News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Ask HN: More “experimental” UIs for editing/writing code? by bgoated01 on Sunday August 07, 2022 @08:46AM (#32376067)
I wouldn't necessarily say it reduces cognitive load, but I can get things done more quickly.

- I can delete a whole line/function/paragraph with one command from anywhere in the viewport.

- I can bring a variable name from anywhere in the viewport to anywhere else with one command, and if the name is hard to type quickly or doesn't autocomplete well (perhaps because it is similar to other names in the file) that is a large boost in speed.

- I can add whitespace around function arguments, or empty lines above/below any given line without having to move my cursor there first.

- etc.

Re:Ask HN: More “experimental” UIs for editing/writing code? by comfypotato on Sunday August 07, 2022 @12:59PM (#32377877)
Cool. I mostly wanted confirmation that it’s better and not just a good substitute for disabled folks, RSI, etc.

I’ll check it out. Does it mesh well with other VSCode functionality? I’m just wondering if you can use it in tandem with a normal keyboard.

Re:Ask HN: More “experimental” UIs for editing/writing code? by bgoated01 on Sunday August 07, 2022 @01:25PM (#32378053)
Not being a VSCode user myself outside of this context I may not have the best experience to answer the first question, but I don't think it tends to conflict with much except perhaps vim keybindings.

As far as using it in tandem with a keyboard, the main issues you might run into are timing. If you happen to be moving the cursor or typing while a voice command is running it could cause issues. You would probably end up having to take a second to pause and wait for the command to finish before starting to use your keyboard. Other than that, you should be able to use the VSCode instance like normal at any point.

Re:Ask HN: More “experimental” UIs for editing/writing code? by comfypotato on Sunday August 07, 2022 @03:24PM (#32379043)
This is great. Thanks. It looks like this really shines for moving the cursor around: every important location in the code has a unique name. I wonder if I could port that functionality to emacs. It would take the place of avy (ace jump).
Re:Ask HN: More “experimental” UIs for editing/writing code? by pokeyrule on Wednesday August 10, 2022 @09:18AM (#32411419)
Check out the #cursorless-everywhere channel in the Talon voice slack workspace; people are already working on an emacs port

I'll also add that the cursor movement functionality, while quite useful as you get started, becomes less and less relevant as you get comfortable with the more advanced Cursorless commands for syntax tree manipulation