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Comment by delinka | Hacker News Reader

I think I'd argue with the "not much shorter" because it's less typing to perform a `++` versus `+=1`; I hold shift, I type the = key, obtaining the +, then I have to pause typing long enough to release the shift key, type the = key again, and now my other hand has to get involved and type a 1. And that's without the spaces.

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Typing is not the bottleneck.

Yes, typing is indeed the bottleneck. Perhaps it doesn't add up to much time overall, but until we get brain-computer interfaces and the ability to will code or instructions into existence, I want every barrier to moving the solution from my head into the computer as small as possible.

I had a very similar conversation with a colleague about UX. This one operation might not happen often, but when it does, it should be intuitive and fast. The technology is here to serve the humans.

My point is just that a programmer spends a lot more time thinking about the problem domain; how to approach a particular problem; what patterns he might use; and details about the particular solution they've chosen, than he does typing.

That is, if you're optimizing typing, you're optimizing the wrong thing, and if you want to improve your ability to write software, you should instead be getting better at these other things. The typing part is good enough.

Edit: Or if typing really is the bottleneck, you're a much better programmer than me.

Well, I type the * key to get a +, then shift and 0 to get a =, then 1 to get a 1.

Slow, and my fingers have to jump completely over the keyboard.

What is far more annoying, and should be banned, are `these` (I have to press shift+' twice to get one `, otherwise I end up with á' instead of `a`), and {}[], as they are on AltGr+7/8/9/0

Which type of keyboard do you use? I know English-International has a similar issue with `'`, `"`, and `'`. I think QWERTZ or a German keyboard do as well? Can try changing it to English - US to get around that if you run Windows. Not sure about Mac/Linux.

I swapped the US out for international because it was important to me to type Pokémon properly. It is an annoyance to have to type ` followed by a space because it is waiting for a vowel to let me type ù. Same with ' which let's me type ç or " which lets me type ü... etc. I disable it when programming for the reason you cited. It can be annoying to deal with. Especially when my IDE tries to autocomplete " and I typed "" instead of " (followed by a space) and I get """".

I use a bastardized DE1 layout, as provided by linux.

So I have æ, but not å.

Actually, I’m gonna switch to DE3.

Still doesn’t solve these special characters.

I guessed the German QWERTZ properly at least...unfortunately I don't know a way of solving that without having an EN keyboard, using a keybind to swap between T1/EN as needed. Though depending how much German shows up in your programming... swapping every few characters probably isn't desirable either. :(

I write literally no German in code, but sometimes use it online.

And I seriously couldn’t work without the international layout - using proper Unicode characters in my comments is just non-negotiable.

If developers would have thought more about localization, and made less dumb assumptions...

But there are even minecraft mods that don’t work on QWERTZ, because they are hardcoded to keys that are dead keys on DE layout.

I press alt+shift and can switch between EN-International (which allows easy typing of é, è, ç, etc.) and EN-US (which doesn't easily allow them to be typed).

Therefore in EN I can {code} and then alt+shift and {comment with proper Unicode characters}. My suggestion would be to have a setup of T1/EN. Code in EN and comment in T1.

Sorry if I'm not being clear or if I'm being confusing...

>If developers would have thought more about localization, and made less dumb assumptions...

I18N can be time-consuming. Especially to test on every conceivable keyboard layout. Dumb assumption allows the mod to exist. I'm all in favor of I18N (and help translate things when I can!) but honestly it is a lot more work for what is often very little gains.

Would you rather spend 10 hours adding I18N for 100~ players or spend 10 hours improving the rest of the code base and adding new features for 10,000 players? Most devs choose the latter. Which really sucks if you're in the group of 100~ players.

Well, I actually modded the mod myself – and just made it use Minecrafts' integrated keybind tool.

And switch EN and T1 is not very useful. I’d have to relearn blind typing completely again.

cant you use `+space to type one? it always worked for me with all keymaps... was awkward the first few times, but by now its become really easy.

Yes – but that’s still [Shift]+['] and then [Space]

If typing is the bottleneck in your development you're not solving difficult problems and could probably make more money solving difficult problems at a different job.

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