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The Rise of Whatever

(eev.ee)
627 points cratermoon | 2 comments | 04 Jul 25 04:48 UTC | HN request time: 0.019s | source
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chrismorgan ◴[04 Jul 25 07:23 UTC] No.44462001[source]▶
> Like, just to calibrate here: you know how some code editors will automatically fill in a right bracket or quote when you type a left one? You type " and the result is "|"? Yeah, that drives me up the wall. It saves no time whatsoever, and it’s wrong often enough that I waste time having to correct for it.

I have not yet figured out why anyone would choose this behaviour in a text editor. You have to press something to exit the delimited region anyway, whether that be an arrow key or the closing delimiter, so just… why did the first person even invent the idea, which just complicates things and also makes it harder to model the editor’s behaviour mentally? Were they a hunt-and-peck typist or something?

In theory, it helps keep your source valid syntax more of the time, which may help with syntax highlighting (especially of strings) and LSP/similar tooling. But it’s only more of the time: your source will still be invalid frequently, including when it gets things wrong and you have to relocate a delimiter. In practice, I don’t think it’s useful on that ground.

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tehnub ◴[04 Jul 25 07:52 UTC] No.44462206[source]▶
Pair programming with coworkers over the years, many seem to have trouble with the keyboard, to the point where pressing right parenthesis is a significant burden and they don’t use right or down arrow to get out of the span but actually move their hand to their mouse and click out.
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1. Cthulhu_ ◴[04 Jul 25 08:11 UTC] No.44462327[source]▶
I've said it in another comment (might be here or Reddit, I don't even know anymore) and it feels like basic skills are just overlooked or taken for granted these days - computer use, mouse / keyboard / typing skills, reading comprehension, writing ability, communication skills, etc.

I'm nowhere near a hiring position but if I was I'd add assessing that to the application procedure.

It feels like this is part of a set of growing issues, with millennials being the only generation in between gen X / boomers and gen Z that have computer skills and can do things like manage files or read a whole paragraph of text without a computer generated voice + RSVP [0] + Subway Surfers gameplay in the background.

But it was also millennials that identified their own quickly diminishing attention spans, during the rise of Twitter, Youtube, Netflix and the like [1].

I want to believe all of this is giving me some job security at least.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_serial_visual_presentati...

[1] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/nadd/ (originally published 2003, updated over time to reference newer trends)

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2. nyarlathotep_ ◴[05 Jul 25 00:18 UTC] No.44469100[source]▶
> read a whole paragraph of text without a computer generated voice + RSVP [0] + Subway Surfers gameplay in the background

Quite literally laughed out loud at this. I still cannot believe this is a thing people actually do; I thought it was a joke "genre" at first.