alt Hacker NewsProgramming efficiency isn’t about typing/editing fast - it’s about great decision-making. Although I have seen the combo of both working out very well.
If you focus on fast typing/editing skills to level up, but still have bad decision-making skills, you'll just end up burying yourself (and possibly your team) faster and more decisively. (I have seen that, too.)
Replies
The person you replied to stated:
> how productive power users in different [fields] can be with their tools
There are a lot more tools in programming than your text editor. Linters, debuggers, AI assistants, version control, continuous integration, etc.
I personally know I'm terrible at using debuggers. Is this a shortcoming of mine? Probably. But I also feel debuggers could be a lot, lot better than they are right now.
I think for a lot of us reflecting at our workflow and seeing things we do that could be done more efficiently with better (usage of) tooling could pay off.
I interpreted the original comment totally differently - I thought they were saying that the programmers [who created these tools] should pay more attention to how productive [or not] power users can be with the tools [that they created]. And use that as an important metric for software quality. Which I definitely agree with.