Are you talking about configuring the editor? Ideally, that’s not a common task, so it really shouldn’t matter much if it uses TypeScript, elisp, vimscript, or lua.
And if you’re primarily using the mouse, you’re missing most of the point of editors, especially emacs and ViM. The real power of those editors comes from keyboard shortcuts and combos, not from plugins and menus.
Yes, ideally a editor would work without any configuration, but unfortunately I haven’t met any emacs user with sub 200 line dot files.
I personally cannot remember more than 20 hotkeys to save my life.
Also I find the most time-consuming part of my work is actually thinking, not clicking around with a mouse. so I don’t really need to spend month to remember all the hotkey just to save 2 seconds clicking. In fact, slow down and click couple buttons to commit gives me a bit to rest and enjoy the moment when I have finished a task…
It’s not about optimizing code entry, but optimizing reading code, since you read code a lot more than you write it.
I’m not super familiar with emacs, I’m a vim person, but here are a few examples of mouse vs keyboard navigation.
Search for text in a file:
Mouse:
- select the text
- click “find in page”
- click “next”
Shortcut:
- Ctrl + F
- Click “next”
Vim:
- Type
*on the word you want - Type
nfor next,Nfor previous
Find matching brace/bracket/parenthesis:
Mouse:
- Click on brace
- Scroll until you find the match
Shortcut: not sure
Vim:
- Type
%
Navigate to the top/bottom of the file:
Mouse: scroll or click the sidebar
Shortcut: not sure
Vim: gg for the top of file, G for the bottom
Go to a specific line:
I.e. If from output from a script, like a test failure.
Mouse: scroll or if you have a plugin, click on the red part (i.e. test or lint failure)
Shortcut: in VSCode, Ctrl + click on file name
Vim: G or :
And so on. Vim is optimized for code navigation, a mouse is optimized for intuitive navigation (but slower), and shortcuts kinda fill in the gaps.
If you just want to get up and running quickly, something like VSCode is a good option. That’s what I did when I decided to help my team out with some FE TypeScript code, when I normally use something else. I actually installed a vim plugin for VSCode to get the best of both worlds.
But if you really want a fluid code navigation and editing experience, master something like ViM or emacs.
Oh, and I didn’t mention one of the most powerful things in both ViM end emacs: macros. I use them a ton when manipulating text, such as converting JSON to a class/struct, or doing repetitive syntax changes that are just out of reach of a regex.
Proper VS Code shortcuts for the above cases…
Find next: Ctrl-f, F4
Find matching brace: Ctrl-]
Navigate to Top or Bottom: Ctrl-Home Ctrl-End
I think it’s the same number of keys pressed as vim in every case.
You raise a valid point. Personally, I used to read and write a lot of code, but I no longer do that. I still maintain a open source project, but my job no longer involves writing code that runs.
IIRC, the most useful functionality I used to use are:
- peak/goto definitions,
- mouse over to peak doc and type signature,
- find usage in project,
- refractor the name/signature of a function,
- real time linting and quick fix.
I am quite curious on why go to beginning or end of the file useful? Also I am not sure that the basic find/replace is more useful than find usage/refactor.