[oh-4-fucks-sake]

Agree that efficient development (regardless of IDE/editor) is done best using primarily keyboard.

Also agree that detached keyboards and mice will almost always be superior to their on-board counterparts.

But, I think we're being a wee bit cognitively dissonant if we tell ourselves notebook keyboards and trackpads don't receive a non-trivial amount of use--even from the best of us.

Even more, why are keyboard and external-mouse purists even bothered with even owning a laptop if they rarely/ever intend to use the most major distinguishing features that separate them from desktops in the first place?

But even if you don't agree with any of that, why shouldn't we still demand a damn-good version of a highly ubiquitous tool, even if we don't personally use it that often? (Especially since Apple has proven that it's possible.) On HN (and the rest of the dev community) are perhaps the most demanding critics of anything technology. "Server starts up 8% slower!--dogshit!" "New release consumes 5% more memory--are you kidding me!" "Battery lasts 25m shorter--I'm in tears!" "The new theme is highly disruptive to my workflow--OH THE HUMANITY."

I'm not being critical of our being sticklers. We should be! That's our job! Our fellow devs care about quality; our users care about quality. We should care about what our users care about. We have the voices and power to advocate for good products for all that use technology. The trackpad will be a major way people interact with computers for a long time to come and I'm not prepared to hand-wave away the mediocre.