Editor Ergonomics [was: Important features for editors]

[Giorgos Tzampanakis]

On 2013-07-12, Steven D'Aprano wrote:

> On Thu, 11 Jul 2013 09:45:33 -0400, Roy Smith wrote:
>
>> In article <2fdf282e-fd28-4ba3-8c83-aaaace1201ec at googlegroups.com>,
>>  jussij at zeusedit.com wrote:
>> 
>>> On Wednesday, July 10, 2013 2:17:12 PM UTC+10, Xue Fuqiao wrote:
>>> 
>>> > * It is especially handy for selecting and deleting text.
>>> 
>>> When coding I never use a mouse to select text regions or to delete
>>> text.
>>> 
>>> These operations I do using just the keyboard.
>> 
>> For good typists, there is high overhead to getting your hands oriented
>> on the keyboard (that's why the F and J keys have little bumps).  So,
>> any time you move your hand from the keyboard to the mouse, you pay a
>> price.
>> 
>> The worst thing is to constantly be alternating between mouse actions
>> and keyboard actions.  You spend all your time getting your fingers
>> hands re-oriented.  That's slow.
>
> Big deal. I am utterly unconvinced that raw typing speed is even close to 
> a bottleneck when programming. Data entry and transcribing from (say) 
> dictated text, yes. Coding, not unless you are a one-fingered hunt-and-
> peek typist. The bottleneck is not typing speed but thinking speed: 
> thinking about program design and APIs, thinking about data structures 
> and algorithms, debugging, etc.

Typing time is definitely a small portion of coding time. However,
since I learned touch typing I have found that I can work more hours
without getting tired. It used to be that the repetitive up-down motion of
the head was quickly leading to headaches and general tiredness.

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