10 July 2016

Keybindings

Maybe ISO standardisation is a bit far, but as a programmer life is easier than as a musician. If I learn the flute but want to play the recorder I am forced to re-train my fingers in different movement patterns.

As a programmer, whether I’m coding in C++, C#, Java or JavaScript (and quite often in a combination of these) it’s inefficient to keep switching keybindings.

Find one standard set of keybinds that works for you and stick with it. This will mean you never need to ‘think’ about renaming a variable - you’ll just do it automatically.

For me, I’ve stick with Intellij keybindings for the last decade and it’s worked a treat.

Maybe it’s time for a github project to bring all the resources together to make it easy to keep to one set of bindings?

Eclipse:

Can do Visual Studio keybindings.
IntelliJ keybindings for Eclipse.

IntelliJ:

Supports Eclipse and Visual Studio keybindings amongst many others.

Visual Studio:

ReSharper allows you to use IntelliJ keybindings.
For Eclipse users there's a translation here.

Kaizen...

Now that we’ve got the right key bindings it’s important to get fluent with them:

IntelliJ Plugin to promote keyboard shortcuts
Eclipse Plugin to promote keyboard shortcuts
Is there a Visual Studio / Resharper plugin out there anyone? Maybe this will have to go on the wish list...

Other ways to get fluent with the keystrokes:

Hide the mouse.
Move the mouse to the other side of the keyboard (warning: as a side effect, this may make you a better lover...).

Final thoughts...

So, by all means become a polyglot, but as you move onto the next language, take your keybindings with you.
	Maybe ISO standardisation is a bit far, but as a programmer life is easier than as a musician. If I learn the flute but want to play the recorder I am forced to re-train my fingers in different movement patterns.