Editor Ergonomics [was: Important features for editors]

[Eric S. Johansson]

Sounds like you might have liked an accessory I had on my Amiga.
Basically a proportional joystick feeding an interface box which
converted
the position value into a sequence of mouse movements --

sounds very cool. Although after I wrote my little screed, I found myself
fiddling with my smartphone and I realized I was subconsciously putting it
through the motions if it was a positioning device.

The gross motion is detected by the accelerometer's in the phone. The fine
positioning by fingers on the screen.

Just thinking out loud.

 

[Giorgos Tzampanakis]

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.