 4.0 days (2006 or so), the default terminal was really slow. I didn't really know how to use Linux then, so I would SSH into with Putty on Windows, and use the t…
Try out mosh. Local buffers really make a difference for that latency.
Re: Typing with pleasure
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
You perceive sensory inputs within a 100ms window as occurring simultaneously. That does not mean that you cannot notice the difference between a 10ms latency and 50ms latency. Your may well perceive variations of latency, just not on a conscious level as a delay. The author asserts that high subliminal latency leads to higher discomfort and decreased productivity. I cannot find any studies on this right now, but it…
> Your may well perceive variations of latency, just not on a conscious level as a delay. I agree. If you "want" to feel it consciously don't type text on a keyboard but play a melody on a midi keyboard. A latency of 10 ms, let alone 100 ms, feels horrible. For instance, a 1/16 note at 140 bpm has a duration of 107 ms! I find it quite fascinating that recording midi in, say, cubase is possible at a lower latency than…
I will always remember the smooth feel of an old SparcStation 20 I got in the late '00s. It was engineered so that hardware interrupts wouldn't get in each other's way. Regardless of the puny specs, the responsiveness was amazing, compared to any then-new x86 machine, where the console would stutter every time the OS felt like writing a large block to the hard drive.
Re: Typing with pleasure
#25What surprised me on the human side was how easy it was to learn another layout. So it seems that re-association is not the same thing as actually learning the keyboard the first time around. Watching the brain learn was a fun process. Would recommend it!
Went through this switching from a European layout to a US one, it took me around 4-5 days to be really comfortable with it, now it takes just a few minutes to switch between the two mentally.
Re: Typing with pleasure
#26Great to see this quantified! My pet peeve is laggy interfaces. I'm not surprised to see Atom on there, because browsers do seem to have a big problem with this. Ubuntu seems to have a big problem with this too, e.g. in the native "gedit". Back in the Ubuntu 4.0 days (2006 or so), the default terminal was really slow. I didn't really know how to use Linux then, so I would SSH into with Putty on Windows, and use the t…
Try out mosh. Local buffers really make a difference for that latency.
Well I was saying that using a shell or vim via Putty/SSH from Windows (and a fast corporate network connection) was actually MORE responsive than sitting at that computer, and using GNOME terminal or whatever it was!
I've heard of mosh though -- it sounds cool.
Re: Typing with pleasure
#27This is a terrific writeup about the latencies of text editors. Now the next step is to research the effects of latency on cognitive strain, typing accuracy, and typing speed.
Without that, the latency numbers themselves don't mean much. Some 100 ms latencies are readily noticeable (video game input), others are not (pushbutton responses).
This paper (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00140137608931531) seems to suggest that typing speed does decrease at higher delays, but recovers after a short time. I can't access this journal though, so I don't know what kinds of delays were tried, and I don't know how long the recovery time actually is.
Re: Typing with pleasure
#28I used Classic theme in Windows because, as I pointed out earlier, Aero’s compositing increases drawing latency and enforces V-Sync.
This is an interesting datapoint in the argument between those who prefer the classic theme and those who use Aero, with proponents on both sides saying "it's faster". Perhaps compositing has higher throughput, but non-composited has lower latency. I personally use classic because it does feel more responsive. That extra ~15ms is definitely perceptible.
Another thing I've noticed is that when input latency is high, such as using SSH, I tend to keep typing ahead instead of waiting.
Re: Typing with pleasure
#29Something very strange I've noticed: a bluetooth keyboard connected to my Mac doesn't have any perceptible latency... but the same keyboard connected to my iPad has extremely obvious latency (500ms or more.) Anyone know what the deal with that is? Do iOS devices sacrifice Bluetooth latency for battery life somehow?
Re: Typing with pleasure
#30This is related to a problem we have to deal with all the time in LaTeX - the delay between typing the source and seeing the typeset output, especially when running as a SaaS at https://www.overleaf.com
I think the quality of the output you're aiming for matters - we as authors (and I speak based on my experiences both running Overleaf and in writing research papers) seem to put up with more latency / compile delays if we feel it's 'worth it' (however badly defined) for what we're looking to produce.
I personally find I do my most creative writing late at night, but my most polished / error free during the day. Whilst I wish I could say I split my work up accordingly, I've never found a way to do this effectively. Anyone else have this / found a solution?