| I'm in software development too. Tend to setup and use keyboard shortcuts extensively to avoid the mouse as much as possible. I don't use an external mouse at all and only use the trackpad of my laptop for quick swiping between full-screen views, back/forward in browser and for selecting text in random apps. This has saved me both time and the health of my wrist. As someone who works a lot in Linux/Unix/OS X environments, maybe one of the biggest daily productivity improvements for me was learning the Vim motions. It began with the innocentish question "So, which one do you prefer: vim or emacs?" from my ex-colleague at F-Secure, on the first day in my then new job. I have to admit I hadn't thought before. I'm happy I chose the correct one :D I even used to have Vimium in my Chrome so I could browse in command mode 8-) Many modern IDEs have great refactoring features and stuff not provided readily by the more ancient tools. A tool that really understands your code does make sense. Whenever I start using a new IDE or other development tool, though, as the first thing I'll check if they provide vim mode. Often times you'll get the job done easily with just plain vim, grep and sed. You cannot install your IDE everywhere. These oldies are almost universally available everywhere in the nix world. They have a learning curve, for sure, but it makes a lot sense to learn them. Also, isn't it kind of cool to work with a tool that was invented before you were even born? |