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Developer Productivity - The Red Pill

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Re: Developer Productivity - The Red Pill

#21

Post by javert »

_3ex7 wrote: post #16
javert wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the author, I use the Awesome window manager. I think you have a perfectly valid perspective, but just want to speak for the other side. The main benefit I get from Awesome is having 9 workspaces ("desktops"). I use my mod key (in my case CAPS but it can be Alt or anything) plus # to get to any workspace. I have web browser on one desktop, email on another, IM on another, terminals on another, programming on ano…

Do you use a terminal multiplexer or something similar? I only ask because my set up was exactly like what you just described. Once I buckled down and started using one, it negated the need for a lot of the tags I had with dwm.

I've never needed one, probably since a tiling WM allows you to accomplish something similar, as you point out.

I know screen has some nifty features, but for the things I do, a tiling WM is a superset of the functionality screen would provide.

Re: Developer Productivity - The Red Pill

#23

Post by jbarham »

bitwize wrote: post #18
_3ex7 wrote: post #10

In regards to number 7: >7. Use a tiling WM I recall reading a Plan 9 pdf on the Acme editor (sorry cant find it right now). A unique feature to that text editor is that it is heavily mouse-based. This is contrary to many peoples (myself, at the time, included) belief that both hands on the keyboard equals increased productivity. I used to be 100% dwm. The euphoria of navigating around with your home row was great (v…

Amen. When are people going to get it through their heads that using the mouse is faster than the keyboard? This has been determined by Apple's UI research and known for some decades now.

Source: http://www.asktog.com/TOI/toi06KeyboardVMouse1.html

"We’ve done a cool $50 million of R & D on the Apple Human Interface. We discovered, among other things, two pertinent facts:

    * Test subjects consistently report that keyboarding is faster than mousing.
    * The stopwatch consistently proves mousing is faster than keyboarding."
This is the reason that the Plan 9 folks gave for making their UI mouse rather than keyboard based.

Re: Developer Productivity - The Red Pill

#24

Post by javert »

bitwize wrote: post #18
_3ex7 wrote: post #10

In regards to number 7: >7. Use a tiling WM I recall reading a Plan 9 pdf on the Acme editor (sorry cant find it right now). A unique feature to that text editor is that it is heavily mouse-based. This is contrary to many peoples (myself, at the time, included) belief that both hands on the keyboard equals increased productivity. I used to be 100% dwm. The euphoria of navigating around with your home row was great (v…

Amen. When are people going to get it through their heads that using the mouse is faster than the keyboard? This has been determined by Apple's UI research and known for some decades now.

How can this be? I'm just not convinced.

The main thing I use my WM for is switching applications. Any application I want to switch to is modkey+number, and I know the numbers.

Re: Developer Productivity - The Red Pill

#25

Post by daten »

evilmushroom wrote: post #5

Ignoring the fact that I prefer to multi-task--- I do not have 5 minutes of downtime with context switching. If I'm thinking about a certain problem--- it helps to stop and skim my twitter feed for a couple minutes while thinking about it.

I agree. While interruptions in something like watching a movie in the theater might break my concentration for several minutes, I find context switching to help my productivity at work. I can get stuck on a problem without a distraction where changing my focus briefly usually helps give me a fresh perspective and allows me to solve the problem faster.

Re: Developer Productivity - The Red Pill

#26

Post by radu_floricica »

sandis wrote: post #4

I agree with most of the article, but this – "But in the time he has booted to his Desktop I've already answered 3 emails [..] Vanity slows you down, whether its your choice of VM, OS (read: OSX or Windows) or anything else". – is hardly an argument when choosing desktop OS.. just put your PC to sleep and next day it will "boot up" instantly, especially OS X.

You can actually map the power button to Hibernate in windows. It's not not complicated either... just a click somewhere in Power Settings. Makes life a lot more pleasant.

Re: Developer Productivity - The Red Pill

#27

Post by _3ex7 »

daten wrote: post #20
geoffc wrote: post #8

coffee, vim and screen do it for me :-)

Another poster mentioned "tmux" in reply to this comment but they deleted their post before I could reply. I had not heard of tmux before. Apparently it's an alternative to "screen". I would have upvoted you for making me aware of it. http://tmux.sourceforge.net/

Original comment was something like:

"Obligatory 'Have you tried tmux?!?!'"

I deleted it because I thought HN might think I was trolling or something.

Re: Developer Productivity - The Red Pill

#29

Post by loup-vaillant »

jkkramer wrote: post #17
_3ex7 wrote: post #10

In regards to number 7: >7. Use a tiling WM I recall reading a Plan 9 pdf on the Acme editor (sorry cant find it right now). A unique feature to that text editor is that it is heavily mouse-based. This is contrary to many peoples (myself, at the time, included) belief that both hands on the keyboard equals increased productivity. I used to be 100% dwm. The euphoria of navigating around with your home row was great (v…

I'm reminded of a tidbit from an old AskTog[1] article: "We’ve done a cool $50 million of R & D on the Apple Human Interface. We discovered, among other things, two pertinent facts: * Test subjects consistently report that keyboarding is faster than mousing. * The stopwatch consistently proves mousing is faster than keyboarding." There are probably all sorts of caveats to this (and the research may have changed since…

Interestingly, I don't feel faster with the keyboard. I do, however, feel more comfortable when I stick to one mode (keyboard-only or mouse-only). It's switching that feels awkward. I also don't use Xmonad out of pure Geekiness (though I started that way). I use it because I find it more comfortable. I work at the same time with OSX, and while moving windows with the mouse is probably just as fast, it annoys me.

Now the reason why the keyboard is slower than the mouse may be sub-optimal short-cuts. For example, when editing, one very often needs to change lines, or otherwise navigate the text. A sensible short-cut to support that could be alt + jkli (assuming a Qwerty layout). Then you don't have to leave the home row at all. But if you have to use the actual arrows, it's slower, and that may make the mouse the better choice.

Re: Developer Productivity - The Red Pill

#30

Post by flogic »

jkkramer wrote: post #17
_3ex7 wrote: post #10

In regards to number 7: >7. Use a tiling WM I recall reading a Plan 9 pdf on the Acme editor (sorry cant find it right now). A unique feature to that text editor is that it is heavily mouse-based. This is contrary to many peoples (myself, at the time, included) belief that both hands on the keyboard equals increased productivity. I used to be 100% dwm. The euphoria of navigating around with your home row was great (v…

I'm reminded of a tidbit from an old AskTog[1] article: "We’ve done a cool $50 million of R & D on the Apple Human Interface. We discovered, among other things, two pertinent facts: * Test subjects consistently report that keyboarding is faster than mousing. * The stopwatch consistently proves mousing is faster than keyboarding." There are probably all sorts of caveats to this (and the research may have changed since…

I think the caveat is primarily muscle memory. If an action is in muscle memory it's almost always faster. I don't think about how to switch desktops or save a file so the keyboard is faster. However fancy cursor movement(like skip ahead one word) is pretty much useless for me since I have to think about what I'm doing.
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