
Ask HN: Has the Touch Bar improved your productivity as a developer? - jjallen
I&#x27;m getting a new MacBook soon, and don&#x27;t want to pay much extra for the Touch Bar, but would consider doing so if there were commands&#x2F;apps that improve developer productivity.<p>I use vim and a full-fledged JS IDE for development (not sure if it has special Touch Bar commands but will look).
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itamarst
A few more buttons or a little more screen space won't make you more
productive.

The way to be more productive is to work on figuring out underlying problems,
coming up with better solutions, using languages or frameworks that automate
away repetition (e.g. garbage collection vs. manual memory management).

The ROI on the Touch Bar is probably negative to miniscule. Better to spend
that money on a good book that will teach you some useful skills. More on
productivity here:
[https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/08/25/the-01x-programmer/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/08/25/the-01x-programmer/)

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mranon99
It has not increased productivity as a developer at all, if anything it has
slightly reduced it because sometimes I'm unsure if I managed to hit the ESC
key or not. The most frequent buttons I use on it are volume control and
screen-saver. Everything else is a wasted space. The one major issue I have
with it is that it provides no physical feedback as compared with physical
keys, perhaps if it had haptic feedback I would dislike it slightly less.

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jjallen
I can see how having to look at the esc key all the time could slow one down.
That said, I think I look at all of the other keys -- actually maybe not
volume up -- since it's so close to pwr

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nicolasd
For VIM: I am using CAPS Lock now as ESC key, because there is no physical ESC
Key with the touch bar anymore.

Generally: I configured my touch bar to match the old keyboard function keys
layout & they never change, no matter if I switch the program. I just don't
want to change my behaviour + can't deal with the fact that I can't quickly
change volume/brightness + hit play/pause/forward/backwards keys.

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seanwilson
> can't deal with the fact that I can't quickly change volume/brightness + hit
> play/pause/forward/backwards keys.

Do you find this a deal breaker? I use a MacBook and not being able to get a
new model without a touch bar is holding me back from upgrading.

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mranon99
This annoys me so much, at least provide the option to make certain buttons
globally accessible regardless of the applications context.

~~~
w4tson
There is a way to do this. It took me a bit of googling but it is possible. I
needed the function keys or IntelliJ would be rendered useless

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swah
A MBP with touch bar costs 1/3 of a new car in my country. We need the high
taxes to protect the national consumer electronics industry.

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mikaelf
I got a Macbook with the Touch Bar, mostly for the Touch ID. It's super
convenient!

