2. They are fine for detail-oriented, fine-motor-control work. Coding is not one of those.

As someone who has written tens of thousands of lines of code with only a mouse, I would modify this statement to "Mice suck when you are primarily using a keyboard." Editing code is detail-oriented, fine-motor-control work, and in my experience a mouse is better than a touch screen for editing (with current interfaces), and worse for typing code in. I have not done any coding with a keyboard for many years, so I can't directly compare, but I think mouse, with my custom typing system, is easier for many situations. The problems come when you are using both mouse and keyboard.

My software is like an on-screen keyboard with context-sensitive prediction, more sensible orientation and layout, and lots of shortcuts overloaded on the buttons, operated by the other mouse buttons and the scroll-wheel. So, for example, moving a word/page at a time, selecting lines/files, unindenting, etc. are just done by scrolling in the right place, control-A is middle-clicking A, and so on (the program just sends the appropriate keystrokes to make things happen). Selecting and toolbars/menus are fast because you're already using the mouse, and copy and paste is just select and middle click on Linux.

RSI basically forced me to develop the system (I can't use a physical keyboard, and no existing software was or is good enough), and I have been using it for all my typing since 2003. I'm now working on making a commercial version aimed primarily at touch screens (gestures will replace different mouse buttons).

I'm not sure that there's much more to it than what I've already described. I think what it's got going for it is refinement driven by nine years of dogfooding day in day out, and that refinement isn't easy to describe as it's just many tiny little choices.

Navigate around and target code with the mouse, edit with keyboard -- it's super effective!

If a trackpoint was not available, I would prefer the following layout:

1) Keyboard with the number pad moved to the left and an integrated trackpad on the right side (centered slightly above home row).

OR (w/out integrated trackpad)

2) [For right handed folks] Keyboard with number pad on left and mouse on right.

The goal being to minimize the distance moving your fingers to the 'mouse zone' while still remaining on home row. The number pad on the right (for right handers) takes up too much space.

A more integrated experience necessarily means less compatibility with external tools. This can be a big turn off if you need those tools, but it can be a better experience if you don't, so its a trade off. We got a lot of integrated functionality with a Smalltalk IDE and no support for external tooling, they didn't even support the file system and instead went with an integrated image; the experience was completely different than and even diametrically opposed to Emacs. Modern IDEs like Eclipse and Visual Studio make more compromises between the two extremes.

I don't really disagree with your first two points. But mouse/menus has one important purpose: you don't have to remember a bazillion different key bindings to get work done. Ya, developers actually prefer that. Also, there should be some focus on the debugging experience, not just the editing experience, because we spend a lot of time there also.

On mice/menus, this is a place where emacs got things better than ANY other piece of software ever written: don't make me leave the editing environment. There is no reason navigating hierarchical information and commands needs to be done in menus. In emacs, I can navigate using all the same tools I've already learned for navigating my code, I can search for both command names and command context and execute the command in that context. Especially for something like Light Table, with it's mini-window-things, there is little need for menus. [a note: I'm discussing menus as a UI element, not the abstract notion of hierarchically structured commands implemented another way. Menus are ugly, out of context, and annoying to use. A good information architecture for commands is good.]

A focus on debugging would be good. A tool that could make debugging more efficient would be very valuable.

Now, whether developers would prefer a more integrated experience is either unknown or known to be false (wrt current technology). One of the reasons my version of the Scala IDE failed was that I was focusing too much on the editing experience whereas the community really wanted integration with every little dinky Java tool you could imagine.

Emacs is not perfect (far from it!). There are many places where some graphics would go a long way towards improving the UI. Re-implementing emacs would be a bad idea, but learning what works (eg everything is a buffer, everything is easily [for a prorammer] extensible) will go a long way towards making an improved replacement.

My rant on menus is not about "it should be in the shell". I'm fine with the context being different. I just want my interactions to be the same. If I am searching for some code or searching for some editor command, the context is different but the interaction is the same. Every other piece of software makes the interaction different.

I point at emacs, but vi is another good example (just with a different implementation). And I don't want to disparage what the VisualAge folks did (I never saw the smalltalk stuff, but even the much-less-mature java stuff was amazing). But it didn't stick. Why is that? Once they answer that (I've given my opinion, but I could very easily be wrong), they'll be able to change the software development.

The kickstarter made it sound like Light Table would revolutionize programming. I'm all for that, but what I've seen so far doesn't do this. Instead, it makes a really cool tool. There is nothing wrong with that (I use a lot of them), and if that's the case, I'll shut up. :)

I'm passionate about this because, in the end, emacs, vi, and every IDE I've used are far from ideal. I want to uninstall emacs and never look back.