coders with 60% boards - you nuts?

[NateS]

I've seen a number of different people say, "I'm a programmer ... I don't use the arrow keys much". What? No you're not! AFAIK, any reasonable programmer uses the arrow keys about half the time. If you guys aren't, what could you possible be doing? Mousing to change the cursor position and move code around? 

Personally, I have my right hand using the arrow keys, right shift and ctrl, insert, delete, home, and end. This means my right hand can do an enormous amount of editing via shortcuts: copy (ctrl+insert), cut (shift+delete), paste (shift+insert), jump by word (ctrl+left/right), select line (shift+up/down), select word (shift+ctrl+left/right), line start/end (home/end), document start/end (ctrl+home/end), next/previous method (ctrl+shift+up/down). I can select words, cut/copy, move elsewhere, and paste all with my right hand. I've been doing it this way for 15+ years and I'm very fast at it.

Anyway, I can't imagine what other programmers are doing without arrow keys or only using them "rarely". A 60% keyboard could never, ever work for me if I need to use Fn to get arrows.

[riotonthebay]

You're doing it wrong. Also, your inflammatory phrasing doesn't compel me to help you do it right.

[Melvang]

You're doing it wrong. Also, your inflammatory phrasing doesn't compel me to help you do it right.

I would have to agree.

[sth]

Anyway, I can't imagine what other programmers are doing without arrow keys or only using them "rarely". A 60% keyboard could never, ever work for me if I need to use Fn to get arrows.

never, ever try anything new because you might need to do something different.

[NateS]

You can't seriously be offended? You do realize this is the Internet? 

Do it different how? This is what I'm asking.

[Findecanor]

Coders who don't need arrow keys use a fancy console-mode editor that has special key bindings for scrolling through code.
Some editors also have incremental search, which is more powerful than what you find in standard editors.

[jdcarpe]

Bro, do you even emacs?

[bueller]

I just turn my bottom right mods into a navigation cluster and I'm good to go no matter where I'm editing code.

[Melvang]

The reason you are getting this response is because in the first line you sound like you are attacking every coder that uses anything without dedicated arrow keys and a navigation block.  Then in the last line you say it will never work for you.

I could be wrong but that doesn't seem like the best way to figure out how and why people do things differently. 

Also, if meant to be sarcastic, it is difficult to convey this over text communication especially someone as new on the forums as you are.  Not a bad thing to be new by any means.  Glad to see the community growing but it would help to word questions a touch differently.

[sth]

[riotonthebay]

Bro, do you even emacs?

Or, like, any other editor, ever, even the ****ty ones.

[yicaoyimu]

Bro, do you even emacs?

^ this is the ultimate answer. Ctrl+p/n does the magic.

[Lastpilot]

Show Image

[xandr]

I'm sure most emacs and vim users will think something along the lines "if you need arrow keys, you're doing it wrong".

Also if you really need to jump around in your code and copy/cut/paste so much I'm wondering if you might actually benefit from planning your code more.

[1pq]

Bro, do you even emacs?

Or, like, any other editor, ever, even the ****ty ones.

Don't forget the butterflies! Ol' C-x M-c M-butterfly...

I feel like I should stop making this joke, but it's too good to stop.

[osi]

Using the arrows on an HHKB is not that hard....Honestly, it feels quite natural where they are located. No trouble here getting to them if I need them.

[i3oilermaker]

As a developer using a Poker 2, it takes a bout a week for the muscle memory to kick in, but using fn lock or pn + WASD was a very short learning curve.  Using a poker is more like typing in chords than in single notes.  You can really be efficient since your hands don't move much.

[Betty]

Bro, do you even emacs?

One word: hjkl
 

Edit: But honestly I do code a lot with the hhkb and I use the arrow keys in the console from time to time and it works fine for me.

[NateS]

in the first line you sound like you are attacking every coder

...except there is a nice smily to indicate playfulness. At any rate, my post wasn't meant to upset people, only to express how nuts it is to me for a coder to not use arrow keys. I don't think it is a good idea to sterilize my posts of all personality/playfulness just so I can tiptoe around people who might get offended on the Internet. Ease up, my friends!

Never been a fan of Emacs (/me hides), but I understand. I still use vi sometimes. So, ctrl+b/f/n/p for left/right/up/down (roughly). I suppose you don't have to reach for the arrows, but on QWERTY these aren't near each other. Maybe these keys were chosen for their mnemonics (backward, forward, next, previous) rather than their ergonomics? Not having tried to live with it, I would think my biggest gripe is that it still takes a modifier (ctrl) to get cursor navigation, which likely interferes with other shortcuts. How would you do a common action, like: move down to lines, right one word, select word, copy, move up to lines, paste? For me: down, down, ctrl+right, shift+ctrl+right, up, up, shift+insert.

Most of my time these days is spent in Eclipse. It has an Emacs key scheme, but I haven't tried it. I do use incremental search.

@bueller, that sounds like a decent option. This post looks like an OK layout, except for moving the forward slash. It's not too bad though, can use the left hand for ctrl/shift/copy/cut/paste.

[daerid]

I've seen a number of different people say, "I'm a programmer ... I don't use the arrow keys much". What? No you're not! AFAIK, any reasonable programmer uses the arrow keys about half the time. If you guys aren't, what could you possible be doing? Mousing to change the cursor position and move code around? 

Personally, I have my right hand using the arrow keys, right shift and ctrl, insert, delete, home, and end. This means my right hand can do an enormous amount of editing via shortcuts: copy (ctrl+insert), cut (shift+delete), paste (shift+insert), jump by word (ctrl+left/right), select line (shift+up/down), select word (shift+ctrl+left/right), line start/end (home/end), document start/end (ctrl+home/end), next/previous method (ctrl+shift+up/down). I can select words, cut/copy, move elsewhere, and paste all with my right hand. I've been doing it this way for 15+ years and I'm very fast at it.

Anyway, I can't imagine what other programmers are doing without arrow keys or only using them "rarely". A 60% keyboard could never, ever work for me if I need to use Fn to get arrows.

One question: how old are you?

But seriously, even if you are stuck with a ****ty editor like Visual Studio, using arrow keys on a FN layer isn't all that bad.

[dustinhxc]

FN + Arrows is easy on my Poker and my HHKB.

[hashbaz]

Also if you really need to jump around in your code and copy/cut/paste so much I'm wondering if you might actually benefit from planning your code more.

This is even sillier than the OP.

To the OP, welcome to internet, I'm glad you could join us.  Loudly question programmers' text editing preferences and you're gonna have a bad time.

Never been a fan of Emacs (/me hides), but I understand. I still use vi sometimes. So, ctrl+b/f/n/p for left/right/up/down (roughly). I suppose you don't have to reach for the arrows, but on QWERTY these aren't near each other.

So you already knew the rebuttals to your statements in the OP.  Nicely done.

How would you do a common action, like: move down to lines, right one word, select word, copy, move up to lines, paste? For me: down, down, ctrl+right, shift+ctrl+right, up, up, shift+insert.

jjwyekkp

Fewer keystrokes and less hand movement.  No function row, function layer, or arrow keys required.  Lends itself nicely to a reduced keyboard layout.

But seriously, even if you are stuck with a ****ty editor like Visual Studio, using arrow keys on a FN layer isn't all that bad.

Yep, you get used to it pretty quickly.  And you're already doing chorded hotkeys in Visual Studio constantly.  One of the main reasons I love vim so much is that the majority of its commands are single keystrokes.

[CJNE]

If you're really interested in finding out why you don't need arrow keys with a good editor, a good start would be to type vimtutor on the command line. Go through it.
After that, in Vim, type :help navigation and read it. If you do all of that you will know!

The way you currently navigate in vi is not the way to do it

[nuclearsandwich]

The amount of context breaking required to move your hand to an arrow cluster versus to a pointing device is about equal. I'd rather have arrows under my hands already. WASD, ESDF, HJKL, JKL;, and to a lesser degree the Happy Hacking arrow cluster are all just as suitable supposing you have two hands. For most of my programming career I used neither a mouse or  dedicated arrow keys.

Try something for a few months and evaluate it. If it doesn't work for you then it doesn't work for you but until we know your voice on the forum a bit better it will be hard to tell whether you're yelling or just tp4issue.

[Grimey]

But seriously, even if you are stuck with a ****ty editor like Visual Studio, using arrow keys on a FN layer isn't all that bad.

Even Visual Studio has as Vim plugin that is easy to install.

[daerid]

Even Visual Studio has as Vim plugin that is easy to install.

A couple, yes. Personally they're always too much trouble to get to play nice with ReSharper though (I refuse to do any C# dev without it).

[ctbear]

in the first line you sound like you are attacking every coder

...except there is a nice smily to indicate playfulness. At any rate, my post wasn't meant to upset people, only to express how nuts it is to me for a coder to not use arrow keys. I don't think it is a good idea to sterilize my posts of all personality/playfulness just so I can tiptoe around people who might get offended on the Internet. Ease up, my friends!

Never been a fan of Emacs (/me hides), but I understand. I still use vi sometimes. So, ctrl+b/f/n/p for left/right/up/down (roughly). I suppose you don't have to reach for the arrows, but on QWERTY these aren't near each other. Maybe these keys were chosen for their mnemonics (backward, forward, next, previous) rather than their ergonomics? Not having tried to live with it, I would think my biggest gripe is that it still takes a modifier (ctrl) to get cursor navigation, which likely interferes with other shortcuts. How would you do a common action, like: move down to lines, right one word, select word, copy, move up to lines, paste? For me: down, down, ctrl+right, shift+ctrl+right, up, up, shift+insert.

Most of my time these days is spent in Eclipse. It has an Emacs key scheme, but I haven't tried it. I do use incremental search.

@bueller, that sounds like a decent option. This post looks like an OK layout, except for moving the forward slash. It's not too bad though, can use the left hand for ctrl/shift/copy/cut/paste.

I'm sorry but you are vimming wrong if you are reaching for the arrow keys, or rather if your hands have to move away from the home row.
Your combo "down, down, ctrl+right, shift+ctrl+right, up, up, shift+insert" just looks painful to me.

[ctbear]

in the first line you sound like you are attacking every coder

...except there is a nice smily to indicate playfulness. At any rate, my post wasn't meant to upset people, only to express how nuts it is to me for a coder to not use arrow keys. I don't think it is a good idea to sterilize my posts of all personality/playfulness just so I can tiptoe around people who might get offended on the Internet. Ease up, my friends!

Never been a fan of Emacs (/me hides), but I understand. I still use vi sometimes. So, ctrl+b/f/n/p for left/right/up/down (roughly). I suppose you don't have to reach for the arrows, but on QWERTY these aren't near each other. Maybe these keys were chosen for their mnemonics (backward, forward, next, previous) rather than their ergonomics? Not having tried to live with it, I would think my biggest gripe is that it still takes a modifier (ctrl) to get cursor navigation, which likely interferes with other shortcuts. How would you do a common action, like: move down to lines, right one word, select word, copy, move up to lines, paste? For me: down, down, ctrl+right, shift+ctrl+right, up, up, shift+insert.

Most of my time these days is spent in Eclipse. It has an Emacs key scheme, but I haven't tried it. I do use incremental search.

@bueller, that sounds like a decent option. This post looks like an OK layout, except for moving the forward slash. It's not too bad though, can use the left hand for ctrl/shift/copy/cut/paste.

I'm sorry but you are vimming wrong if you are reaching for the arrow keys, or rather if your hand are moving away from the home row.
Your combo "down, down, ctrl+right, shift+ctrl+right, up, up, shift+insert" just looks painful to me.

[demik]

OP ARE YOU UNDER THE AGE OF 18

[NateS]

So you already knew the rebuttals to your statements in the OP.  Nicely done.

No, Googled to see how it is done in Emacs.

If you're really interested in finding out why you don't need arrow keys with a good editor, a good start would be to type vimtutor on the command line.

Thanks! Doing vimtutor was really helpful. I've only used extremely basic vi for editing config files. The number before motions is neat, as it can save a lot of presses. It's interesting how changing modes has some overhead (eg r to replace a character) but that it usually is made up for by the additional expressiveness.

[jdcarpe]

So this is to be another text editor thread? I vote for edlin again, then.

[hashbaz]

ed is the standard text editor, actually.

[kenmai9]

hjkl

[Kamen Rider Blade]

As a fellow coder, I may be using a full size keyboard, but I can also understand how people with 60% KB's function without using the arrow keys.

I have friends who do it differently, and it does work.

It's just a matter of what you're used to.

[CJNE]

So this is to be another text editor thread? I vote for edlin again, then.

Wait what? Has there been text editor threads?

Any vimgolfers here?

[SpAmRaY]

So this is to be another text editor thread? I vote for edlin again, then.

Wait what? Has there been text editor threads?

Any vimgolfers here?

http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=48499.0

[jacobolus]

One question: how old are you?

Before he answers, anyone wanna wager? Bookies are putting the over/under at 19.

[Melvang]

I would put over since one of his posts here it says he has been coding for 15+

[jdcarpe]

I would put over since one of his posts here it says he has been coding for 15+

He started coding at age 4.

[Melvang]

I've been doing it this way for 15+ years and I'm very fast at it.

[NateS]

Friendly bunch in these forums.