> Anyone who says this, has never played StarCraft.
Ha, I actually loved StarCraft back in the day, and RTS (or what's left of it) is still one of my favorite genres today.
> In practice, some things a much faster with the mouse. You see something, and immediately you can move your cursor there.
I get that, and while it may apply for gaming, that's not always the case for editing text or programming. For one, the keyboard is the primary input device you rely on while editing text. Switching away from it to use the mouse (or touchpad, Trackpoint, etc.) requires conscious effort. Whereas in gaming, particularly with RTS games, your hand is on the mouse most of the time, so there's no context switching.
Yet even RTS games rely heavily on keyboard shortcuts. In competitive gaming, skill is measured by APM (Actions Per Minute), and using both keyboard and mouse efficiently is a critical part of that. I would say that the keyboard is even more important than the mouse, though.
Take a look at this video[1]. Notice that the mouse is only used to select units, issue commands on specific targets, and ocasionally scroll the map. The keyboard instead is used constantly, and even exclusively for short periods of time.
Obviously, text editing and programming proficiency is not measured in APM. We spend much more time thinking about the content than how we input and manipulate it. But if we can remove any friction between using our tools and our output, then this is worth pursuing since this friction adds up over long periods of time.
> Text selection is also faster, given the text to be selected fits on the screen.
I'm not so sure. I can select a word, line, sentence, paragraph, or text between braces in a fraction of the time and effort it would take me to do the same with the mouse. It would also be much more precise.
> Some people learned computing before GUIs existed, and that shaped their opinions, but at this point that claim is just a meme repeated over and over on the internet forums.
That could well be the case, but the history of GUIs and mouse input dates as far back as the 1960s and 70s. Vi, Emacs and Vim were created in the 70s, 80s and 90s, after GUIs were popularized or during that process. Maybe there are legitimate reasons for people to prefer keyboard input beyond it being just a meme?
> However, my principal criticism to your point is: any text editor that allows you to use the mouse, also has keyboard shortcuts. It's never one vs the other.
That's true, and viceversa as well: any editor heavily focused on keyboard shortcuts also allows mouse input. My preference for keyboard input has nothing to do with my editor choice, I just never feel the need to rely on the mouse. This is why I wanted to better understand why someone would prefer mouse input, and why text editors like Acme would be specifically built for this kind of workflow.
Ha, I actually loved StarCraft back in the day, and RTS (or what's left of it) is still one of my favorite genres today.
> In practice, some things a much faster with the mouse. You see something, and immediately you can move your cursor there.
I get that, and while it may apply for gaming, that's not always the case for editing text or programming. For one, the keyboard is the primary input device you rely on while editing text. Switching away from it to use the mouse (or touchpad, Trackpoint, etc.) requires conscious effort. Whereas in gaming, particularly with RTS games, your hand is on the mouse most of the time, so there's no context switching.
Yet even RTS games rely heavily on keyboard shortcuts. In competitive gaming, skill is measured by APM (Actions Per Minute), and using both keyboard and mouse efficiently is a critical part of that. I would say that the keyboard is even more important than the mouse, though.
Take a look at this video[1]. Notice that the mouse is only used to select units, issue commands on specific targets, and ocasionally scroll the map. The keyboard instead is used constantly, and even exclusively for short periods of time.
Obviously, text editing and programming proficiency is not measured in APM. We spend much more time thinking about the content than how we input and manipulate it. But if we can remove any friction between using our tools and our output, then this is worth pursuing since this friction adds up over long periods of time.
> Text selection is also faster, given the text to be selected fits on the screen.
I'm not so sure. I can select a word, line, sentence, paragraph, or text between braces in a fraction of the time and effort it would take me to do the same with the mouse. It would also be much more precise.
> Some people learned computing before GUIs existed, and that shaped their opinions, but at this point that claim is just a meme repeated over and over on the internet forums.
That could well be the case, but the history of GUIs and mouse input dates as far back as the 1960s and 70s. Vi, Emacs and Vim were created in the 70s, 80s and 90s, after GUIs were popularized or during that process. Maybe there are legitimate reasons for people to prefer keyboard input beyond it being just a meme?
> However, my principal criticism to your point is: any text editor that allows you to use the mouse, also has keyboard shortcuts. It's never one vs the other.
That's true, and viceversa as well: any editor heavily focused on keyboard shortcuts also allows mouse input. My preference for keyboard input has nothing to do with my editor choice, I just never feel the need to rely on the mouse. This is why I wanted to better understand why someone would prefer mouse input, and why text editors like Acme would be specifically built for this kind of workflow.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bexWuHmV32A