this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2024
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To an extent. Early 90's I could navigate WordPerfect in DOS faster than I've ever been able to work in MS Word, because it was all keyboard even before I learned proper home key 10 finger typing in high school. Technically my first word processor was Wordstar on one of those Osborne "portable" computers with the 5-inch screen when I was a young kid, but Wordperfect was what I did my first real 'word processing' on when I started using it for school projects. So I might just be older in that 'how do you do fellow kids' in this sort of discussion.
To this day, I still prefer mc (Midnight Commander, linux flavored recreation of Norton Commander that does have a Windows port (YMMV on the win port)) to navigate filesystems for non-automated file management.
I've been thoroughly conditioned for mouse use since the mid-late 90s (I call it my Warcraft-Quake era, we still used keyboard only for Doom 1/2 back in the early days), and I feel like it's a crutch when I'm trying to do productive work instead of gaming. When I spend a few days working using remote shells, I definitely notice a speed increase. Then a few days later I lose it all again when I'm back on that mouse cursor flow brain.
This is my main reason for not pining for the days before the mouse: it made gaming 100000x better. I remember when we first started playing quake, a lot of the guys swore by the keyboard only, until I regularly destroyed them with the mouse. . .and they all switched over.
I've also done a lot of graphic design, photo-editing, schematic design, etc. . . and can't imagine having to do that solely with the keyboard (but again, I'm often like "why isn't there a keyboard shortcut for this?").
Also, when it comes to productivity, I guess it depends on what you are doing because usually my big hurdle is not how quickly I can do actions (that is usually more important in video games, tbh), the big hurdle is sitting down and thinking about how to do it correctly.
I have a game controller and a mouse. I don't use my game controller to code. I don't use my keyboard to sculpt. The problem isn't that mice exist at all, its that they are overwhelmingly dominant to the point where most applications do not cater to anything else.
Now I see your original point in a new light. I just viewed it as a natural progression that the mouse would take over as the primary input because of it's useful and intuitiveness. So when you say you "hated" this, I interpreted as a hate for mice in general and the wishing for pre-mice days. Rather than just a move back towards the keyboard being the primary interface.
Has the keyboard and mouse versus controller argument finally died? I mean I use a controller for things like Elden Ring and keyboard and mouse for first person or tactics/strategy games.
We proved twenty years ago that keyboard and mouse was better for first person gaming and I was still hearing arguments that controllers were better five years ago.
Early ’90s*
You got it right the second time though, champ!