Comments on: Mouse vs. Keyboard: The Great Divide

By: Glenn Friesen

Glenn Friesen — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:39:02 +0000

I love both the keyboard and the mouse – though feel that’s a cop out to answering the question (like people who say they like all kinds of music, while incessantly keeping Sublime songs on repeat in their car). If pressed, I’d have to say that I find mousing better for actions I don’t perform frequently, or in programs where my limited use doesn’t justify my spending time to improve long-term efficiencies. As an example, I tend to browse in Mozilla using keyboard commands, but usually browse IE by mouse (since I don’t plan on using it long enough to justify learning any different keyboard commands, if any). Or, take minesweeper (mousing) vs. Total War II: Medieval (keyboard commands).

Keyboard commands are really the bee’s knees for applications I use on the daily. I have observed a rapid improvement in my speed and productivity from their use. If you’re on the fence about learning commands (instead of clicks) – hop over and start learning… it’s totally worth the effort on applications you use frequently.

By: JustaGirl

JustaGirl — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:26:27 +0000

RE vi/emacs: Please put me in the vi/edlin category.

By: Simon

Simon — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 13:13:41 +0000

I was very much a mouser, but ever since I began getting wrist pain (I don’t think it is RSI – yet), I’ve switched to more keyboard commands

By: Michael Thompson

Michael Thompson — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:29:12 +0000

@Dave: I vote Vim

By: Michael Thompson

Michael Thompson — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:28:14 +0000

It depends on what I’m doing. If I’m working on coding shenanigans, you’d better believe my fingers aren’t leaving the home row.

If I’m designing or surfing I’m probably using an unbalanced combination of both.

This is such a stupid argument because almost every uses both at some point in the day. I don’t know anyone who is 100% mouse, or who is 100% keyboard — though I do know a few who are around 97% keyboard.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:39:58 +0000

Whoa – next you’ll be starting a vi/emacs flamewar. I’d vote for vi, btw. ;-)

Once you get over the learning curve, the keyboard shortcuts come naturally. In fact, there are several that I use all the time but I’d have to think about what they are since they’re pretty much second nature now.

There’s no doubt that the keyboard is way more efficient.

By: josh

josh — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:17:51 +0000

I definitely prefer keyboard. I’m a coder, and it secretly irritates when I’m when another dev is showing me something and the point-click around to compile or whatever. especially when they are slow. it’s hard not to think: ctrl+tab then shift+f12 then down, down, enter then ctrl+shift+l and lastly ctrl+shift+b. then f5 it.

its just me though and I know that.

By: Ellie

Ellie — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:10:03 +0000

I prefer to use my mouse. I do use some keyboard shortcuts like CTRL+C or CTRL+V, but I never bothered to learn all of the shortcuts!

By: Jakob Buis

Jakob Buis — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:50:12 +0000

I’m a heavy mouser when it comes to basic computer use: surfing, etc.. pretty general stuff.

When I start coding, I immediately switch to an all-key approach; Typing code, pressing Alt+Tab (to browser) and F5 is way faster then it’s cheese-loving equivalent :)