Ask Slashdot: How Important Is It For Programmers to Learn Touch Typing? 189
Once upon a time, long-time Slashdot reader tgibson learned how to type on a manual typewriter, back in an 8th grade classroom.
And to this day, they write, "my bias is to nod approvingly at touch typists and roll my eyes at those who need to stare at the keyboard while typing..." But how true is that for computer professionals today? After 15 years I left industry and became a post-secondary computer science educator. Occasionally I rant to my students about the importance of touch-typing as a skill to have as a software engineer.
But I've been out of the game for some time now. Those of you hiring or working with freshly-minted software engineers, what's your take?
One anonymous Slashdot reader responded: Oh, you mean the kid in the next cubicle that has said "Hey Siri" 297 times this morning? I'll let you know when he starts typing. A minor suggestion to office managers... please purchase a very quiet keyboard. Fellow cube-mates who are accomplished typists would consider that struggling audibly to be akin to nails on a blackboard...
Share your own thoughts in the comments.
How important is it for programmers to learn touch typing?
And to this day, they write, "my bias is to nod approvingly at touch typists and roll my eyes at those who need to stare at the keyboard while typing..." But how true is that for computer professionals today? After 15 years I left industry and became a post-secondary computer science educator. Occasionally I rant to my students about the importance of touch-typing as a skill to have as a software engineer.
But I've been out of the game for some time now. Those of you hiring or working with freshly-minted software engineers, what's your take?
One anonymous Slashdot reader responded: Oh, you mean the kid in the next cubicle that has said "Hey Siri" 297 times this morning? I'll let you know when he starts typing. A minor suggestion to office managers... please purchase a very quiet keyboard. Fellow cube-mates who are accomplished typists would consider that struggling audibly to be akin to nails on a blackboard...
Share your own thoughts in the comments.
How important is it for programmers to learn touch typing?
Learning your IDE is more effective ... (Score:3)
... and more important I would argue. Knowing all the functions and shortcuts can speed up your work significantly. Touch-typing comes on it's own eventually anyway.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Then you get to Vi(m) and want to tell them "I think your skills will be better used at Wal-Mart as the door greeter".
Re: Learning your IDE is more effective ... (Score:2)
What's wrong with Vim?
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He means that they have learned a few basic, simple Vim commands and then stopped learning. The result is that they can get the job done but it takes a lot more time. If you use a tool a lot continue learning how to use it better, the investment will repay you many times over.
Re:Learning your IDE is more effective ... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Learning your IDE is more effective ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Well I definitely disagree with the part about touch typing coming on its own. It's not a natural skill in any way that I can see. Then it gets into the strangeness about which keyboard I'm using in relation to the language settings (since I use two). My fingers "know" to switch layouts as soon as a special character comes up wrong?
However the bigger questions involve typing versus alternatives. For one of my languages I actually do most of my input via voice, which then has to be corrected. However I'm doing that deliberately to improve my pronunciation, so it certainly isn't part of the design plan. For correction there is an option to use a QWERTY keyboard, but I normally don't...
Yet within an IDE a lot of stuff is "typed" for you, and even formatted, so rapid selection from options becomes more important than touch typing? The AskSlashdot topic is "How important...?" and I still can't decide about the future. I think it used to be very important, but with AI support improving, maybe not so much next year?
Re:Learning your IDE is more effective ... (Score:4, Informative)
Well I definitely disagree with the part about touch typing coming on its own. It's not a natural skill in any way that I can see.
Exactly. You have to actively force yourself to use the correct fingers for the correct keys, and also use the left and right Shift/Ctrl keys in the correct circumstances, etc. Nothing of this comes natural. It's very rewarding, however, and I recommend everyone to learn it.
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>Nothing of this comes natural.
some does, actually, under the right circumstances.
wordstar (and I mean the original eight bit stuff, not the later extensions) was laid out rather logically and consistently with its diamonds and prefixes.
To the point that a couple of times, I instinctively used combinations that I hadn't consciously realized existed--and then sat back amazed as I realized what I'd done!
hawk, who used to type over 100wpm on a manual
There are many ways to touch type (Score:3)
I never took a class, I don't follow any particular pattern. Someone told me my fingers look like a spider crawling over the keyboard. But I don't watch my fingers, so far as I'm concerned, I do touch type.
And it does come with experience. The more you type, the more your fingers know where the keys are and you look less and less.
If you want to take a class to touch type, go ahead. But I would not call it necessary. Just type, and the more you do, the more you learn, like anything else.
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I wouldn't be surprised if the multiplicity of keyboards does contribute. I learned in keypunch days, on cards, and they all had the same keyboards. Probably the first 10 or 20 years after were on desktop machines with builtin keyboards and they were all the same, or PCs where I could supply my own keyboards. Then came the world of laptops. It seems like every one has a different feel and different layouts for functions keys, numeric keypad, and CTRL/SHIFT etc. Right now, I have several laptops, all fr
You don't need to but (Score:5, Insightful)
If you learn, your job become easier.
Everything you learn makes your job easier, it's all cheat codes you can learn.
Of course... (Score:4, Funny)
It's absolutely critical, further you have to do it in dvorak if you want any credibility.
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Then you need to switch to using a clicky mechanical keyboard with blank keys.
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Clicky mechanical keyboard with blank keys is a genuine godsend. It keeps people from messing with my desk :)
If you *can't* touch type, then you're using a few fingers rather than all ten and that *must* slow you up. If you. if you *know* you can touch type, then you can phrase your thoughts without having to worry about anything further.
All this said, I've know a bunch of Linux sysadmins who were excellent sysadmins but functionally very dyslexic when typing English on the same keyboard.
There is an element
Keycaps that can be removed, moved around (Score:2)
Then you need to switch to using a clicky mechanical keyboard with blank keys.
"Real" keyboards tend to have keycaps that can be removed, moved around.
Re:Of course... (Score:5, Interesting)
I was the only male in my high school typing class. Fast forward. I obtained an EE degree and worked for one of the largest computer companies in the world. That typing class was the most-valuable class I ever took. When I watch "hunt and peck" people at the keyboard, I cringe.
Re: (Score:2)
>I was the only male in my high school typing class.
gosh, that alone would have been enough reason to take it! :_)
mine was all male, for the simple reason that it was an all boys school.
It was also a mandatory class for freshmen.
Re:Of course... (Score:5, Funny)
I learned to type on a Dvorak keyboard, hoping it would help me speed up beyond my normal 95 WPM. Unfortunately, it didn't help. I can now type 95 WPM both with Dvorak and QWERTY, but what I found was that I just can't make my fingers move any faster, regardless of which layout I use.
However, knowing Dvorak has made for some pretty funny April Fools jokes! Secretly switch somebody's layout, then when they tell you their computer isn't working right, sit down and type something out. In one instance I had the whole office watching, while my poor victim was as confused as could be!
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but what I found was that I just can't make my fingers move any faster, regardless of which layout I use.
In that case, it is a matter of focusing on mechanics. One of the big ones is to not move your fingers so high off the keys. Another big one (which you probably already do, but could probably be more efficient if you focused on it) is to think ahead and move your fingers to the correct keys before they need to be typed. Focus on your mechanics and you'll go faster.
Another thing that sometimes works is to just relax your fingers and thought, and "try" to go faster and the neural network that is your brain
50/50 (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been hunting & pecking for decades and although I'm reasonably fast, I 100% agree that learning touch typing would have sped me up. It didn't keep me from getting where I was going but, as a touch typist I likely would have gotten there a bit sooner.
Plus, the faster you type the faster you can make mistaeks. So there's that bonus too.
Re:50/50 (Score:4, Informative)
mistaeks.
well played
Re: (Score:2)
Please, no applause, just throw money!
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Learn to not make mistakes the same way musicians do. Practise as slowly as you have to to not make mistakes. Then slowly speed up, while remaining intolerant of mistakes. Also as an exercise, one I heard about from my Mum when she was taught professionally, was playing music with a clear pulse, and typing in time with the music: either one correct key per beat, or zero. But not more, and no mistakes. But treat typing as a discipline akin to playing the piano or some other musical instrument.
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This would have been great advice 45 years ago. lol
As it is, I can do what I need and I work more slowly these days (by design) so typing speed isn't an issue for me at this point.
But for those getting started, it's good advice and I'd suggest following it. Start slow, get the movement-memory and accuracy down pat, and then and *only* then start to work on speed.
Keyboards not always built for typist (Score:2)
Re: 50/50 (Score:2)
Spellcheckers woth autocorrect os a great way to mess up thongs. Especially if you mix languages in your documents.
Not At All (Score:5, Insightful)
I was a senior software engineer (now a CS professor), and I never touch-typed, and it never held me back.
The work of the programmer/engineer is what, 95% mental work, 5% typing? (to be generous to the latter) That's without even getting into rapidly-changing input techniques, autocomplete in the IDE, etc.
Anecdote: When I got my first engineering job in the 90's, I vented my frustration to my father, "The guy in the next cubicle is like 100 times more productive than me" (comparing a day-1 out of college programmer to a senior codebase expert who was indeed one those x100 engineers). My father's response was, "Well, he must be a much faster typist than you are", and it was all I could do to not laugh or choke on such a ridiculous misunderstanding of the job. Consider the degree to which that's a relevant assessment.
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The work of the programmer/engineer is what, 95% mental work, 5% typing? (to be generous to the latter)
Only if you do zero commenting or documentation. I'd estimate 30% of my typing is code, the rest is documentation, comments, updating tickets, etc...
I learned to touch type in a writing and composition class in high school where we had to write something every day. Not anything major, but a story or report or poem. About halfway through the year I was touch typing.
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I'd estimate 30% of my typing is code, the rest is documentation, comments, updating tickets, etc...
Even if you only write code, there's a lot of overhead in it unless you use a write-only, syntactically dense language like some dialects of Perl. Being able to splat out verbose code quickly means you have more time to think about the next bit of code.
Re:Not At All (Score:5, Interesting)
While I agree that touch-typing isn't the primary skill of a competent, fast programmer -- it is still an amazing skill to have.
Although I've been touch-typing for almost half a century, it still fascinates me that the words appear on my screen simply as I think them. I don't even have to speak those thoughts -- my fingers automatically race around the keys and the words appear. It's almost like a direct interface between my mind and the computer.
Yes, I'm pretty fast -- about 140wpm which makes the whole experience even more fascinating since the words appear almost as fast as I think them.
Would I recommend that people learn touch-typing. Hell yes... I think people should learn *everything* they can, while they can. When you're young it's so much easier to learn than when you get old (like me). There are so many things I wish I'd learned when it would have been easier to do so -- foreign languages, playing a musical instrument, etc,etc.
However, here I am, a relic of the past. I can program in assembler for lots of 8-bit micros from the Signetics 2650 through the 8080, Z80, 6502, 6800 etc; BASIC, Pascal, C, Modula2, Java but now I'm faced with learning the intricacies of Python, Kotlin, Rust and crafting AI queries. It's getting harder every day because my brain seems to have simultaneously run out of RAM, CPU cycles and backup storage all at the same time :-)
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Touch typing long considered a rare skill ... (Score:2)
While I agree that touch-typing isn't the primary skill of a competent, fast programmer -- it is still an amazing skill to have.
During WW2, during the induction of recruits/conscripts, when filling out forms regarding skills they possess and jobs they've had. Sergeant or Chiefs would often enter the room and interrupt with the question/instruction "Who can type, raise your hand". Those who raised their hands were then ordered to discard their forms and follow the Sergeant/Chief. They skipped the processes of determining what their occupational special should be, raising their hands ended any such inquiry. They were instantly tagged
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Even though most programming is mental, there are situations where typing is crucial.
First is documentation - everyone has to write some eventually, and sometimes you need to do longer writeups.
Second is using the keyboard to navigate - if you use a vi-style editor, touch-typing makes it easier to enter in the commands to navigate through your file. Lots of vi commands are designed for easy touch-typing.
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That's a very good point!
You don't only see the words appearing as you type, but you also don't think about letters anymore. Your muscle memory knows all common words. I wonder how much mental capacity is freed by touch-typing instead of hunting for the right letters.
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The work of the programmer/engineer is what, 95% mental work, 5% typing?
50 years a programmer, never learned touch typing and have never had the need to. You are not typing letters but lines, speed is not necessary. As the quote says, I would say maybe 20%(?).
Plus in many cases you are doing copy/paste instead of typing everything out.
Re: (Score:3)
As a software engineer, I spend as much time writing text as code. Writing comments, responding to issues on github, writing documentation, writing emails. It all adds up. And learning to touch type is much easier than learning to program. So why wouldn't you put in the minor effort to make yourself more productive for the rest of your life?
Pressing buttons vs expressing thoughts (Score:5, Interesting)
Special characters suck (Score:3)
Special characters were never really designed for touch typing. Sure you might be able to reach them, but they are inherently low accuracy positions.
For writing notes and similar things sure, but not quite sure how I would consistently type a tilde or braces on my keyboard with touch typing. Even minus and equals are a bit tricky, but that is mostly a keyboard issue.
If you have a customized programming keyboard that works well with an IDE then heads-up, fingers on home row typing might make more sense.
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I guess it depends how good you are at touch typing. Personally, I type about 95 WPM, including numbers (top row) and symbols. I don't find symbols any more inaccurate or difficult to type, than letters.
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What's your secret? I type letters very fast, but numbers mostly manual, I just can't reach them reliably.
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While the 2 key cut paste keyboard may have been a running joke with the Stack overflow users I have found those cheap 3 button macro pads are great. Put C, X
Inefficient when programming (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
>The QWERTY and PC-based layout (especially for some non-EN
>layouts) are simply not suited for the prolonged use of the SHIFT-
>pinky and stretching the hand to the control characters on the
>numeric row,
Nor is EMACS, at least on a CKIE (control key in exile) keyboard.
I actually had to get medical treatment in grad school after days of heavy editing, requiring me to twist my wrist and fully extend my pinky to reach the key. He said that they could send me to physical therapy, but I could do just
My wife insisted she could not learn to touch type (Score:2)
Minimally (Score:2)
Whatever skills you need, you will almost certainly acquire by just doing it. No need to specifically learn to type. And learning traditional touch typing may even be worthless with the amount of punctuation involved, as it's specifically designed to improve typing speed of letters at the expense of punctuation, and most programmers are taking advantage of autocomplete to type a good portion of their letters.
I learned programming in 1972 (Score:2)
...and have had a very successful career as a software engineer.
I can't touch type. I tried to learn but just couldn't do it.
Being able to think deeply about complex designs is important, typing is not.
Re: (Score:2)
Being able to think deeply about complex designs is important, typing is not.
As a touch typist for 40 years, I mostly agree. It won't hurt to learn touch typing, but I wouldn't stress over it.
Re: (Score:2)
However slow typing has never held me back as programming is more thinking about the problem than typing the solution.
An anecdote from a while ago (Score:2)
We had a fancy development environment with syntax directed editor, etc. A couple of us old farts said, "Meh, just give me EMACS and a command line for the compiler." Now a lot depends on the accuracy of your typing, as well as your ability to pound out syntactically correct code. But those of us who were good typists and good 'codeslingers' well out-performed those using the fancy IDE tools.
I ended up in the pre-secretarial typing course in high school, when I couldn't schedule personal use typing. Tha
It takes 2 weeks (Score:2)
being able to touch type will drastically improve your productivity. It probably isn't impossible to use text to speech in a pinch especially if you have some kind of severe handicap but you are going to be held back by it to some extent no matter what. So unless you're bringing something to the table that makes up for that like over the top math chops then you're going to want to l
Are you an ableist? (Score:2)
There are numerous disabilities that can prevent someone from touch typing. For example, chronic joint pain and essential tremor (since birth) makes it impossible to know the position of my fingers without looking at my hands. There are times I have no idea what an entire limb is doing. So if you're judging someone based on their ability to touch type, you just might be an ableist.
"Touch typing" considered harmful (Score:2)
"Touch typing" can mean different things.
The typing schools teach that there are supposed to be diagonal columns of keys on the keyboard, and that you should use only one finger per column (... except for each index finger and each pinkie having two columns each).
But the typewriter keyboard was never designed with any columns in mind. The keys were mounted on mechanical levers and the layout was simply a consequence of getting the levers equally spaced.
If you'd force yourself to use the school method, your
Re: (Score:3)
Indeed -- "touch typing" does mean a wide range of things. Traditionally "touch typing" was a skill for people who were professional transcription typists -- they looked at some sort of raw copy and produced a finished typed product. People who did this were rated for their speed, and essentially perfect accuracy was required. And they could not look at their keyboard.
This is a job rarely performed by anyone anymore. There is no reason why a creative typist should not look at the keyboard for example. With
Sausage (Score:2)
As long as the sausage is good it doesn't matter how it's made.
There's a name for that? (Score:2)
I assumed that's just called 'typing on a keyboard'.
When you hone a skill to a good level of proficiency you usually develop muscle memory that offloads the conscious effort from your brain, like knowing where to place your fingers on a violin, balance on a bicycle without training wheels, determine the doneness of your steak without a thermometer.
From my experience it just something that develops on its own, you don't have to 'learn' anything. With that said, I've worked with a guy who would did typing spe
Touch Typing is a Huge Advantage to a Programmer (Score:2)
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Programming is not typing (Score:2)
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Sure, just like language fluency should be the least important aspect of reporting, and sewing up a patient should be the least important aspect of surgery. You want to get good at those things because they are still necessary, and because you spend as little time as possible on them while doing them well.
It's also funny to see a coworker's expression the first time they walk up, you turn your head and type another three lines while listening because it takes almost no attention to empty a mental buffer wi
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Agreed, but typing can get in the way of your programming, or slow you down, or interrupt your thought process. Learning to touch-type turns typing into a background activity, one that just happens instinctively. You just think, and the words appear, because your fingers know what to do to make them show up.
Not just programmers (Score:2)
I think it's important for anyone in our modern era to learn touch typing.
Phones work great and all, but if you're working in any business, and have to prep anything longer than a short paragraph, you're going to be using a keyboard.
I honestly think that touch typing should be a required class in schools for students. Even if they don't have a computer at home, they're going to have to use one at some point for their jobs.
Even for work at home folks, in every job I've had there we have to make sure agents h
Just need to be good at one thing (Score:2)
From a sysadmin and support view (Score:2)
I've had to use so many different layouts of keys (not even counting non-US keyboards), that touch typing wouldn't have helped me much. Especially while handling different brands and types of laptops all the time.
Even now that I only use laptops at home and replace them when hardware issues creep up, I still need to look at the keys because I'm a little used to the previous one with a slightly diffeerent size and the function keys are shift-swapped and home, end, insert, and delete are in that row instead o
Re: (Score:2)
Definitely
Touch typing is nice when on the same keyboard all the time, in an editor/ide, in user mode
But as a system admin with 4 or 5 different operating system and different keyboards(in a single day), using root/system privileges on CLI
I hunt & peck and read my commands, think about it a bit and then hit enter
Accuracy was more important than speed
Rarely made a mistake (once or twice in 3 decades)
now retired and touch type mostly until special characters need
In college I was about 40wpm typing
You don't need a class. (Score:2)
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Same, except for being 9 on a C=64 keyboard which was a bit non-standard.
I know some programmers who can do 120 wpm or more and that is impressive. I don't think you can get there without drilling and some people aren't built that way.
The speed helps when fleshing out a new class but that's about it. Prose, of course too.
Normally I can type faster than I can come up with good variable names or remember control flow syntax in whichever of a few dozen languages I have to use at any given hour.
Re: (Score:2)
My recommendation: ktouch (the KDE program)
My first trainer was a program that basically had page long typewriter exercises on the screen. It sucked. It learned a bit with it, but it was no fun.
ktouch with its small lessons is really good. You just have a sentence (or equally long asasasasasjkjkjkjkjkjk) on the screen and not a complete page. It mimics many computer tasks much better. I also liked how its lessons are designed.
If you are in the low wage bracket... (Score:2)
... then it may have some merit. Until "AI" takes you job. If you are actually rightfully called a software "engineer", not important at all. Writing software is not a fast thing once you leave very basic stuff behind.
H&P for the win (Score:2)
I've been typing for 45 years, and never correctly. And I think that's why I have no signs of carpal tunnel or other repetitive motion injury. I never locked on to a rigid way of being at the keyboard.
I'm sure it would be helpful ... (Score:2)
... but I wouldn't call it important.
Programming involves way more pausing and thinking then typing.
It may not be necessary but it sure is helpful. (Score:3)
I learned to touch type in high school--at a time where I had to fight the administration to allow me to take a class "for girls" to learn a "secretarial" skill. (Early 80's, but the teachers there were still stuck in the early 1960's, apparently.)
I find it incredibly useful to be able to express my thoughts and ideas without having to think about the keys or to look at where the keys are. Just sit my hands until my index fingers feel the little bumps, and away I go. And as a software developer it helps to be able to express complex code without thinking about where the keys are; in fact, I got rid of a keyboard because while I loved how it felt and how it looked, the back-tick button was moved down and to the left, and the escape key was placed to the left of the 1. And I found typing code escapes in Markdown and bitwise negation in C a pain in the ass; every time I'd think 'code' my finger would press the escape key where the backtick should have been.
Itâ(TM)s a tool (Score:2)
As someone who also learned touch typing (electric vs mechanical typewriters) in 7th grade, I have found it a valuable skill.
It allowed me to interact with the computer in an efficient manner -transferring my thoughts and ideas into code. It improved efficiency tremendously. And, it was a skill I have always valued learning.
My brother? He hunts and pecks. Heâ(TM)s also written two full length novels and screenplays (among a litany of other things). For him, heâ(TM)d type, look up from his keyb
Maybe not for entry level, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
But if you want to go beyond entry-level programming, to where you're writing docs and responding to email and such a lot more often, your typing speed will absolutely hold you back. If you can do 100WPM by hunting and pecking, great, but if not, you need to learn how to keep up.
Touch? (Score:2)
I am not a touch typist. I did learn, but had no use for it. By the same token though, I am not a "hunt and peck" typist. I know exactly where the keys are, I just don't rest my fingers on the "home keys".
I can't imagine how a true touch typist deals with a mouse. Taking your hand off the home keys, moving the mouse, then locating the home keys again ... if you've learned to type with one hand and "point" with the other it is much simpler. Of course keyboard shortcuts - where available - are better than poi
Re: (Score:2)
I think that's why some people like the nipple on Thinkpads. I can't really use it, though. But you have little problem with using the mouse. You usually see the mouse. No problem there. Then hands back to the keyboard. Did you notice the little nubs on F and K? You instantly know where to put your fingers because of them.
I just finished... (Score:3)
I am quite proficient with touch typing, so to fix the troubles caused by the OCR, I put the paper on one side of my desk, the PC monitor on the others side, and it took me about three days to get the program listing in good order. My boss was quite skeptical about the whole operation, but after that the source compiled correctly and the program passed the run test, he had to think again about...and yes, he belongs to the "hey Siri" generation.
Re: (Score:2)
and typing skill makes the job easier.
Since a typing course is only gonna cost an hour a day for a few weeks, it's well worth
it for a long lifetime of easy access to the written word.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog,
conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort
the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem,
pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects.
Robert A. Heinlein
Accuracy used to be more important (Score:2)
Useful (Score:2)
It was the most useful class I had in high school, and is the reason I prefer Vi over other editors (not to start an editor war ;-) ) - if I have to take my hands off the keyboard to use a mouse, it just slows me down.
Comments (Score:2)
It would be interesting to do a study of how well programmers comment their code and see how that is correlated with touch typing, or with typing speed in general. My assumption is that it's strongly correlated.
Though I have to say AI is changing things. Now you can write a good comment, and then hit tab to accept the suggested code, sometimes needing to make a few edits. It's crazy.
Very (Score:2)
"Dear Slashdot, how important is it to learn how to efficiently use the tool that I'm going to need every day for my entire career?"
The answer should be obvious. Yeah, you can get by without it, but even if prompting AI becomes the "programming" of the future you still gotta type your prompts. If for no other reason than your officemates will throttle you after listening to you giving voice commands all day.
I admit it, I'm an old fart. Here's a nickel, kid, go get yourself a better computer. But I learn
fast chaos (Score:3)
I am not a programmer, but work with/on computers all day, every day (sysadmin, documentation, projects, maintenance, setup, config, Email, etc, etc).
I never learned to touch-type. However, since I have been doing it for so incredibly long (perhaps 42 years), my fingers figured out their own method. I don't have to look at the keyboard to type. Although I sometimes have to look to position them (especially for certain rare symbols). It really is a sight to see me type- it seems a little chaotic, but it works and I think I am around 70WPM or so (sometimes faster, sometimes slower). Rarely do my hands cross the midline into the other hand's area, and I have had to use a split keyboard due to CTS for maybe 20 years now.
Typing was offered in high school at the time (it had not yet been on computers, since they were too new) but was an elective. And it was on electric typewriters. For the advanced diploma track, we had only a single elective, and that was going to be band every year for me. It would have been valuable had the class been mandatory and not an elective. But that was a different time.
Post-university I tried to learn to touch-type on my own (using typing software), but it was way too late. I couldn't "unlearn" what I had already self-learned.
No use to me. (Score:2)
Touch Typing and always learning (Score:2)
I don't really know how to touch type, but I'm good enough to get by. I stopped hunt 'n peck decades ago when I started getting tendonitis from overuse. The nice things is that I don't generally need to look at the keyboard (except for unusual characters), my hands don't move off the palm rest, and I can watch the screen rather than where my fingers are.
And, due to another commenter on this, I re-learned that ctrl-backspace deletes an entire word %^)
Maybe it's more like learning an instrument. If you get go
It's not a skill that would improve my productivit (Score:2)
y
Sorry, I spend most of my time thinking not typing.
Still I suppose for coders who are hammering out boilerplate it might be useful. AI will replace them.
Transitioning to touch typing (Score:2)
Before I learned to touch type, I had managed to get pretty fast (I would estimate maybe 20-40 wpm) using a primitive hunt and peck technique. I more or less knew where they keys were, so I could use both hands and multiple fingers to type, but I needed to switch from looking at the screen to looking at the keyboard in order to not make mistakes.
After learning to touch type (on an electric typewriter - not a word processor), I probably tripled my speed, but the biggest advantage was being able to stay in c
Rather than 'touch type or not', think efficiency (Score:3)
For those learning touch typing, especially self taught, take the attitude that there is far more than just typing without looking, and using particular fingers to press particular keys.
The overall aim is to type: quickly, accurately, with minimal effort, and with good ergonomics.
As for what you type, for many tasks, it is useful to have your eyesight free to look at other things.
(It is similar with, say, the piano where if you want to read chords, lyrics, or sheet music while playing,
then you need to be able to play without looking at your hands.)
Having your eyesight free for other things is one of the reasons to touch type, consider reading
something out of a textbook, and how much harder it is to type what you see if you have to keep
looking back and forth between your hands, the source text and/or the screen.
Then, thinking old school, professional typists had to be able to type accurately. One single character
wrong, and they can probably get away with tipex and retyping it, but that takes a comparative age
compared to not making the mistake in the first place and going a little slower. (I write this as someone
who was self-taught, and wish I'd drilled accuracy into my technique way earlier.) Especially if
coding, not making typos is important. So learning not to make them is important. And as a suggestion,
consider how a pianist learns to press the right keys in the right order without making a mistake.
Treat accuracy in typing as just as important as accuracy when playing a musical instrument.
The trick is to go as slowly as you have to, to ensure correctness, and then only speed up when
you can do things correctly. If you go faster than that, you rush, you make errors, and then you learn
to make more errors, and to be tolerant of errors. Tolerance of errors is how errors creep in.
But going back to what I said: efficiency, accuracy, speed, effortlessness, and ergonomics.
Those are your real priorities, and they are often well-served by learning touch typing properly.
If you use a keyboard, learn to touch type (Score:2)
Whether you learn to type in one of the approved ways, or any other way that allows you to type without looking at the keyboard, being able to do so is a critical skill for any kind of typing. The less time you spend thinking about how to type, and the less time you spend correcting edits, the more you can allow your thoughts to turn into text. I can do a certain amount of punctuation without looking (All the usuals... and of course including parentheses and brackets) and that's handy even while just script
It kinda happens anyway (Score:2)
It's not needed, it's useful.
You don't really need to train it and eventually you get to be able to type without looking. I didn't really tried to learn to do it, I just used the keyboard so much that I eventually got the gist of it.
isn't this like asking if writing is essential to (Score:2)
isn't this like asking if writing is important to be an author? no... not essential... you can dictate and use alternate input methods... but the odds of you being a decent author without the ability to write/touch type are low. If you can't do a relatively simple thing as touch typing by the time you get to a job where you're expected to write decent code - how much time behind a computer did you spend practicing and writing the effin code?
I mean, can you peck code out using just 2 fingers? Sure.... Wil
Not at all (Score:2)
But it would be stupid for you not to learn it. Programming is more than typing fast, but as a programmer you should know how learning something upfront can save you a lot of time later. I would have needed much more time for this post, if I wouldn't be touch-typing. So I have more time to get back to programming after writing Slashdot comments.
Why should we? AI will do all that typing for us! (Score:3)
.. we'll just have to write the prompt's for it. Oh, wait!
Seriously: I learned touch typing in my youth and it has definitely benefited my career as a software developer. I can concentrate on what I want to write, not on how to type it, and that's a big advantage.
Re: (Score:2)
...and you should probably know something about radio frequencies since the machine is spewing tons of them all over the place.
I suggest an aluminum foil codpiece...
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I so rarely need Calc in non-engineering programming but matrix algebra, yeah sometimes.
Yet there are libraries for the crunch so being familiar with the concepts and applications is more important than computation.
We should probably have CS-track math that focuses more on concepts and gets twice as much done than 1950's math classes.
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I'd rather they learn some math before typing. The vast majority of CS majors barely take HS equivalencies let alone Calc 1 or 2.
If they're working in AI, I'd like to see some advanced chemistry. There are whole QA teams trying to test their AI models, and I'm watching them get all excited and file bugs if they can get one to emit a recipe for street meth. I'm thinking to myself... That's nice, now try binary nerve gas...
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Have you ever heard of paragraphs?
Comments (Score:2)
So the way to capture a page worth of thoughts for programming is to write it up as comments and then fill in the blanks.
As to the rest , um, no, it usually takes me about an hour to write 3 paragraphs, very little of that is typing time, most is thinking and researching.