I agree with your overall sentiment, but I also have an observation: I have the DK2 -- and while I haven't had a chance to play with this yet, I have been playing a little bit of the Elite: Dangerous beta.
The revelation there, is that working headtracking makes working with a huge "display" feel very natural. You can only look at one (or a few) things at once anyway -- but with head-tracking you don't have to worry about lining up five 30" screens in order to keep track of everything -- having it all (sanely) mapped out in 3d actually works just as mundanely and boring and well as you'd expect.
And that in itself is kind of a revelation. Suddenly you have almost unlimited screen real estate, that is even more naturally and intuitively accessible than multiple desktops (and I'm generally a great fan of xmonad-style tiling, no-full window managers with easily accessible multiple workspaces).
Another "wow" factor for Elite was the fact that what seems like a kind of silly gimmick on a single screen -- that "holograms" pop up with info when you look at them -- actually works in VR.
The one thing they did botch in Elite in the previous beta, was font-size -- the DK2 leaves "half-hd" per eye -- and that's not really enough to read "fine print". They sort-of fixed it in the new Beta just out -- but now the UI for space docks is "too wide" -- the text is more readable, but the "holo" should've been placed "further away" from you, so you don't have to move your head from side to side to read a line of text. I've yet to try it plain 2d -- I suspect it works fine on a regular screen.
Anyway, the point is that even a completely boring an unimaginative use of VR for programming can actually be a minor revolution. Fully working gloves/hand tracking would be better -- maybe with just a "dummy" keyboard for touch input (I'm not convinced "drum on a tabletop, visual-tracking keyboard" is actually that usable for touch-typing -- at least not when your back-tick is at shift-two-places-right-of-zero and opening-curly-brace is at meta-7 etc -- as it is on a Norwegian layout).
Finally -- immediate feedback certainly is nice -- and this is where the "big screen" effect of VR can really help. You can be effortlessly aware of both your evolving 3d model, and the text-representation of your code -- without having to have two screens, or switch between virtual workspaces.
Thanks for this. I am really excited for the DK2 to arrive. I ordered it a bit late but it should ship soon. I did try one at PAX Prime, it was outstanding.
You make some good points and I'll have to investigate further once I get the headset. Currently using the SDK and it just isn't the same.
I agree with your overall sentiment, but I also have an observation: I have the DK2 -- and while I haven't had a chance to play with this yet, I have been playing a little bit of the Elite: Dangerous beta.
The revelation there, is that working headtracking makes working with a huge "display" feel very natural. You can only look at one (or a few) things at once anyway -- but with head-tracking you don't have to worry about lining up five 30" screens in order to keep track of everything -- having it all (sanely) mapped out in 3d actually works just as mundanely and boring and well as you'd expect.
And that in itself is kind of a revelation. Suddenly you have almost unlimited screen real estate, that is even more naturally and intuitively accessible than multiple desktops (and I'm generally a great fan of xmonad-style tiling, no-full window managers with easily accessible multiple workspaces).
Another "wow" factor for Elite was the fact that what seems like a kind of silly gimmick on a single screen -- that "holograms" pop up with info when you look at them -- actually works in VR.
The one thing they did botch in Elite in the previous beta, was font-size -- the DK2 leaves "half-hd" per eye -- and that's not really enough to read "fine print". They sort-of fixed it in the new Beta just out -- but now the UI for space docks is "too wide" -- the text is more readable, but the "holo" should've been placed "further away" from you, so you don't have to move your head from side to side to read a line of text. I've yet to try it plain 2d -- I suspect it works fine on a regular screen.
Anyway, the point is that even a completely boring an unimaginative use of VR for programming can actually be a minor revolution. Fully working gloves/hand tracking would be better -- maybe with just a "dummy" keyboard for touch input (I'm not convinced "drum on a tabletop, visual-tracking keyboard" is actually that usable for touch-typing -- at least not when your back-tick is at shift-two-places-right-of-zero and opening-curly-brace is at meta-7 etc -- as it is on a Norwegian layout).
Finally -- immediate feedback certainly is nice -- and this is where the "big screen" effect of VR can really help. You can be effortlessly aware of both your evolving 3d model, and the text-representation of your code -- without having to have two screens, or switch between virtual workspaces.