Comment by monkpit | Hacker News Reader

Comment by monkpit | Hacker News Reader

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This is part of why I don’t understand the argument for vim/emacs.

If you _like_ those then keep using them by all means.

But when people tell me “it’s so much more efficient if you never have to take your hands off the keyboard”, I don’t buy that.

Sure, it is more efficient to know shortcuts for things you do commonly in your IDE. And yeah, editing text is a common task in the IDE.

But (for me) 90% of an engineering task is gathering requirements, testing, waiting for Jenkins or something, chatting with a colleague about the context of the task. Fumbling around.

Writing new code or editing existing code is really a small part of completing the task, and being able to do it as quickly as possible isn’t that big of a benefit (again, for me specifically).

So, again I’ll reiterate, these editors work great for some (I know enough in vi/vim to get stuff done), but don’t try to sell me on the efficiency argument. Just use it because you like it!

The efficiency argument isn't really about macro-efficiency, it's about micro-efficiency. It's not, "with my lightning fast editing speed, I will drop 10k lines today", it's about writing this method faster so I can run tests and see if anything changes, getting me to the next thinking step that much quicker while the problem is still fully loaded into my head. It's about keeping flow state flowing. It's about reducing the iteration time between working code states, so your cycle time gets tightened.

It's the same with touch typing too.

IME, without good muscle memory (touch or hybrid typing) of keys, consciously searching for each key is going to seriously disrupt the flow and thought process behind the code being written.

It may not make you a rockstar programmer, but it will definitely make coding more enjoyable.

I think there was a recent HN discussion on this topic.

10% of my time is 4-8 hours a week. And I'm writing up those requirements, tests, etc. someplace, so I've got hands on keyboard far more than 10% of my time (usually in a vi). Seems like a good opportunity to optimize. I made my choice...not because I 'like it', but because I've been doing it both ways since the 80s and this works.

In the end, tho, you don't understand the argument, don't know the tools (know enough to get stuff done doesn't count), haven't walked in the shoes, but you're absolutely certain all us vi/emacs users are wrong. I mean, I've heard this pissing contest since the Win3 days, so I don't expect much intellectual rigor, but most people who feel the need to "well ackshually" keyboard jockeys at lest take the time to google up something like AskTogs infamous "I spent $50m to prove mice are faster" (for Apple, trying to push the Macintosh, with none of the research ever published AFAIK) to 'prove' how deluded we are. There is actual published research out there covering not just speed but ergonomics and accuracy; it's pretty inconclusive all things considered, and very dependent on the use case the researchers decide to examine, so really easy to cherry pick so you get to win arguments on the internet.

You’re arguing against a strawman here, you’ve said a lot of things here that I did not say.

You seem to be trying to win a fight that I’m not trying to start, and that’s ok.

I said it’s not for me, and I will stand by that. Anyone who comes along in a reply arguing is missing the point entirely.

But when people tell me “it’s so much more efficient if you never have to take your hands off the keyboard”, I don’t buy that.

When caught out, try denial and sanctimony. Common tactic.

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