...replying to mail isn't practicing your typing. You have to set aside some time once in a while and do focused practice in order to get better at something.

...replying to mail isn't practicing your typing. You have to set aside some time once in a while and do focused practice in order to get better at something. An odd example, since I'm pretty sure we've all got a lot better at typing without really trying. I just did a test to find out, and it turns out that in the last fifteen years that I've spent not learning to type, I've gone from about 35 wpm to 81. Fifteen years ago, 81 wpm would have been a pretty impressive typing speed, but nowadays I guess it's pretty normal, since the whole world has got better at typing. It doesn't seem so long ago that people were still putting their typing speed on their resumes, but nowadays high-speed typing is taken for granted -- it's gone from being a skill to being a reflex, for most people. I'm not sure about programming, though. I'm sure it's possible to get better without really trying, but really trying will get you there faster. I guess the real difference is that typing is an "easy" skill where you can reach the maximum reasonable level of competence quite easily (who really needs more than 60 wpm?), whereas programming is a "hard" skill where there's far more to learn than you can possibly fit into one lifetime.