3 ms·

I predicted (incorrectly) that this would just say "Change keyboard layouts". I actually made myself do that ~5 years ago (to colemak). Ultimately I am not sur

I predicted (incorrectly) that this would just say "Change keyboard layouts". I actually made myself do that ~5 years ago (to colemak). Ultimately I am not sure if it was worth the effort, but I can tell you that I type at least 40% faster (tested), and typing < 100wpm is a 'bad day'. Ultimately does it matter? Maybe on slack, but not while I'm coding. To me, learning my editor well (Vim) is where I got my 40% from while coding.

golergka 6y ago
> Ultimately does it matter? For coding, no. If your typing speed is your bottleneck, you're doing something wrong — either don't use your abstractions the right way and write too much code, or don't know your editor macro engine well enough. Probably both. But for writing prose? Yes. Being able to type faster gives you more freedom to test more ideas, get more rough material and then edit it out.
- hinkley 6y ago
  I think it goes well beyond 'writing too much code'. If you're coding at >40wpm sustained, you're basically vomiting out code without a care in the world. I could see people getting into trouble if they can't manage 30 wpm typing speed, which seems to disagree with what I just said, but coding often comes in little microbursts, and if it takes you too long to get an idea down, you might get distracted by something else and forget what the next step is. I believe there's a law of diminishing returns there, where going from 7 seconds to 6 has a bigger payoff than going from 4 to 3.
- ryzenecc10 6y ago
  Dragon speech recognition (Professional Individual v15) works way faster and far more accurately than I ever thought it would. Keyboard typing actually involves more backspacing over mistakes than Dragon does. Dragon makes 120-200+ wpm effortless whereas 100+ wpm on keyboard requires concentration and is fatiguing. Dragon alas only runs on Windows but it works great inside a VirtualBox VM on Linux and Mac. (The VM setup is a major time commitment though.)
  - golergka 6y ago
    That sounds very promising, thanks! I'll definitely check it out. Does it work as well for non-native speakers though?

golergka 6y ago

> Ultimately does it matter? For coding, no. If your typing speed is your bottleneck, you're doing something wrong — either don't use your abstractions the right way and write too much code, or don't know your editor macro engine well enough. Probably both. But for writing prose? Yes. Being able to type faster gives you more freedom to test more ideas, get more rough material and then edit it out.

hinkley 6y ago
I think it goes well beyond 'writing too much code'. If you're coding at >40wpm sustained, you're basically vomiting out code without a care in the world. I could see people getting into trouble if they can't manage 30 wpm typing speed, which seems to disagree with what I just said, but coding often comes in little microbursts, and if it takes you too long to get an idea down, you might get distracted by something else and forget what the next step is. I believe there's a law of diminishing returns there, where going from 7 seconds to 6 has a bigger payoff than going from 4 to 3.
ryzenecc10 6y ago
Dragon speech recognition (Professional Individual v15) works way faster and far more accurately than I ever thought it would. Keyboard typing actually involves more backspacing over mistakes than Dragon does. Dragon makes 120-200+ wpm effortless whereas 100+ wpm on keyboard requires concentration and is fatiguing. Dragon alas only runs on Windows but it works great inside a VirtualBox VM on Linux and Mac. (The VM setup is a major time commitment though.)
- golergka 6y ago
  That sounds very promising, thanks! I'll definitely check it out. Does it work as well for non-native speakers though?