
Typing with pleasure - hhariri
https://pavelfatin.com/typing-with-pleasure/
======
chubot
Great to see this quantified! My pet peeve is laggy interfaces. I'm not
surprised to see Atom on there, because browsers do seem to have a big problem
with this. Ubuntu seems to have a big problem with this too, e.g. in the
native "gedit".

Back in the Ubuntu 4.0 days (2006 or so), the default terminal was really
slow. I didn't really know how to use Linux then, so I would SSH into with
Putty on Windows, and use the terminal/Vim that way. This was actually more
responsive than a local terminal!

Does anyne else feel a sense of raw power when they switch to a native
terminal (Ctrl-Alt-F1) ... ?

~~~
hueving
Try out mosh. Local buffers really make a difference for that latency.

~~~
chubot
Well I was saying that using a shell or vim via Putty/SSH from Windows (and a
fast corporate network connection) was actually MORE responsive than sitting
at that computer, and using GNOME terminal or whatever it was!

I've heard of mosh though -- it sounds cool.

------
Derbasti
This is a terrific writeup about the latencies of text editors. Now the next
step is to research the effects of latency on cognitive strain, typing
accuracy, and typing speed.

Without that, the latency numbers themselves don't mean much. Some 100 ms
latencies are readily noticeable (video game input), others are not
(pushbutton responses).

This paper
([http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00140137608931531](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00140137608931531))
seems to suggest that typing speed does decrease at higher delays, but
recovers after a short time. I can't access this journal though, so I don't
know what kinds of delays were tried, and I don't know how long the recovery
time actually is.

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rdancer
And here I am, working over SSH -- every stroke requires a round-trip. Over a
high-latency link, that's sometimes a few seconds between a batch of
characters appear :-)

~~~
geekone
Give Mosh [1] a shot! From the site: "Remote terminal application that allows
roaming, supports intermittent connectivity, and provides intelligent local
echo and line editing of user keystrokes."

Great for being on an intermittent and/or slow link.

[1] [https://mosh.mit.edu/](https://mosh.mit.edu/)

~~~
nickpsecurity
"and provides intelligent local echo and line editing of user keystrokes."

I've always pushed for this to be in the remote terminals by default as my
prototypes took almost no effort to implement. With plenty of benefit, too,
for anyone that values instant feedback! That was a throwaway, though. Thanks
for the link to a real app doing it. :)

------
falcolas
I really enjoyed that write up. The only piece I would love to see added would
be the addition of emacs and vim in a native console.

~~~
legulere
Yep, I once had just a native console open when installing linux freshly and
the lag was so low that I immediately felt how much better it was and that it
made me think about lag.

~~~
gabesullice
I use terminal based Vim exclusively and now I'm completely spoiled. Every
other interface seems ridiculously "laggy". I don't know if it's just a
psychological thing or something more like the SpeechJammer, but if I type at
a co-workers computer I will sometimes completely lock up and be unable to
type for a second or two.

~~~
netmask
I really don't think that is a psychological thing, i ben using emacs in the
terminal for years and only within Apples default Terminal application because
iTerm is really laggy on linux i prefer terminology that is really really fast

~~~
vegabook
+1 for terminology. Fast even on the cubieboard that I (also) run it under,
and somehow, in my opinion, it does font spacing really well even under
Ubuntu. Better than the standard terminal in both Unity and (especially) Gnome
where kerning can be weird even on mono font.

------
smrq
Terrific data (okay, so it confirms a preexisting bias on my part). I would
like to see the numbers for Visual Studio -- I've completely sworn it off at
my day job in favor of Sublime Text + command-line MSBuild, for typing latency
alone. I'm curious if my perception aligns with reality.

------
noir_lord
The improvement with intellij with zero latency on is insane on Linux, I never
noticed how slow it was until that point as I generally don't pay much
attention to that stuff unless it's horribly slow.

------
JohnHammersley
This is related to a problem we have to deal with all the time in LaTeX - the
delay between typing the source and seeing the typeset output, especially when
running as a SaaS at [https://www.overleaf.com](https://www.overleaf.com)

I think the quality of the output you're aiming for matters - we as authors
(and I speak based on my experiences both running Overleaf and in writing
research papers) seem to put up with more latency / compile delays if we feel
it's 'worth it' (however badly defined) for what we're looking to produce.

I personally find I do my most creative writing late at night, but my most
polished / error free during the day. Whilst I wish I could say I split my
work up accordingly, I've never found a way to do this effectively. Anyone
else have this / found a solution?

------
userbinator
_I used Classic theme in Windows because, as I pointed out earlier, Aero’s
compositing increases drawing latency and enforces V-Sync._

This is an interesting datapoint in the argument between those who prefer the
classic theme and those who use Aero, with proponents on both sides saying
"it's faster". Perhaps compositing has higher throughput, but non-composited
has lower latency. I personally use classic because it does feel more
responsive. That extra ~15ms is definitely perceptible.

Another thing I've noticed is that when input latency is high, such as using
SSH, I tend to keep typing ahead instead of waiting.

------
jeffreyrogers
This is a really cool writeup. It's probably worth noting that humans don't
notice latency under about 100ms and the table at the end shows all the
editors surveyed coming in under that number. That said, I've noticed severe
latency problems while trying out Atom, and almost never have problems with
Vim (unless I try to edit a massive file in it). But for me the latency
problems I notice usually aren't typing ones, but rather other interactions
with the editor such as opening new files or trying to move around text.

~~~
rdancer
You perceive sensory inputs within a 100ms window as occurring simultaneously.
That does not mean that you cannot notice the difference between a 10ms
latency and 50ms latency. Your may well perceive variations of latency, just
not on a conscious level as a delay. The author asserts that high subliminal
latency leads to higher discomfort and decreased productivity. I cannot find
any studies on this right now, but it should be pretty straightforward to
measure experimentally.

~~~
cJ0th
> Your may well perceive variations of latency, just not on a conscious level
> as a delay.

I agree. If you "want" to feel it consciously don't type text on a keyboard
but play a melody on a midi keyboard. A latency of 10 ms, let alone 100 ms,
feels horrible. For instance, a 1/16 note at 140 bpm has a duration of 107 ms!

I find it quite fascinating that recording midi in, say, cubase is possible at
a lower latency than editing a text file in Atom.

~~~
rdancer
I will always remember the smooth feel of an old SparcStation 20 I got in the
late '00s. It was engineered so that hardware interrupts wouldn't get in each
other's way. Regardless of the puny specs, the responsiveness was amazing,
compared to any then-new x86 machine, where the console would stutter every
time the OS felt like writing a large block to the hard drive.

------
Namrog84
I would have loved to see a few more heavy ide such as visual studio and xcode
and a few others. Though it was still quite great

------
derefr
Something very strange I've noticed: a bluetooth keyboard connected to my Mac
doesn't have any perceptible latency... but the same keyboard connected to my
iPad has extremely obvious latency (500ms or more.) Anyone know what the deal
with that is? Do iOS devices sacrifice Bluetooth latency for battery life
somehow?

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ninjakeyboard
What surprised me on the human side was how easy it was to learn another
layout. So it seems that re-association is not the same thing as actually
learning the keyboard the first time around. Watching the brain learn was a
fun process. Would recommend it!

~~~
FanaHOVA
Went through this switching from a European layout to a US one, it took me
around 4-5 days to be really comfortable with it, now it takes just a few
minutes to switch between the two mentally.

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melling
Anyone have thoughts on keyboard switch type?

[http://xahlee.info/kbd/keyboard_switch_mechanisms.html](http://xahlee.info/kbd/keyboard_switch_mechanisms.html)

Most keyboards (rubber dome, scissor) require the user to press a key to the
bottom (i.e. A hard stop). Mechanical keyboards (e.g. spring, MX Cherry)
register a keypress part way down. Cherry Blues, for example, have a
pronounced sound and tactile feedback. Do these features make people better
typist?

