Re: Re[4]: [9fans] home, end ^h^j^k^l

[paurea@dei.inf.uc3m.es]

rob pike writes:
 > From: "rob pike" <rob@plan9.bell-labs.com>
 > Subject: Re: Re[4]: [9fans] home, end ^h^j^k^l
 > Date: Sat, 19 May 2001 10:14:25 -0400
 > 
 > 
 > This feels true but is false.  There were some fascinating experiments
 > done a few years ago in which people were given a long, tedious
 > editing task.  Some of the people were keyboard fans, some were mouse
 > fans.  Both folks were asked to do the task two ways, in random order,
 > once using the mouse to do the editing, once using cursor keys etc.
 > Regardless of their predilections, which was stated up front, after
 > the experiment everyone who did the task agreed that it was faster to
 > use the keyboard than the mouse to complete the task.  Everyone.
 > 
 > Here's the kicker: everyone was wrong.  They were being timed, and in
 > fact the reverse was true.  Although they thought the keyboard was
 > faster, doing the task using the mouse was faster for everyone, by a
 > substantial fraction.
 > 

I've read this argument before and conducted some experiments on my
own. I agree that it is faster to use the mouse than the arrow keys on
some cases.  When I am in emacs, for long jumps I use some other
method which is faster some times. I normally type C-s and search for
a word. (typing it repeatedly looks for the next match). My
conclusions are that, for local moves of two or more characters, the
C-p C-f (the emacs equivalents to arrow keys) are faster. For long,
like modifying two paragraphs at the start and the end of the text, ,
C-s is best, specially if you can't see where you are jumping (it is
one or two pages away).  For midrange jumps, moving to somewhere you
can see on the screen, specially if you are jumping here and there,
the mouse is much faster than any other thing, even more if you are
cutting and pasting things around.

Something else which is fast and I use a lot in emacs, is C-a and C-e,
to go to the starting and end of the line.

Taking the hands away from the letter keys, even to the arrows is time
consuming. More than the act of moving them, the time it takes to
accomodate them back on the keyboard to start typing again. Another
thing which takes time is the difficulty to be precise with the mouse
(this depends on the resolution the screen is at). On the other hand,
the cursor moves itself at a more or less constant rate and that makes
it slow too. It is also very distracting because you have to keep
your attention on it to stop it on time. 
-- 
                 Saludos,
                         Gorka

"Curiosity sKilled the cat"
-- 
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