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Developer Productivity - The Red Pill

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Re: Developer Productivity - The Red Pill

#41

Post by jkkramer »

silentbicycle wrote: post #32
jkkramer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sure, a mouse is faster if all you're doing is pointing at stuff and pushing one of a few buttons . Studies will confirm this. That's pretty low-level, though. A keyboard is faster if you want to, say, "jump to the head of the definition of the function body you're currently in and send it to be evaluated", because a mouse just doesn't have enough buttons. With a keyboard, you can name operations. And then name new o…

Sure, editing is one of the exceptions Tog mentions. (I'm an Emacs user, too.) My point was that just because you think or feel that something is faster doesn't mean that it is.

Also, when it comes to programming, the biggest bottleneck for most people isn't typing -- it's thinking.

P.S., there do exist mouse-heavy programming environments: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_programming_language

Re: Developer Productivity - The Red Pill

#42

Post by mikemol »

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.

It's the mode switch that's frustrating. It interrupts my concentration when I discover I need the mouse, when all I'm trying to do is code.

I use a mouse when I have to, but I'd probably use it more if I could get one of those nubbin-mice in my desktop keyboard. 99% of my job is typing. Switching between mouse and keyboard is annoying.

At home, I tend to do the same kinds of things I do at work. However, I picked up a Logitech bt media keyboard with a touchpad off to the side--and that works fine. I wish I could find a wired version. Cherry builds keyboards that look worthwhile, but they don't sell them piecemeal to little guys like me.

Re: Developer Productivity - The Red Pill

#43

Post by silentbicycle »

_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…

Plan9's acme editor was based on Oberon, FWIW - you can probably find more info there. I have a lot of respect for the design, but have never gotten comfortable with it. (I've used Emacs for years, vi for several years before that.) Its "every word in every buffer is also a command if you click on it the right way" seems like the best mouse/keyboard UI synthesis I've seen, though, if you're doing actual work with complex tools you can invest time in learning. A lot of GUI design seems optimized for people doing simple stuff and hoping the UI will be self-evident / "intuitive". I wouldn't expect AutoCAD to be "intuitive", for example - the problem domain itself is far too complex.

Also, I use dwm, and got a netbook recently (dual-booting Windows 7 and Debian). On a screen that smal, tiled wms really shine, and Windows 7's interface feels like a joke in comparison. The low-hanging fruit on a tiling window manager makes the biggest difference, though - having N different workspaces, automatically arranging windows, and being able to hit alt-3 to switch to the third workspace / alt-enter to open a shell is most of what you need to know.

Re: Developer Productivity - The Red Pill

#44

Post by aplusbi »

flogic wrote: post #36
javert wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Screen's primary payoff is when your connection to another machine goes down a lot for whatever reason. A good wm can handle the multiplexing better but they don't restore context like screen.

I love this! I use dtach (with dvtm) instead of screen, but it's serves the same purpose. I'll be working at my desk and then have to head to a meeting (with my laptop) to another floor. My ssh connection will drop but once I log back in I just need to reattach and I'm right where I left off.

Re: Developer Productivity - The Red Pill

#45

Post by thought_alarm »

> If you're not on a tiling WM, you're constantly switching between the mouse and keyboard.

Can someone explain what the author is talking about? I'm not up to date in the latest Linux WM fads. (honestly, I thought the problem was finally solved years ago)

When I'm working, 95% of the time I launch apps and select windows with the keyboard, on both OS X and Windows.

Re: Developer Productivity - The Red Pill

#46

Post by silentbicycle »

jkkramer wrote: post #41
silentbicycle wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, a mouse is faster if all you're doing is pointing at stuff and pushing one of a few buttons . Studies will confirm this. That's pretty low-level, though. A keyboard is faster if you want to, say, "jump to the head of the definition of the function body you're currently in and send it to be evaluated", because a mouse just doesn't have enough buttons. With a keyboard, you can name operations. And then name new o…

Sure, editing is one of the exceptions Tog mentions. (I'm an Emacs user, too.) My point was that just because you think or feel that something is faster doesn't mean that it is. Also, when it comes to programming, the biggest bottleneck for most people isn't typing -- it's thinking. P.S., there do exist mouse-heavy programming environments: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_programming_language

I agree on both points, actually, but when people mention that study, they tend to use it as a "See! Using the mouse is faster!" handwave-y dismissal, without mentioning the fine print.

I'm not a neurologist, but I wonder how differently the brain's spatial centers and language centers interact with the part(s) that perceive the passage of time.

Re: Developer Productivity - The Red Pill

#47

Post by silentbicycle »

thought_alarm wrote: post #45

> If you're not on a tiling WM, you're constantly switching between the mouse and keyboard. Can someone explain what the author is talking about? I'm not up to date in the latest Linux WM fads. (honestly, I thought the problem was finally solved years ago) When I'm working, 95% of the time I launch apps and select windows with the keyboard, on both OS X and Windows.

A tiling window manager (such as dwm, wmii, awesome, ion, and xmonad) automatically tiles windows for you, and has multiple workspaces. Usually, you can just switch between them by alt-1 to alt-9, move windows between workspaces w/ shift-alt-1, etc. If you're mostly working with shells & reasonably large emacs / firefox / etc. windows, they're really nice. With a little muscle memory, the whole window UI thing suddenly becomes a nonissue.

If you ever used ratpoison, it's a better design in the same general space.

I'd personally recommend xmonad if you use Haskell, dwm otherwise.

Re: Developer Productivity - The Red Pill

#48

Post by jamii »

_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…

> Something such as a unified desktop (OS X, Haiku, Gnome, KDE) will make you more productive ...

Its not an either-or thing. XMonad works perfectly well Gnome, panels and all. It only replaces metacity/compiz, not the whole environment.

Re: Developer Productivity - The Red Pill

#49

Post by mcn »

silentbicycle wrote: post #43
_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…

Plan9's acme editor was based on Oberon, FWIW - you can probably find more info there. I have a lot of respect for the design, but have never gotten comfortable with it. (I've used Emacs for years, vi for several years before that.) Its "every word in every buffer is also a command if you click on it the right way" seems like the best mouse/keyboard UI synthesis I've seen, though, if you're doing actual work with com…

Another thing in favor of a tiling WM (and a keyboard centric setup in general) on a netbook is that it is often more convenient to use a netbook without a mouse. I am happy to reduce my track pad use in general, especially hold-button-and-drag operations.

Re: Developer Productivity - The Red Pill

#50

Post by _3ex7 »

jamii wrote: post #48
_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…

> Something such as a unified desktop (OS X, Haiku, Gnome, KDE) will make you more productive ... Its not an either-or thing. XMonad works perfectly well Gnome, panels and all. It only replaces metacity/compiz, not the whole environment.

The same can be done with Openbox.

I am not so sure that makes it a good idea though. Why undermine something so deliberate?

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