[Gllug] ed vs emacs/vi, was: ed vs emacs, was: OpenMoko Neo Freerunner

[Jose Luis Martinez]

On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 9:10 AM, Alain Williams <addw at phcomp.co.uk> wrote:
> On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 02:44:47PM -0400, general_email at technicalbloke.com wrote:
>
>> Well, as I say _I_ pretty much can but I take your point. If I had to
>> use a terminal based editor I'd still pick Nano or Pico first though
>> (with the -w naturally), as 99% of the time I'd only be editing a
>> smallish text file to fix a problem, something even nano can do right?
>> For productivity stuff like programming, where I might want macros and
>> regex and ftp I would never use a terminal app, not while I'm sitting at
>> a box clicking away 3000 million times a second, what on earth would be
>
> Oh, how can you really be productive at programming if you need to use
> the mouse to do it ?

Spend time understanding the problem.

Write pseudo-code, flow diagrams,  object oriented definitions (pencil
on paper).

Do some paper runs of limit cases of your algorithm to ensure it works.

Think of other possible solutions.

Give your hand written, properly documented pseudo-code or code to the
data entry person or the junior programmer, the mouse is their problem
:-)

Check that the code commited to the project is properly documented.

> I can touch type, so I type without looking away from
> the screen. I cannot 'touch mouse', so if I need to use it I need to look
> away, move my hands off the keyboard, move the mouse/click, then move
> my hand back again ... slooooow.

One may type faster, that does not mean one is more productive.

I am not saying you aren't, just that the typing speed would be the
least of my worries when evaluating performance of different
programmers, sometimes I would really prefer that people would pause a
bit before commiting code to a project, the apparent productivity of a
piece of undocumented code badly but quickly written is negated by the
maintenance nightmare that will surely ensue.

I frankly think that the importance of the text editor used for
programming is overstated in most cases, at the end one has to use
what one feels more comfortable with, one size simply does not fit
all, of course if the mouse is getting on the way of you commenting
your code I am all up for giving the poison to the rodent, but would
not consider inferior a programmer that is happy with a graphical
mouse friendly editor.

> Part of the reason that I use mutt rather than thunderbird[**].
>
>> the point? On a side note, I've just decided I'm going to call the next
>> machine I build chocohammer ;)
>
> [**] - that statement was not designed to start another mail war on which MUA
> is best.
>

You are jesting.
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