SPUG: Minimal Perl web site & notification requests

[Creede Lambard]

On Fri, Jun 17, 2005 at 10:22:55AM -0700, Tim Maher wrote:
> As a touch typist, it's a /lot/ faster for me to type
> I<italicized> in vim (which is POD markup), than to type
> "italicized" in Word, then grab the mouse, highlight the word,
> and click the [I] button to italicize it. Multiply that effort
> differential by a gajillion times or so, for a book of 400+ pages,
> and you'll understand why I chose not to write my manuscript in Word.
> 

Yes, but is it much faster than going into MS Word, typing some text,
hitting control-I, typing the text you want to italicize, hitting control-I
again to get out of "italics-mode," and then continuing on your way?

I'm not disputing your claim that you're more productive in vim than you
would be in Word, especially since you can tinker and massage vim (or emacs,
or my personal favorite joe, or any other text editor) to make it work the
way you want it to rather than the way someone else thinks it should. (And
even more especially since I happen to agree with you.) My point is that
many people don't realize that if you're a touch typist and you use a
WYSIWYG program, using the touch-typist features of the program makes you
much more productive. I used to be a professional word processor, making my
living with WordPerfect, and I learned early on that the less my fingers
left the home row, the more word processing I could get done, which would
mean the more I got paid, which would mean the more I would get sent out on
jobs. This is a powerful incentive to learn.

But then again I came to word processing through Wordstar, PC-Write, Xywrite
and WordPerfect 5.1, where a mouse was something that ran across your foot
if you were typing too late at night, and I didn't have someone teaching me
to use my computer who included the words, "Now move your mouse to . . . "
in their lesson plan.

--
Creede
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