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Show HN: I wrote an entire book to build a mouseless dev environment

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Re: Show HN: I wrote an entire book to build a mouseless dev environment

#21

Post by nicoburns »

ajfapoiawejf wrote: post #20
ironmagma wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once upon a time, I was a Vim user. I learned many of the commands, such that a typical day involved swatting at the keyboard like it's a drum set. But I later realized that half of the satisfaction I felt I got out of Vim was just the feeling that I could, more than that it was actually that fast. Sure, some things like macros can be much faster in a given situation, but the amount of savings you get from typing Shi…

The difference for me was realizing that Shift-V % will typically highlight precisely what I want - though that's a bad example, visual mode is rare for me. More frequently it's something like `dap`, which works with a level of precision across lines that aren't necessarily all on screen. If I click and drag, I'm liable to select one extra or one less line, e.g.

Is this better than using the keyboard with arrow keys and ctrl/alt/shift?

Re: Show HN: I wrote an entire book to build a mouseless dev environment

#22

Post by thinkxl »

hartator wrote: post #13

I 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.

It's not mouse hate, but an alternative way to use a computer.

Re: Show HN: I wrote an entire book to build a mouseless dev environment

#23

Post by whatever1 »

blunte wrote: post #16
hartator wrote: post #13

I 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 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 shortcuts for those who have learned the ins and outs and need to go faster.

Re: Show HN: I wrote an entire book to build a mouseless dev environment

#24

Post by torben-friis »

hartator wrote: post #13

I 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.

I'm somewhat skeptic regarding pro tools that take a lifetime to master (never got to like emacs for example, and I like MacOS dar more than customizing a Linux distro) but there are some mouseless skills that are such a game changer for me I almost can't use a pc without them, everything else becomes too frustrating. Vimium to browse the web is a Godsend for example.

No need to learn for weeks, it's:

-j/k for scrolling

- J/K move around tabs

- f to click a link

- gg/G to go to the top/bottom of the page

- o to enter new url

Not exactly the most intuitive keywords if you haven't used vim, but you try that a couple hours and then using a mouse feels like clicking edit -> copy instead of doing ctrl-C.

Re: Show HN: I wrote an entire book to build a mouseless dev environment

#26

Post by blunte »

whatever1 wrote: post #23
blunte wrote: post #16

Earlier 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…

We're all mortals :).

Like other endeavors of growth, a good approach is to regularly make a small effort to learn a little more about something (like your tools, which includes keyboard shortcuts).

As one simple example, if you have a URL somewhere and you want to quickly open it in a new window, you just use the keyboard shortcuts to copy (which hopefully everyone knows), switch to browser (alt-tab or cmd-tab or even [cmd-space fire return]), ctrl-t or cmd-t to open a new tab, paste, return). This sequence becomes so hard-wired that you can go from seeing a URL to reading it in a new tab in a couple of seconds. And since it is hard-wired, your train of thought is not interrupted with common small thoughts like, "hmm where is my mouse pointer? wiggle mouse - ahh there"

But like I also suggested, with left hand on the keyboard and right hand on the mouse, and knowing a few very common shortcuts, you can be very fast at getting things done.

In both cases, knowing keyboard shortcuts is... key.

Lastly, there are some awesome tools like Keyboard Maestro or possibly Hammerspoon (I use the former, but have heard the latter is decent). With a bit of effort, you can make some really useful macros and do a lot. Heck, even just using Automator can do wonders. For example, it's pretty easy to make a file right click action that will resize and export an image into one suitable for web publishing.

The summary of all this really is that learning your tools makes you much more effective and performant. Seems obvious, but it's easy to forget.

Re: Show HN: I wrote an entire book to build a mouseless dev environment

#28

Post by ajfapoiawejf »

nicoburns wrote: post #21
ajfapoiawejf wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference for me was realizing that Shift-V % will typically highlight precisely what I want - though that's a bad example, visual mode is rare for me. More frequently it's something like `dap`, which works with a level of precision across lines that aren't necessarily all on screen. If I click and drag, I'm liable to select one extra or one less line, e.g.

Is this better than using the keyboard with arrow keys and ctrl/alt/shift?

I could never remember what the ctrl/alt/shift modifiers do and never managed to get fluent with them - they also require repeating movement many times by holding/tapping the arrow keys until you get to where you want to go, so it feels imprecise to me. I've seen plenty of people who are much better with the arrow keys than I am so I know it's possible to do very well with it though.

`dap` was simpler for me and is easily repeatable with `.` in vim.

Either way, you're not touching the mouse.

Re: Show HN: I wrote an entire book to build a mouseless dev environment

#29

Post by ajfapoiawejf »

whatever1 wrote: post #23
blunte wrote: post #16

Earlier 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…

> They also offer zero discoverability for someone that did not read the manual (see the vim jokes).

I don't see why I would use a specialized tool for hours a day without reading the manual.

> good pointer UI + robust keyboard shortcuts

vim jokes aside, you can use a mouse with vim, terminal, tmux, etc just fine. I sometimes do, but most of the time I find the keyboard simpler.

Re: Show HN: I wrote an entire book to build a mouseless dev environment

#30

Post by ska »

hartator wrote: post #13

I 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.

The thing about a mouse interface is that it's a lowest-common-denominator approach for a lot of things that works pretty ok. Certainly better for that than the text-only interfaces it's largely replaces. This is also why the web is so married to it, 'cause you can navigate around a bunch of semi-consistent information.

The average confused user will probably do better randomly mousing around than trying to juggle keys, or even worse "visually" navigate using arrow keys or something.

But if the interface is powerful and the user is skilled (both significant "ifs") then important operation can be done before your hand would reach the mouse, let alone do anything with it.

I suspect the most efficient is a mix of both, mice are pretty good at selecting from a long list of options, for example.

A lot of IDEs these days contain pretty underpowered editors and slow you down by relying on the mouse too much. If that's all you've tried, you may not have any idea why keyboard interfaces can be a lot more efficient for some tasks....

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