[shawnz]

The mouse is not a "clumsy" input and there are plenty of situations in which the mouse allows more efficient usage than the keyboard like when navigating through 2D space. For example it is clearly more efficient to place your cursor at a certain arbitrary point in the document using the mouse than to navigate there using keyboard commands.

I'm also not really convinced about the "hands on the keyboard" argument... What percentage of the time that you work are your hands actually on the keyboard and ready to input? Are they on the keyboard right now? Because that seems like an uncomfortable way to sit at a workstation. I also don't think it takes very much time to switch between the input devices unless maybe you don't have practice with that workflow.

[_frkl]

> The mouse is not a "clumsy" input and there are plenty of situations in which the mouse allows more efficient usage than the keyboard like when navigating through 2D space. For example it is clearly more efficient to place your cursor at a certain arbitrary point in the document using the mouse than to navigate there using keyboard commands.

Have you ever used emacs? If not theres a mode called ace-jump, which I'm pretty sure beats every interaction with a mouse to get to a certain point within a document. I'd wager that, if we'd start at the same time, I'd be at that point before you actually touch the mouse with the hand that you just lifted. Honestly, it's worth checking out. There is a lot of things that emacs and vim are brilliant at, they had tens of years to figure things out after all...

[c256]

There have been numerous studies on this, and the results are basically always: people don’t think that it’s faster to stick with the keyboard, but it is. Yes, even for people who are very familiar with the task, the keyboards, and the mice.

There are some interactions where switching to the mouse and back is faster; things like drawing and navigation through irregular shapes (I.e. “not grids or lists”).

Whether that difference is important to you or not is far more about your specific circumstances than anything else. Comfort is important also.

[majewsky]

> Are they on the keyboard right now?

Of course they're not on the keyboard while I'm exclusively reading. But while I'm in vim, my hands certainly are on the keyboard nearly at all times, resting on the home row.

[c256]

When I’m trying to understand code, my hands are absolutely on the keyboard. This is very common and quite efficient once you learn how to navigate using a code editor.

This is similar to the way a mathematician will often ‘read’ math with a pencil and paper, or a musician will ‘read’ music with an instrument in hand.

When I’m reading prose, I often don’t have either a keyboard or a mouse, but that’s a very different operation (uses different parts of the brain, etc).