Re:Ease of use (Score 1)

First off, comparing keyboards and mice in this fashion is a bit misleading, because there are probably some tasks you can perform faster with a mouse, and some you can perform faster with a keyboard. So testing for a single task (which doesn't even appear in your quote) isn't saying much.

More to the point, I can say from my experience as a developer both on Windows and on UNIX, that using CLIs is much faster than using GUIs when coding. IMHO, this has two main reasons:

• Since the keyboard is much more versatile, properly-written applications can take advantage of the many possible inputs. A perfect example is Vi, which utilizes most if not all of the keyboard's potential. In what other popular editor can you perform 'take the current code block, search for all the lines that contain the word XXX, and comment them out', in less than 20 keystrokes? This is power that just cannot be achieved with a mouse.
• Using a mouse/keyboard combination in which you have to constantly switch between the two is very counterproductive, in the sense that it keeps breaking your line of thought. If you let your mind concentrate on one task for a certain period of time, it will eventually 'get into it', and you will start performing that task faster, with less errors, and in a more concentrated manner. This phenomenon isn't limited to computing -- it is well known among musicians, athletes, etc., and it also applies to coding. If you use only the keyboard, your hands don't need to move much, and your mind can 'get into' the typing. If, however, you have to send your hand searching for the mouse every 10 seconds or so, this cuts off your line of thought, and you never really 'get into it'. (some call this the Zen of Coding).

And then there's RSI, which is much harder to avoid with mice than with keyboards. But that's only if you care about a pontential disability which can prevent you from using keyboards and mice for the rest of your life..