July 30, 2003
Mouse, the root of all evil

Matt writes:

I'm in the process of learning to do everything I do on the computer without touching my mouse.

I love it when I'm good influence on my friends. I've been 'mouse-free' for years.. almost, technically I do use the mouse whenever I need to attack a ton of popping up aim windows at the most inopportune moments.. Say, when my laptop is hooked up to a projector and half the company is watching, that's usually a good time for a friend to take advantage of my forgetfulness (no aim when laptop in view of large groups of people on a large screen!) and practice better sexual harassment techniques on me.

Seriously, mouse decreases productivity.. if you can learn keyboard shortcuts (better yet, just use emacs, dude) you'll find you can work faster, easier and amaze local chicks with your leet text editing skills without touching a rodent.

While I'm talking about mice (mouses?).. point-and-click programming should be banned.. visual editors are horrible, horrifying and petrifying.

Posted July 30, 2003 09:06 PM in Geek Stuff
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.unix-girl.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/842
Comments
On July 30, 2003 11:39 PM fluffy added:

Figure out how to do non-linear video editing with just the keyboard and get back to me. ;)

Sure, the mouse is a lot less efficient than the keyboard, but the mouse is also a lot easier to learn, and learning the mouse eventually lends itself to learning a lot of the keyboard as well (since mnemonic shortcuts are usually listed on menu items and so on).

At least most of MacOS is keyboard-accessible now. (There's still a few annoying bits which require the mouse but shouldn't though.)

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On July 31, 2003 12:14 AM Techie2000 added:

I personally prefer the keyboard to the mouse, and am a bit more keyboard centric than most people. However there are still things I use the mouse for. Text editing isn't one of them though. I have started to use Vim (which is *better* than EMACS...;)) recently in place of NANO, and am starting to wonder how I've lived without it.

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On July 31, 2003 12:42 AM Ryan Gregg added:

While I agree with you that using the keyboard can be significantly faster than using the mouse, it certainly can't be replaced.

Try navigating a Flash-based website with the keyboard, or even better, do RAD-style UI design without touching the mouse (even a touch pad doesn't work very well for that).

I do have to say though, I really dislike operating systems or environments where there aren't hotkey shortcuts for everything I want to do!

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On July 31, 2003 06:23 AM Harmen added:

Duh :)

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On July 31, 2003 12:46 PM Daniel added:

Hear hear.

I always wince at the attitude of those who learn "just enough to get by" (and take twice as long to do everything with their rodent) Oh, and then they have less time to learn something new because... etc etc.

And the plural of mice is "meece" :-)

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On July 31, 2003 03:43 PM pete added:

actually, the plural of mouse is "infestation".

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On July 31, 2003 03:48 PM Gavin added:

The only problem with shortcuts for me is each program seems to have its own set of proprietary ones. Linux is far worse than windows for this, as ms released the gui guidelines, but still.

I loved windows 3.11 where i knew EVERY shortcut, now on both my windows and linux boxes I have to deal with menus and such so often as things change so easily.

Ctrl+w in firebird closes the tab/window, while in dev studio it opens the class manager (don't get me started on the evils of dev studio,but it does its job)

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On July 31, 2003 05:05 PM Paul added:

I try to use the mouse as little as possible also :-) I find it much more conveinant.

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On August 1, 2003 10:37 AM Harald added:

This is why I _still_ don't use Linux as a desktop, even though I use it for everything else; most of the time there _are_ no keyboard shortcuts! The ones that do exist are inconsistent and baroque.

Mice are evil; they give me RSIs. The keyboard doesn't. 'nuff said.

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On August 1, 2003 02:41 PM fluffy added:

My point was supposed to be that certain tasks just plain aren't suited for the keyboard. Like image or video editing.

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On August 1, 2003 10:58 PM Paul Scrivens added:

When I use linux I try to stay away from the gui as much as possible. For the majority of my tasks the command line is way faster.

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On August 2, 2003 07:58 PM Jeremy C. Wright added:

I'm still looking for the perfect input device, but I don't think the keyboard alone is quite what I had in mind.

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On August 3, 2003 06:38 AM john added:

"But it's not simpler," Turlock said. "It's just one motion. It takes time to grab the mouse and pull down the menu. You can just hit the key without lifting your hands from the keyboard."

http://www.theonion.com/onion3929/area_man_knows_all.html

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On August 3, 2003 12:06 PM Baba added:

Has anyone tried using their computer with the mouse only? ;-)

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On August 8, 2003 08:07 PM Luci added:

I'm sleeping on the floor near my CRT, and 1-2 hours before I fall asleep, I'm using only a wheel-mouse. Of course, only read and delete, posts like this remain for the morning.

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