I'm in the minority camp that doesn't think arrow keys are a big deal, but I suppose I need to qualify that and say "not a big deal if you are on a Thinkpad" and you have an solid reach of curled fingers in your right hand. There's are efficiency gaps in between
1) keeping fingers on jkl;
2) manipulating the arrow keys with fingertips,
primarily using the pinky for quick movements
3) lifting the hand to use the arrow keys
and they do add up over time, but I'm not sure how detrimental they are.
Sometimes, the arrow keys provide a nice mental break, where you can step back from the doc and examine what's happened so far with the arrow keys or page up/down.
When you use the arrow keys to move the cursor around: a nice mental break.
When you use the mouse to move the cursor around: an utterly evil, productivity-destroying action, because you take your hands off the home row (oh wait...)
Comments
I'm in the minority camp that doesn't think arrow keys are a big deal, but I suppose I need to qualify that and say "not a big deal if you are on a Thinkpad" and you have an solid reach of curled fingers in your right hand. There's are efficiency gaps in between
and they do add up over time, but I'm not sure how detrimental they are.Sometimes, the arrow keys provide a nice mental break, where you can step back from the doc and examine what's happened so far with the arrow keys or page up/down.
When you use the arrow keys to move the cursor around: a nice mental break.
When you use the mouse to move the cursor around: an utterly evil, productivity-destroying action, because you take your hands off the home row (oh wait...)
Hacker News, don't ever change ;-)