13 ms·

A tool that increased my typing speed

144 points by chipz 6y ago

beders 6y ago
The only shortcut I needed to be successful: "sout" extends to System.out.println ;)
- bemmu 6y ago
  For me it's seba = source env/bin/activate
samatman 6y ago
The legend of QWERTY being designed specifically to slow typists down will never die. It has that perfect "folk" quality, it should be true, the problem is simply that there isn't any evidence for it. What does stick out about QWERTY, is that you can type the word "typewriter" using only the top keys, a trick that made it easier for typewriter salesmen to memorize and demonstrate that little trick when selling their wares. And we do have evidence that this motivated the layout.
- garaetjjte 6y ago
  In fact, QWERTY was designed to prevent jamming of early typewriters, allowing to type faster. http://widespacer.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-hidden-secrets-of-qwerty.html http://widespacer.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-hidden-secrets-of...
  - taeric 6y ago
    This is a patato patahto thing. It would only jam if you went too fast, so the story goes. Get rid of the jamming, or force a max speed that is lower.
    - samatman 6y ago
      It's actually a critical distinction. If QWERTY was designed to be the worst possible layout, to make typing slow in order to prevent jams, then now, with n-key rollover, we're all stuck with the worst possible layout. If instead it was designed to be the most jam-free possible layout, with a secondary goal of being as fast as possible given that criterion, it's probably not that bad, and we'd live in a world where the fastest QWERTY typists aren't that much slower than the fastest typists, period. And, in fact, we see that, while the world record was at one time held by a Dvorak typist, the prize at present belongs to QWERTY: https://www.typing.com/blog/fastest-typists/ https://www.typing.com/blog/fastest-typists/
      - stevage 6y ago
        I wonder if anyone has ever set out to design the worst possible layout, and if so, what it would look like.
        jeffbee 6y ago
        Could be a fun game. For starters I'd move the most useless keys to the index finger home row positions, perhaps pipe and backtick. Then I'd invert the sense of shift, so you have to hold it to type anything lowercase. I'd take all the most common two-letter sequences and I'd move those letters under the weakest finger. So T H E O A R S and N replace the punctuation keys on the right side. This should make it a real hassle to type "the", especially considering that you'll be holding down shift, which should itself be somewhere hard to reach, such as where 6 usually goes.
        I_complete_me 6y ago
        Can't figure out whether you are a sadist or a masochist but I love how you ran with _that_ particular ball. Kudos to you.
        benhurmarcel 6y ago
        http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?worst_layout http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?worst_layout
  - cortesoft 6y ago
    Even that theory has been questioned: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fact-of-fiction-the-legend-of-the-qwerty-keyboard-49863249/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fact-of-fiction-... It seems likely the keyboard layout was the result of working with typists to develop the best layout.
    - garaetjjte 6y ago
      Linked paper [0] correctly states that QWERTY wasn't designed to slow typists down, but authors argue that it was not designed to avoid type-bar jams, but only vaguely suggest some letters were moved around due to Morse operation practice. They base that conclusion on analysis of radial distances of common digrams on typebar basket. But there's no justification why only angle criteria was considered, and they omitted that layout clearly minimizes adjacent typebar digrams, which is shown by [1] and [2]. They also without much evidence reject idea that TYPEWRITER ending up on same row was intentional design, but curiously enough [2] calculated odds of that occurring randomly as about 1 in 2500, so it might have been. [0] https://repository.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2433/139379/1/42_161.pdf https://repository.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2433... [1] http://widespacer.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-hidden-secrets-of-qwerty.html http://widespacer.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-hidden-secrets-of... [2] https://cyber.sci-hub.se/MTAuMTAxNi9qLnJlc3BvbC4yMDEzLjAzLjAwNw==/kay2013.pdf#view=FitH https://cyber.sci-hub.se/MTAuMTAxNi9qLnJlc3BvbC4yMDEzLjAzLjA...
- stevage 6y ago
  Well, there's two clear things about the layout of QWERTY: 1. TYPEWRITER on the top row. 2. DFGHJKL on the middle row, in perfect alphabetical order except for the two vowels that got moved to the top. (The French version has the M after the L). It looks very much like they started with alphabetical order, then moved a couple of things.
- gdx 6y ago
  Anecdotically, QWERTY also seems to be sort of arranged in alphabetical order but with certain keys moved here and there — for exemple, the middle row is: A .. D . F G H . J K L (dots indicating the missing letters.) Then it goes down for the M N from right to left, up for O P, then the top row is: Q R . T U And the bottom row is, from right to left: V . X . Z And then the rest.
- bclnr 6y ago
  A while ago I did a little analysis to compare ergonomics of existing keyboard layouts [1]. The criteria are obviously subjective, but the results clearly show that Qwerty comes out significantly inferior to all alternatives designed later. [1] https://github.com/bclnr/kb-layout-evaluation https://github.com/bclnr/kb-layout-evaluation
lukehutch 6y ago
I switched to the Dvorak keyboard layout 20 years ago (in the middle of a mission-critical project, no less), and not only doubled my typing speed, but significantly reduced arm/finger strain. Once you put in the 3-ish weeks to retrain your brain, and get back to at least your original typing speed, you'll never go back to QWERTY.
- Moru 6y ago
  3-ish weeks is what it takes to learn to touch-type in general, whatever layout. Put in the time and choose a layout to learn. Dworak is better if you are typing only english, there are other layouts for other languages. This is where it broke down for me, I can't learn several layouts depending on the language I want to type. And convincing some programs to use the dworak layout for hotkeys can be tricky too.
  - xtracto 6y ago
    I tried moving to Dvorak in the late 1990s and I stumbled in the multiple language problem. In addition to me typing in English and Spanish, the fact that I do programming was the nail in the coffin to really being efficient in something else than qwerty. It also didn't help that I already was 95wpm in QWERTY.
    - tartoran 6y ago
      If you alreay have a large repertoire of shortcuts it’s an extra pail to worry about when making the switch. I find that im using some shortcut that i can’t recite what they unless look down at the keyboard as they’ve embedded in the muscle memory.
  - rgoulter 6y ago
    Vim is a very keyboard-oriented program. Dvorak with vim isn't that bad. HJKL is in a row on QWERTY, but Dvorak at least has JK together, and H to the left of L. CUA keybindings like Ctrl X, Ctrl C, Ctrl P can be a pain with Dvorak. (I also don't think shortcuts like Ctrl+Insert, Shift+Insert are widely supported across OSs, nor USB HID's copy and paste keys). Other than that, it's just about remembering the shortcut by the letters, not by the position of the keys.
mtmail 6y ago
"You can 3x your typing speed if you set up shortcuts for most frequently used words to decrease the number of symbols you have to type. Here’s how it works on Mac OS or iOS." So a bit a predictive typing assistance and customizations. "Here are some ideas for reflection shortcuts that I use: “wam”—“Why am I feeling this way?” “wwl”—“What went well?” “wcb”—What could have gone better?" Like duckduckgo bangs I doubt I would be able to remember more than 10.
- MAGZine 6y ago
  like VIM commands, you can't expect yourself to read the manual and master them all on the first try. You add them as you find yourself frustrated with how inefficient an operation is. I suspect it's going to be something that you slowly add and improve overtime, and, likewise, prune as your vocabulary changes.
  - phailhaus 6y ago
    But unlike vim commands these can't be composed, so the number of shortcuts scales linearly with the number of words/phrases you want to express. I'm not sure how useful this would be for me.
- Moru 6y ago
  If you want to go another level, try a chorded keyboard and stenographic input methods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorded_keyboard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorded_keyboard
superdimwit 6y ago
This is fluff
red_hare 6y ago
The author's ultimate solution of "use OSX/iOS shortcuts for every word to speed up your typing" is pretty wild. I could imagine myself using this method when I think about the _tens of minutes_ of my life I've probably saved now by just making "@@" a shortcut for my email address. Unfortunately, like Dvorak, which the author also proposes, it has the "doesn't work on my friend's computer" problem. Although, maybe a little easier to untrain your fingers from than Dvorak...
- carabiner 6y ago
  How often are you using your friend's computer?
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  More annoying for me is that it has the "doesn't work in certain apps" problem. Firefox, for instance, blatantly ignores macOS's text replacement shortcuts.
  - vulcan01 6y ago
    Yea, this was annoying for me as well. I found Espanso (open-source), which seems to work on all the apps I've tried: https://espanso.org/ https://espanso.org/ Not affiliated, just a happy user.
- svachalek 6y ago
  I've heretofore used them for common terms in my work/hobby and they can be quite helpful. This is really next level though. I think I'm gonna try adding a few common everyday phrases on a weekly basis and see how it works out.
- stevage 6y ago
  >"doesn't work on my friend's computer" problem As I've gotten older, I find this situation almost never comes up. Occasionally in some workplaces you are temporarily using someone else's computer. In which case, you either fall back to QWERTY, or take the 60 seconds to add Dvorak to their machine.
MAGZine 6y ago
The problem for me is rarely typing speed, unless if I'm transcribing something. No, the bandwidth chokepoint is organizing thoughts, and those thoughts into sentences (or into code snippets). It is always nice to be able to express things as quickly as possible, but I'm not sure how much this might actually speed someone up (practically) past a certain threshold (say, 70wpm). The biggest thing that comes to mind might only be accuracy, which can boost output.
- thotsBgone 6y ago
  To me, typing speed is a convenience feature, not an efficiency feature (past like 30 wpm). I have recently twice experienced both low typing speeds (~30 wpm) and high typing speeds (~80 wpm) due to switching to colemak and to an ortholinear keyboard layout, and my productivity was the same on 30 wpm but man did it feel shitty. I ended up typing less comments on sites like HN and typing in less detail to people on Discord. The increased convenience of having a higher WPM makes you want to write/communicate more, in my experience.
  - asdff 6y ago
    There's definitely a comfort zone imo. If I go full speed my fingers feel it. It also doesn't help the higher I push my speed the more dumb typos pop up, like mispressing the space bar or not thinking and conflating its for it's or vice versa.
- gwd 6y ago
  > No, the bandwidth chokepoint is organizing thoughts, and those thoughts into sentences (or into code snippets). Right, but particularly when writing, what "organizing thoughts" often looks like is writing a burst of text (a phrase or several sentences) then possibly editing it / deleting it / whatever. Being able to quickly bash out the bursts I think makes the whole process faster, or at least less annoying. I switched from QWERTY to Colemak several years ago; I'm not sure I've gotten back up to my previous top typing speed, but it's certainly a lot more comfortable.
  - 6y ago
jamesfe 6y ago
The author proposes that we're somehow blocked from success because we can't type fast enough. Is that true? I don't agree; in fact, I'd rather be concise and communicate well than vomit more words onto the screen. Additionally, beyond Dvorak, is there a better way to increase typing speed than spending what must be hours and hours building a bespoke solution for each one of your machines? And what is the cost of the inevitable tsunami of errors you make in the learning process? Are these neural pathways more valuable than say, learning a new language or practicing a different skill?
- jowsie 6y ago
  There's always stenography http://www.openstenoproject.org/ http://www.openstenoproject.org/
  - taeric 6y ago
    I'm actually surprised not to see that mentioned on the page. Feels like merely a formal approach to what is otherwise an adhoc method.
  - melling 6y ago
    For programming, we should be trying to type less. Tools like TabNine should help: https://www.tabnine.com/ https://www.tabnine.com/
    - Silhouette 6y ago
      Interesting idea, but it's hard for me to reconcile the potential benefits with the pricing model in that specific case, particularly if the model it's using is only trained on open source and not evolving according to the user's own habits.
      - gempir 6y ago
        It keeps training on your own code when installed if you chose it to do so. Although this was not a great experience on my already slow two core macbook. The results were pretty amazing though.
boogies 6y ago
> That’s right. The very first “Type-Writer,” designed by Christopher Sholes 146 years ago, used the exact same QWERTY keyboard that‘s in front of you. Weird, I can’t seem to find the M key to the right of my L. (Not that the resemblance isn’t clear, but that’s not the only difference and they did say “exact same”).
- svachalek 6y ago
  No zero and one either, you typed L and O. This was common even in the 80s, the final days of typewriters.
dnautics 6y ago
Having used it for 20 years now... I don't find that dvorak improves my typing speed. If anything it probably net reduces my productivity since often I'm hitting paste (ctrl-v) and I miss and hit exit window (ctrl-x). However, I like it because it feels comfortable typing in it, way more so than qwerty.
- thatswrong0 6y ago
  That’s why I switched to Colemak instead of Dvorak - keeps zxcv in the same spot. But I agree with you completely - Colemak is way more comfortable to type in than QWERTY. Way fewer hand movements and less finger stretching for common bigrams. My non-scientifically based hope is that it’ll reduce RSI in the long run. No regrets after 10ish years
- svachalek 6y ago
  Ditto, this is always what I tell people when they ask about it. Not really faster but definitely easier on the hands. BTW on MacOS there is a Dvorak mode that uses QWERTY when the command key is down!
- stevage 6y ago
  I've been using Dvorak 20+ years as well. Definitely faster than I ever was with QWERTY, and more accurate. And more comfortable. With MacOS, I use the DV+QW layout where the layout is QWERTY if you're holding down Cmd. So Cmd+V etc work just like on a QWERTY keyboard. It's a pretty good compromise.
- pascoej 6y ago
  This has been my experience as well. Using a non-qwerty layout is an annoyance when I use somebody else's computer or somebody else uses mine. While I don't see myself moving back, I never recommend switching to others.
  - dnautics 6y ago
    I dunno, it was a pretty enlightening experience, learning how to struggle, learning how to be humble about sucking at something that for me till then was super basic (as an adult, so I could really savor the feeling -- I had learned to touch-type at age six). If you don't forget qwerty, it's not an annoyance to use someone else's keyboard. And having someone else be annoyed when they use my keyboard is a feature =). The only time it was mildly annoying was when I started dating someone and asked to use her laptop, and I suddenly found I couldn't type. It turned out that she had ALSO learned dvorak in college. When I realized what was going on it was all good.
flreln 6y ago
OP here: happy to answer any questions about my setup. Just to clarify - the core idea is not shortcuts but how you can use them to integrate changes in your life like reflecting on how you feel or how well you understand your learning material. More thoughts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24702678 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24702678.
- zestyping 6y ago
  This is by far the most interesting thing about the article, and I'm a little sad to see most of the comments here are about typewriters and keyboard layouts and not about exploring whether shortcuts can change the way you think.
surfsvammel 6y ago
Record yourself writing, or programming, or whatever it is you do at the keyboard. You will see that it is not the speed of your typing that is the bottleneck, it is the creative process. You are not a mindless machine hacking away at the keyboard. And, if you are, then the life hack take away is to stop and think a bit before typing. Going slower often has lots of benefits.
- karmakaze 6y ago
  So true. I made the difficult transition from QWERTY to an alternate layout, then another alternate layout after being dissatisfied. Ultimately I had to use typing practice sites because I simply didn't do enough typing in the course of working on the computer all day every day to relearn and retain. Still worth it, so much more comfortable now.
- jbjbjbjb 6y ago
  Everyone says slow typing is ok but I also see a lot of people get frustrated at input lag when typing into a slow IDE
  - llbeansandrice 6y ago
    I feel like this is distinctly different though. If you're drawing/sketching, does it matter the speed at which you can draw? Now think about how much of an issue input lag is. It's obviously not exactly the same but I think it isolates why your personal typing speed and input lag are different things.
  - tartoran 6y ago
    The larger the input lag the bigger the discomfort I have when typing and navigating a domcument. It’s doable but feels uncomfortable as we have to wait for the confirmation we hit the right keys. It helps not to look at the screen at all but if you find an error in the previous sentence it’s a pain to navigate back and fix it
- charles_f 6y ago
  That's true when doing creative work, but for other occasions, notably note taking, speed does matter.
ogre_codes 6y ago
I find it a bit ironic that an article about how to type 3 times faster is roughly 4 times longer than it needs to be to make its point.
- tartoran 6y ago
  I liked the saussage anecdote/analogy. My wifes family used to split sausages like that as well not knowing exactlty why they’re were doing it. Somebody started the practice and they got stuck with it. Likewise we’re stuck with QUERTY and is not a big deal really but it was an accident of history.
netvarun 6y ago
On a somewhat relevant note - there was an interesting post I saw sometime back on designing an optimal keyboard layout https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21425426 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21425426
- Aengeuad 6y ago
  There's also Carpalx which is a parametric model rather than AI but in general goes into a lot of information on keyboard layouts in general. http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/ http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/
shock 6y ago
If you're on Linux and want to do this look for ibus-typing-booster. I submitted it 6 days ago, but it didn't get much attention. Unlike the author's method of manually setting up shortcuts for the most used words, ibus-typing-booster learns your most frequent words and then it's just a matter of typing a few chars followed by space, which inserts the whole word.
- chipz 6y ago
  Thank you for this, i was looking for something similar in Linux
- tartoran 6y ago
  Im using notepad++ and it has this feature auto enabled by default but at a document level. I find that sometimes it helps but other times it really gets in my way. How does it work out for you with ibus-...-...?
  - shock 6y ago
    I haven't used it like the author describes, I've just been using for easy emoji autocompletion :)
- boogies 6y ago
  Nice! Another option is to create a ~/.XCompose¹, which only activates manually — you add your own custom abbreviations there, and they’re only expanded when you prefix them by tapping Compose². ¹https://wiki.debian.org/XCompose https://wiki.debian.org/XCompose ²You can make this quite convenient with xcape: setxkbmap -option compose:sclk && xcape -e "Shift_L=Multi_key" will make tapping (but not holding) left shift act as tapping Compose
  - boogies 6y ago
    Oh, and not that > ~⅖ people ±⅞ will read this but there’s also https://espanso.org/ https://espanso.org/ which supports inserting script results; and quite a few other ‘text expanders’ and other tools that will do similar things https://alternativeto.net/software/espanso/?license=opensource https://alternativeto.net/software/espanso/?license=opensour...
autocorr 6y ago
While the first part of the article is on alternative keyboard layouts like Dvorak, the second half of the article is actually a discussion of personalized shorthand "brief forms" (somewhat confusingly called "shortcuts" in the article). It would be really cool to have a seamless autocomplete system on Linux. As far as I know there isn't one. It would be handy in my opinion when typing domain specific jargon, perhaps using something like vim's leader key but OS-wide: for example, "`sf" would expand to "star formation".
galkk 6y ago
tl;dr author proposes to use shorthands for common words... The "feature" that is built-in into most IDEs and most programmers are using on daily basis, e.g. https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/using-live-templates.html https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/using-live-templates.htm... I really don't want to be that guy, but the typing with 3x speed certainly didn't helped the article to be concise and to the point.
mxcrossb 6y ago
My phone has predicted text on the top of the keyboard. I wonder if the secret is not a bunch of custom shortcuts, but a better mind-meld with the predicted text so that you the user hit the predicted value every time. You get the same speed and correctness benefits mentioned in the article. But I’ve never seen a touch typing program which let’s you use the predicted text.
- abecedarius 6y ago
  I suspect the key is to somehow make it really quick and easy to retroactively fix mispredictions and other mistakes. That'd open up the space for more aggressive guess-what-I-mean input methods.
tartoran 6y ago
What about confusions regarding shortcuts that depend on the context? HW for hardware in CS or homework? We do use unexpanded shortcuts and out brain knows how to interpret them from the context. Adding shortucts like these in an editor to expand into words would create a lot of unnecessary problems and solutions IMO. Everybody knows for example that im not talking about the internatinal math olympiad here or internatioal money order. Acronyms in this case are a good example how the context create ambiguities if we dont know the context
forgotmypw17 6y ago
i addded js dvorak as input option on my forum software to make it easier for anyone not on their computer
stevage 6y ago
I was with the author about typing and setting up shortcuts. Then they went on a wild crazy tangent into pop psychology, and, uh...no thank you.
xchip 6y ago
A tool plus your determination. When there is a will there is a way. The tools is just an anecdote.
userbinator 6y ago
My average typing speed is ~140-150WPM and I can go over 200 in short bursts. I've only used QWERTY. Thus I don't think Dvorak or any of the other layouts has that much of an advantage. However, I think the design of the keyboard's switches makes a huge difference; I can only reach those speeds on the keyboard I normally use, which is a pretty generic one with rubber domes, but where ~2mm of travel is enough to register a keypress, and the keyfeel is very light and bouncy. Before that I used a mechanical keyboard with (very) clicky Blue ALPS (https://deskthority.net/wiki/Alps_SKCM_Blue https://deskthority.net/wiki/Alps_SKCM_Blue ) switches, and struggled to reach 120WPM. Other keyboards I've tried timing typing speed on include a Thinkpad X60 (can barely exceed 100, but quickly tiring), Apple low-profile (80-90, very tiring), and the famous IBM Model M (75-80, impressively loud and extremely tiring.)
- sebmellen 6y ago
  Would you have a link to your keyboard? I'm looking for one just like that, after having used a mechanical keyboard much like the one you described for a while.
  - userbinator 6y ago
    Unfortunately, the only search result for the model number (KM-2601P)... is the HN post where I last mentioned it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12774137 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12774137 I don't know much about its history, other than the fact that it was a cheap "freebie" from a PC long ago that I continued to use because it felt great to type on. It was probably manufactured in the late 90s. The Internet is horribly forgetful and certainly not the treasure-trove of information it used to be: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16153840 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16153840
- joe_the_user 6y ago
  By "typing speed", do you mean copying an existing text? That's the usual measure. But in a world where most people compose their text on their own computers, how useful is it now? Or are you able to produce your writing/programming at that rate? If you can do that, you're in a remarkable category. My feeling is just moving your fingers to make word would be least impressive part of such a feat.
s5300 6y ago
One of the funnier things I can say about my life - growing up playing RuneScape (like, beginning of classic, starting at the age of 5) and arguably MapleStory led to having 120wpm+ QWERTY speeds with ease. I think during the few times I ever cared to really test myself I hit over 160. Also won my spelling bee every year eligible (4 years) and placed pretty well at states my final year. Never touched a study book or really even cared to compete - parents bribed me to enter. All from MMORPG's... Probably not something to be proud about haha. I really think a portion of kids that grew up playing RuneScape got a bit of head up over peers. I know it's led to me never having been scammed more than once and starting a successful business at a very young age. Shame what happened to the game, but I guess all good things must die.
agumonkey 6y ago
At my last job at some courtroom they used wordperfect 12. Clerks used the quick-word feature to define their own shortcuts.
Arcorann 6y ago
I thought this was familiar. Turns out it was posted here before but the article was on a different site. Here's the previous discussion (40 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24702678 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24702678
irjustin 6y ago
Why bring the whole Devorak part into the article? Also, I'm surprised the author didn't go pure stenograph then because that's way faster. WPM is only a good measure of WPM. The best coders don't need to type faster. The best writers still hand write things or type on DOS[0]. Once you hit a baseline competency, other areas of improvement/reward far outweigh the time devoted than to a better WPM. Wanting to type faster is fine, but do not mix it with being more effective aside from being a great typist. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5REM-3nWHg&feature=emb_title https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5REM-3nWHg&feature=emb_titl...
- emerged 6y ago
  If efficiency is the goal, it's better to spend time optimizing your ability to use advanced text editing features. Simultaneously modifying multiple lines at once, block based editing / copy+pasting, regexes, etc. I'd imagine the amount of time I'm actually typing is well under 1% of my time as an engineer.
- quickthrower2 6y ago
  There is a point around 200wpm (?) that I think would be very handy to be able to "type" this fast, using shorthand or whatever. This where you can keep up taking notes when talking to someone but also take in the subject matter. Being able to do that all at once and then have those notes to refer to would be very useful. A lot of time is wasted by not having a record of things. Maybe "AI" would be just as good as solving this problem though.
  - irjustin 6y ago
    That's stenography. If you truly need to type fast, there's better tools for the job.
kleer001 6y ago
WPM is not the bottleneck.
stelliosk 6y ago
In grade 9 a friend and me thought wouldn't it be a great idea to do the office administration class as a means to meet girls, so we did. Class was about 90% female and we learned to type not looking at the keyboard. Now, as a programmer that has been the class that benefitted me the most over the last 20 years.
- rlayton2 6y ago
  My Mum enrolled me in a typing course as a 13yo, and it was the most boring thing you could have done to a 13yo. Now, however, I'm a fast typist and that course was the bridge between previously hunting and pecking, to proper touch typing. I went, I believe, only from 15wpm to about 25ish wpm, but the technique was planted and I've increased from there.
  - Insanity 6y ago
    I had to enroll in a typing course when I was 13 as well - mandatory by the school. Problem was that I started using a computer around age 8 and really learned touch type around age 11. My finger placement is wrong, I don't type in the "correct way". But the typing course was graded on reaching X WPM with no errors, which I could easily surpass. The teacher allowed me to pass with that. Now I still don't place my fingers correctly and I can type about 152WPM with 100% accuracy (just tested on https://monkey-type.com/ https://monkey-type.com/).
student2k 6y ago
Is there any app to create the shortcuts automatically? Like you type all day, at the end of the day, the app see you wrote 5 times 'thank you' and it suggest you to use ty as shortcut,,,
anthk 6y ago
Well, yesterday I edited a Makefile under TMUX by using ed, so typing speed isn't an issue there, ed commands save much more time than typing fast. Ditto in the computer. As my environment is tmux+framebuffer based, I don't care on breaking typing speed records in gtypist, I type in normal speeds, as everything else is scripted I don't care of not being fast enough.
corytheboyd 6y ago
It makes me happy how many other people here are also slow typists and don’t care. If you’re a programmer and consider a high WPM essential to your craft... you might be doing something wrong lol
- aspaviento 6y ago
  Try pair programming with someone who's faster than you and you'll realize how much you are missing for typing slowly. It's like being a carpenter with a fretsaw or a jigsaw, you can do the same work, but you won't finish at the same time.
praptak 6y ago
QWERTY having been designed to slow down typists is a myth: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/the-lies-youve-been-told-about-the-origin-of-the-qwerty-keyboard/275537/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/the-l... https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fact-of-fiction-the-legend-of-the-qwerty-keyboard-49863249/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fact-of-fiction-...
reportgunner 6y ago
Yes this will save you all the time you will later spend on making your shortcut work when it breaks or every time you get a new device. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
kevinh456 6y ago
The best tool I ever got for typing was a keyboard with no letters on the key caps.
- Kaibeezy 6y ago
  I recently bought a "ninja" keyboard, where the labels are on the front of the keys, not the top. Looks "badass" according to a nearby 15-year-old. While technically the keys are labeled, in practice looking at them is useless, especially in anything less than bright room lighting, so they are, for me, effectively blank. As a reasonably fast touch typist for many years, I found that for prose it was basically no change. But. There were enough things that were a total drag that I couldn't keep using it. There are times when the key you need to hit isn't part of a flow, and you have to hit it perfectly: passwords, Illustrator/Photoshop commands, punctuation-heavy inputs like URLs, postal addresses, etc. I'm not a programmer, and others will have other things they do. So, I bought normal keycaps and replaced them on just the letter and number keys. Much better.
  - kevinh456 6y ago
    I have a logitech mini keyboard on standby in those cases.
Jonify 6y ago
So, basically he describes the software "PhraseExpress" for Mac and PC.
john4532452 6y ago
I still dont understand how is this different from autocompletion ? What did the author mean by "shortcuts" ?

144 points by chipz 6y ago

beders 6y ago

The only shortcut I needed to be successful: "sout" extends to System.out.println ;)

bemmu 6y ago
For me it's seba = source env/bin/activate

samatman 6y ago

The legend of QWERTY being designed specifically to slow typists down will never die. It has that perfect "folk" quality, it should be true, the problem is simply that there isn't any evidence for it. What does stick out about QWERTY, is that you can type the word "typewriter" using only the top keys, a trick that made it easier for typewriter salesmen to memorize and demonstrate that little trick when selling their wares. And we do have evidence that this motivated the layout.

garaetjjte 6y ago
In fact, QWERTY was designed to prevent jamming of early typewriters, allowing to type faster. http://widespacer.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-hidden-secrets-of-qwerty.html http://widespacer.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-hidden-secrets-of...
- taeric 6y ago
  This is a patato patahto thing. It would only jam if you went too fast, so the story goes. Get rid of the jamming, or force a max speed that is lower.
  - samatman 6y ago
    It's actually a critical distinction. If QWERTY was designed to be the worst possible layout, to make typing slow in order to prevent jams, then now, with n-key rollover, we're all stuck with the worst possible layout. If instead it was designed to be the most jam-free possible layout, with a secondary goal of being as fast as possible given that criterion, it's probably not that bad, and we'd live in a world where the fastest QWERTY typists aren't that much slower than the fastest typists, period. And, in fact, we see that, while the world record was at one time held by a Dvorak typist, the prize at present belongs to QWERTY: https://www.typing.com/blog/fastest-typists/ https://www.typing.com/blog/fastest-typists/
    - stevage 6y ago
      I wonder if anyone has ever set out to design the worst possible layout, and if so, what it would look like.
      - jeffbee 6y ago
        Could be a fun game. For starters I'd move the most useless keys to the index finger home row positions, perhaps pipe and backtick. Then I'd invert the sense of shift, so you have to hold it to type anything lowercase. I'd take all the most common two-letter sequences and I'd move those letters under the weakest finger. So T H E O A R S and N replace the punctuation keys on the right side. This should make it a real hassle to type "the", especially considering that you'll be holding down shift, which should itself be somewhere hard to reach, such as where 6 usually goes.
        I_complete_me 6y ago
        Can't figure out whether you are a sadist or a masochist but I love how you ran with _that_ particular ball. Kudos to you.
      - benhurmarcel 6y ago
        http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?worst_layout http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?worst_layout
- cortesoft 6y ago
  Even that theory has been questioned: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fact-of-fiction-the-legend-of-the-qwerty-keyboard-49863249/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fact-of-fiction-... It seems likely the keyboard layout was the result of working with typists to develop the best layout.
  - garaetjjte 6y ago
    Linked paper [0] correctly states that QWERTY wasn't designed to slow typists down, but authors argue that it was not designed to avoid type-bar jams, but only vaguely suggest some letters were moved around due to Morse operation practice. They base that conclusion on analysis of radial distances of common digrams on typebar basket. But there's no justification why only angle criteria was considered, and they omitted that layout clearly minimizes adjacent typebar digrams, which is shown by [1] and [2]. They also without much evidence reject idea that TYPEWRITER ending up on same row was intentional design, but curiously enough [2] calculated odds of that occurring randomly as about 1 in 2500, so it might have been. [0] https://repository.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2433/139379/1/42_161.pdf https://repository.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2433... [1] http://widespacer.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-hidden-secrets-of-qwerty.html http://widespacer.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-hidden-secrets-of... [2] https://cyber.sci-hub.se/MTAuMTAxNi9qLnJlc3BvbC4yMDEzLjAzLjAwNw==/kay2013.pdf#view=FitH https://cyber.sci-hub.se/MTAuMTAxNi9qLnJlc3BvbC4yMDEzLjAzLjA...
stevage 6y ago
Well, there's two clear things about the layout of QWERTY: 1. TYPEWRITER on the top row. 2. DFGHJKL on the middle row, in perfect alphabetical order except for the two vowels that got moved to the top. (The French version has the M after the L). It looks very much like they started with alphabetical order, then moved a couple of things.
gdx 6y ago
Anecdotically, QWERTY also seems to be sort of arranged in alphabetical order but with certain keys moved here and there — for exemple, the middle row is: A .. D . F G H . J K L (dots indicating the missing letters.) Then it goes down for the M N from right to left, up for O P, then the top row is: Q R . T U And the bottom row is, from right to left: V . X . Z And then the rest.
bclnr 6y ago
A while ago I did a little analysis to compare ergonomics of existing keyboard layouts [1]. The criteria are obviously subjective, but the results clearly show that Qwerty comes out significantly inferior to all alternatives designed later. [1] https://github.com/bclnr/kb-layout-evaluation https://github.com/bclnr/kb-layout-evaluation

lukehutch 6y ago

I switched to the Dvorak keyboard layout 20 years ago (in the middle of a mission-critical project, no less), and not only doubled my typing speed, but significantly reduced arm/finger strain. Once you put in the 3-ish weeks to retrain your brain, and get back to at least your original typing speed, you'll never go back to QWERTY.

Moru 6y ago
3-ish weeks is what it takes to learn to touch-type in general, whatever layout. Put in the time and choose a layout to learn. Dworak is better if you are typing only english, there are other layouts for other languages. This is where it broke down for me, I can't learn several layouts depending on the language I want to type. And convincing some programs to use the dworak layout for hotkeys can be tricky too.
- xtracto 6y ago
  I tried moving to Dvorak in the late 1990s and I stumbled in the multiple language problem. In addition to me typing in English and Spanish, the fact that I do programming was the nail in the coffin to really being efficient in something else than qwerty. It also didn't help that I already was 95wpm in QWERTY.
  - tartoran 6y ago
    If you alreay have a large repertoire of shortcuts it’s an extra pail to worry about when making the switch. I find that im using some shortcut that i can’t recite what they unless look down at the keyboard as they’ve embedded in the muscle memory.
- rgoulter 6y ago
  Vim is a very keyboard-oriented program. Dvorak with vim isn't that bad. HJKL is in a row on QWERTY, but Dvorak at least has JK together, and H to the left of L. CUA keybindings like Ctrl X, Ctrl C, Ctrl P can be a pain with Dvorak. (I also don't think shortcuts like Ctrl+Insert, Shift+Insert are widely supported across OSs, nor USB HID's copy and paste keys). Other than that, it's just about remembering the shortcut by the letters, not by the position of the keys.

mtmail 6y ago

"You can 3x your typing speed if you set up shortcuts for most frequently used words to decrease the number of symbols you have to type. Here’s how it works on Mac OS or iOS." So a bit a predictive typing assistance and customizations. "Here are some ideas for reflection shortcuts that I use: “wam”—“Why am I feeling this way?” “wwl”—“What went well?” “wcb”—What could have gone better?" Like duckduckgo bangs I doubt I would be able to remember more than 10.

MAGZine 6y ago
like VIM commands, you can't expect yourself to read the manual and master them all on the first try. You add them as you find yourself frustrated with how inefficient an operation is. I suspect it's going to be something that you slowly add and improve overtime, and, likewise, prune as your vocabulary changes.
- phailhaus 6y ago
  But unlike vim commands these can't be composed, so the number of shortcuts scales linearly with the number of words/phrases you want to express. I'm not sure how useful this would be for me.
Moru 6y ago
If you want to go another level, try a chorded keyboard and stenographic input methods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorded_keyboard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorded_keyboard

superdimwit 6y ago

This is fluff

red_hare 6y ago

The author's ultimate solution of "use OSX/iOS shortcuts for every word to speed up your typing" is pretty wild. I could imagine myself using this method when I think about the _tens of minutes_ of my life I've probably saved now by just making "@@" a shortcut for my email address. Unfortunately, like Dvorak, which the author also proposes, it has the "doesn't work on my friend's computer" problem. Although, maybe a little easier to untrain your fingers from than Dvorak...

carabiner 6y ago
How often are you using your friend's computer?
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
More annoying for me is that it has the "doesn't work in certain apps" problem. Firefox, for instance, blatantly ignores macOS's text replacement shortcuts.
- vulcan01 6y ago
  Yea, this was annoying for me as well. I found Espanso (open-source), which seems to work on all the apps I've tried: https://espanso.org/ https://espanso.org/ Not affiliated, just a happy user.
svachalek 6y ago
I've heretofore used them for common terms in my work/hobby and they can be quite helpful. This is really next level though. I think I'm gonna try adding a few common everyday phrases on a weekly basis and see how it works out.
stevage 6y ago
>"doesn't work on my friend's computer" problem As I've gotten older, I find this situation almost never comes up. Occasionally in some workplaces you are temporarily using someone else's computer. In which case, you either fall back to QWERTY, or take the 60 seconds to add Dvorak to their machine.

MAGZine 6y ago

The problem for me is rarely typing speed, unless if I'm transcribing something. No, the bandwidth chokepoint is organizing thoughts, and those thoughts into sentences (or into code snippets). It is always nice to be able to express things as quickly as possible, but I'm not sure how much this might actually speed someone up (practically) past a certain threshold (say, 70wpm). The biggest thing that comes to mind might only be accuracy, which can boost output.

thotsBgone 6y ago
To me, typing speed is a convenience feature, not an efficiency feature (past like 30 wpm). I have recently twice experienced both low typing speeds (~30 wpm) and high typing speeds (~80 wpm) due to switching to colemak and to an ortholinear keyboard layout, and my productivity was the same on 30 wpm but man did it feel shitty. I ended up typing less comments on sites like HN and typing in less detail to people on Discord. The increased convenience of having a higher WPM makes you want to write/communicate more, in my experience.
- asdff 6y ago
  There's definitely a comfort zone imo. If I go full speed my fingers feel it. It also doesn't help the higher I push my speed the more dumb typos pop up, like mispressing the space bar or not thinking and conflating its for it's or vice versa.
gwd 6y ago
> No, the bandwidth chokepoint is organizing thoughts, and those thoughts into sentences (or into code snippets). Right, but particularly when writing, what "organizing thoughts" often looks like is writing a burst of text (a phrase or several sentences) then possibly editing it / deleting it / whatever. Being able to quickly bash out the bursts I think makes the whole process faster, or at least less annoying. I switched from QWERTY to Colemak several years ago; I'm not sure I've gotten back up to my previous top typing speed, but it's certainly a lot more comfortable.
- 6y ago

jamesfe 6y ago

The author proposes that we're somehow blocked from success because we can't type fast enough. Is that true? I don't agree; in fact, I'd rather be concise and communicate well than vomit more words onto the screen. Additionally, beyond Dvorak, is there a better way to increase typing speed than spending what must be hours and hours building a bespoke solution for each one of your machines? And what is the cost of the inevitable tsunami of errors you make in the learning process? Are these neural pathways more valuable than say, learning a new language or practicing a different skill?

jowsie 6y ago
There's always stenography http://www.openstenoproject.org/ http://www.openstenoproject.org/
- taeric 6y ago
  I'm actually surprised not to see that mentioned on the page. Feels like merely a formal approach to what is otherwise an adhoc method.
- melling 6y ago
  For programming, we should be trying to type less. Tools like TabNine should help: https://www.tabnine.com/ https://www.tabnine.com/
  - Silhouette 6y ago
    Interesting idea, but it's hard for me to reconcile the potential benefits with the pricing model in that specific case, particularly if the model it's using is only trained on open source and not evolving according to the user's own habits.
    - gempir 6y ago
      It keeps training on your own code when installed if you chose it to do so. Although this was not a great experience on my already slow two core macbook. The results were pretty amazing though.

boogies 6y ago

> That’s right. The very first “Type-Writer,” designed by Christopher Sholes 146 years ago, used the exact same QWERTY keyboard that‘s in front of you. Weird, I can’t seem to find the M key to the right of my L. (Not that the resemblance isn’t clear, but that’s not the only difference and they did say “exact same”).

svachalek 6y ago
No zero and one either, you typed L and O. This was common even in the 80s, the final days of typewriters.

dnautics 6y ago

Having used it for 20 years now... I don't find that dvorak improves my typing speed. If anything it probably net reduces my productivity since often I'm hitting paste (ctrl-v) and I miss and hit exit window (ctrl-x). However, I like it because it feels comfortable typing in it, way more so than qwerty.

thatswrong0 6y ago
That’s why I switched to Colemak instead of Dvorak - keeps zxcv in the same spot. But I agree with you completely - Colemak is way more comfortable to type in than QWERTY. Way fewer hand movements and less finger stretching for common bigrams. My non-scientifically based hope is that it’ll reduce RSI in the long run. No regrets after 10ish years
svachalek 6y ago
Ditto, this is always what I tell people when they ask about it. Not really faster but definitely easier on the hands. BTW on MacOS there is a Dvorak mode that uses QWERTY when the command key is down!
stevage 6y ago
I've been using Dvorak 20+ years as well. Definitely faster than I ever was with QWERTY, and more accurate. And more comfortable. With MacOS, I use the DV+QW layout where the layout is QWERTY if you're holding down Cmd. So Cmd+V etc work just like on a QWERTY keyboard. It's a pretty good compromise.
pascoej 6y ago
This has been my experience as well. Using a non-qwerty layout is an annoyance when I use somebody else's computer or somebody else uses mine. While I don't see myself moving back, I never recommend switching to others.
- dnautics 6y ago
  I dunno, it was a pretty enlightening experience, learning how to struggle, learning how to be humble about sucking at something that for me till then was super basic (as an adult, so I could really savor the feeling -- I had learned to touch-type at age six). If you don't forget qwerty, it's not an annoyance to use someone else's keyboard. And having someone else be annoyed when they use my keyboard is a feature =). The only time it was mildly annoying was when I started dating someone and asked to use her laptop, and I suddenly found I couldn't type. It turned out that she had ALSO learned dvorak in college. When I realized what was going on it was all good.

flreln 6y ago

OP here: happy to answer any questions about my setup. Just to clarify - the core idea is not shortcuts but how you can use them to integrate changes in your life like reflecting on how you feel or how well you understand your learning material. More thoughts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24702678 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24702678.

zestyping 6y ago
This is by far the most interesting thing about the article, and I'm a little sad to see most of the comments here are about typewriters and keyboard layouts and not about exploring whether shortcuts can change the way you think.

surfsvammel 6y ago

Record yourself writing, or programming, or whatever it is you do at the keyboard. You will see that it is not the speed of your typing that is the bottleneck, it is the creative process. You are not a mindless machine hacking away at the keyboard. And, if you are, then the life hack take away is to stop and think a bit before typing. Going slower often has lots of benefits.

karmakaze 6y ago
So true. I made the difficult transition from QWERTY to an alternate layout, then another alternate layout after being dissatisfied. Ultimately I had to use typing practice sites because I simply didn't do enough typing in the course of working on the computer all day every day to relearn and retain. Still worth it, so much more comfortable now.
jbjbjbjb 6y ago
Everyone says slow typing is ok but I also see a lot of people get frustrated at input lag when typing into a slow IDE
- llbeansandrice 6y ago
  I feel like this is distinctly different though. If you're drawing/sketching, does it matter the speed at which you can draw? Now think about how much of an issue input lag is. It's obviously not exactly the same but I think it isolates why your personal typing speed and input lag are different things.
- tartoran 6y ago
  The larger the input lag the bigger the discomfort I have when typing and navigating a domcument. It’s doable but feels uncomfortable as we have to wait for the confirmation we hit the right keys. It helps not to look at the screen at all but if you find an error in the previous sentence it’s a pain to navigate back and fix it
charles_f 6y ago
That's true when doing creative work, but for other occasions, notably note taking, speed does matter.

ogre_codes 6y ago

I find it a bit ironic that an article about how to type 3 times faster is roughly 4 times longer than it needs to be to make its point.

tartoran 6y ago
I liked the saussage anecdote/analogy. My wifes family used to split sausages like that as well not knowing exactlty why they’re were doing it. Somebody started the practice and they got stuck with it. Likewise we’re stuck with QUERTY and is not a big deal really but it was an accident of history.

netvarun 6y ago

On a somewhat relevant note - there was an interesting post I saw sometime back on designing an optimal keyboard layout https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21425426 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21425426

Aengeuad 6y ago
There's also Carpalx which is a parametric model rather than AI but in general goes into a lot of information on keyboard layouts in general. http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/ http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/

shock 6y ago

If you're on Linux and want to do this look for ibus-typing-booster. I submitted it 6 days ago, but it didn't get much attention. Unlike the author's method of manually setting up shortcuts for the most used words, ibus-typing-booster learns your most frequent words and then it's just a matter of typing a few chars followed by space, which inserts the whole word.

chipz 6y ago
Thank you for this, i was looking for something similar in Linux
tartoran 6y ago
Im using notepad++ and it has this feature auto enabled by default but at a document level. I find that sometimes it helps but other times it really gets in my way. How does it work out for you with ibus-...-...?
- shock 6y ago
  I haven't used it like the author describes, I've just been using for easy emoji autocompletion :)
boogies 6y ago
Nice! Another option is to create a ~/.XCompose¹, which only activates manually — you add your own custom abbreviations there, and they’re only expanded when you prefix them by tapping Compose². ¹https://wiki.debian.org/XCompose https://wiki.debian.org/XCompose ²You can make this quite convenient with xcape: setxkbmap -option compose:sclk && xcape -e "Shift_L=Multi_key" will make tapping (but not holding) left shift act as tapping Compose
- boogies 6y ago
  Oh, and not that > ~⅖ people ±⅞ will read this but there’s also https://espanso.org/ https://espanso.org/ which supports inserting script results; and quite a few other ‘text expanders’ and other tools that will do similar things https://alternativeto.net/software/espanso/?license=opensource https://alternativeto.net/software/espanso/?license=opensour...

autocorr 6y ago

While the first part of the article is on alternative keyboard layouts like Dvorak, the second half of the article is actually a discussion of personalized shorthand "brief forms" (somewhat confusingly called "shortcuts" in the article). It would be really cool to have a seamless autocomplete system on Linux. As far as I know there isn't one. It would be handy in my opinion when typing domain specific jargon, perhaps using something like vim's leader key but OS-wide: for example, "`sf" would expand to "star formation".

galkk 6y ago

tl;dr author proposes to use shorthands for common words... The "feature" that is built-in into most IDEs and most programmers are using on daily basis, e.g. https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/using-live-templates.html https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/using-live-templates.htm... I really don't want to be that guy, but the typing with 3x speed certainly didn't helped the article to be concise and to the point.

mxcrossb 6y ago

My phone has predicted text on the top of the keyboard. I wonder if the secret is not a bunch of custom shortcuts, but a better mind-meld with the predicted text so that you the user hit the predicted value every time. You get the same speed and correctness benefits mentioned in the article. But I’ve never seen a touch typing program which let’s you use the predicted text.

abecedarius 6y ago
I suspect the key is to somehow make it really quick and easy to retroactively fix mispredictions and other mistakes. That'd open up the space for more aggressive guess-what-I-mean input methods.

tartoran 6y ago

What about confusions regarding shortcuts that depend on the context? HW for hardware in CS or homework? We do use unexpanded shortcuts and out brain knows how to interpret them from the context. Adding shortucts like these in an editor to expand into words would create a lot of unnecessary problems and solutions IMO. Everybody knows for example that im not talking about the internatinal math olympiad here or internatioal money order. Acronyms in this case are a good example how the context create ambiguities if we dont know the context

forgotmypw17 6y ago

i addded js dvorak as input option on my forum software to make it easier for anyone not on their computer

stevage 6y ago

I was with the author about typing and setting up shortcuts. Then they went on a wild crazy tangent into pop psychology, and, uh...no thank you.

xchip 6y ago

A tool plus your determination. When there is a will there is a way. The tools is just an anecdote.

userbinator 6y ago

My average typing speed is ~140-150WPM and I can go over 200 in short bursts. I've only used QWERTY. Thus I don't think Dvorak or any of the other layouts has that much of an advantage. However, I think the design of the keyboard's switches makes a huge difference; I can only reach those speeds on the keyboard I normally use, which is a pretty generic one with rubber domes, but where ~2mm of travel is enough to register a keypress, and the keyfeel is very light and bouncy. Before that I used a mechanical keyboard with (very) clicky Blue ALPS (https://deskthority.net/wiki/Alps_SKCM_Blue https://deskthority.net/wiki/Alps_SKCM_Blue ) switches, and struggled to reach 120WPM. Other keyboards I've tried timing typing speed on include a Thinkpad X60 (can barely exceed 100, but quickly tiring), Apple low-profile (80-90, very tiring), and the famous IBM Model M (75-80, impressively loud and extremely tiring.)

sebmellen 6y ago
Would you have a link to your keyboard? I'm looking for one just like that, after having used a mechanical keyboard much like the one you described for a while.
- userbinator 6y ago
  Unfortunately, the only search result for the model number (KM-2601P)... is the HN post where I last mentioned it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12774137 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12774137 I don't know much about its history, other than the fact that it was a cheap "freebie" from a PC long ago that I continued to use because it felt great to type on. It was probably manufactured in the late 90s. The Internet is horribly forgetful and certainly not the treasure-trove of information it used to be: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16153840 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16153840
joe_the_user 6y ago
By "typing speed", do you mean copying an existing text? That's the usual measure. But in a world where most people compose their text on their own computers, how useful is it now? Or are you able to produce your writing/programming at that rate? If you can do that, you're in a remarkable category. My feeling is just moving your fingers to make word would be least impressive part of such a feat.

s5300 6y ago

One of the funnier things I can say about my life - growing up playing RuneScape (like, beginning of classic, starting at the age of 5) and arguably MapleStory led to having 120wpm+ QWERTY speeds with ease. I think during the few times I ever cared to really test myself I hit over 160. Also won my spelling bee every year eligible (4 years) and placed pretty well at states my final year. Never touched a study book or really even cared to compete - parents bribed me to enter. All from MMORPG's... Probably not something to be proud about haha. I really think a portion of kids that grew up playing RuneScape got a bit of head up over peers. I know it's led to me never having been scammed more than once and starting a successful business at a very young age. Shame what happened to the game, but I guess all good things must die.

agumonkey 6y ago

At my last job at some courtroom they used wordperfect 12. Clerks used the quick-word feature to define their own shortcuts.

Arcorann 6y ago

I thought this was familiar. Turns out it was posted here before but the article was on a different site. Here's the previous discussion (40 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24702678 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24702678

irjustin 6y ago

Why bring the whole Devorak part into the article? Also, I'm surprised the author didn't go pure stenograph then because that's way faster. WPM is only a good measure of WPM. The best coders don't need to type faster. The best writers still hand write things or type on DOS[0]. Once you hit a baseline competency, other areas of improvement/reward far outweigh the time devoted than to a better WPM. Wanting to type faster is fine, but do not mix it with being more effective aside from being a great typist. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5REM-3nWHg&feature=emb_title https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5REM-3nWHg&feature=emb_titl...

emerged 6y ago
If efficiency is the goal, it's better to spend time optimizing your ability to use advanced text editing features. Simultaneously modifying multiple lines at once, block based editing / copy+pasting, regexes, etc. I'd imagine the amount of time I'm actually typing is well under 1% of my time as an engineer.
quickthrower2 6y ago
There is a point around 200wpm (?) that I think would be very handy to be able to "type" this fast, using shorthand or whatever. This where you can keep up taking notes when talking to someone but also take in the subject matter. Being able to do that all at once and then have those notes to refer to would be very useful. A lot of time is wasted by not having a record of things. Maybe "AI" would be just as good as solving this problem though.
- irjustin 6y ago
  That's stenography. If you truly need to type fast, there's better tools for the job.

kleer001 6y ago

WPM is not the bottleneck.

stelliosk 6y ago

In grade 9 a friend and me thought wouldn't it be a great idea to do the office administration class as a means to meet girls, so we did. Class was about 90% female and we learned to type not looking at the keyboard. Now, as a programmer that has been the class that benefitted me the most over the last 20 years.

rlayton2 6y ago
My Mum enrolled me in a typing course as a 13yo, and it was the most boring thing you could have done to a 13yo. Now, however, I'm a fast typist and that course was the bridge between previously hunting and pecking, to proper touch typing. I went, I believe, only from 15wpm to about 25ish wpm, but the technique was planted and I've increased from there.
- Insanity 6y ago
  I had to enroll in a typing course when I was 13 as well - mandatory by the school. Problem was that I started using a computer around age 8 and really learned touch type around age 11. My finger placement is wrong, I don't type in the "correct way". But the typing course was graded on reaching X WPM with no errors, which I could easily surpass. The teacher allowed me to pass with that. Now I still don't place my fingers correctly and I can type about 152WPM with 100% accuracy (just tested on https://monkey-type.com/ https://monkey-type.com/).

student2k 6y ago

Is there any app to create the shortcuts automatically? Like you type all day, at the end of the day, the app see you wrote 5 times 'thank you' and it suggest you to use ty as shortcut,,,

anthk 6y ago

Well, yesterday I edited a Makefile under TMUX by using ed, so typing speed isn't an issue there, ed commands save much more time than typing fast. Ditto in the computer. As my environment is tmux+framebuffer based, I don't care on breaking typing speed records in gtypist, I type in normal speeds, as everything else is scripted I don't care of not being fast enough.

corytheboyd 6y ago

It makes me happy how many other people here are also slow typists and don’t care. If you’re a programmer and consider a high WPM essential to your craft... you might be doing something wrong lol

aspaviento 6y ago
Try pair programming with someone who's faster than you and you'll realize how much you are missing for typing slowly. It's like being a carpenter with a fretsaw or a jigsaw, you can do the same work, but you won't finish at the same time.

praptak 6y ago

QWERTY having been designed to slow down typists is a myth: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/the-lies-youve-been-told-about-the-origin-of-the-qwerty-keyboard/275537/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/the-l... https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fact-of-fiction-the-legend-of-the-qwerty-keyboard-49863249/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fact-of-fiction-...

reportgunner 6y ago

Yes this will save you all the time you will later spend on making your shortcut work when it breaks or every time you get a new device. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

kevinh456 6y ago

The best tool I ever got for typing was a keyboard with no letters on the key caps.

Kaibeezy 6y ago
I recently bought a "ninja" keyboard, where the labels are on the front of the keys, not the top. Looks "badass" according to a nearby 15-year-old. While technically the keys are labeled, in practice looking at them is useless, especially in anything less than bright room lighting, so they are, for me, effectively blank. As a reasonably fast touch typist for many years, I found that for prose it was basically no change. But. There were enough things that were a total drag that I couldn't keep using it. There are times when the key you need to hit isn't part of a flow, and you have to hit it perfectly: passwords, Illustrator/Photoshop commands, punctuation-heavy inputs like URLs, postal addresses, etc. I'm not a programmer, and others will have other things they do. So, I bought normal keycaps and replaced them on just the letter and number keys. Much better.
- kevinh456 6y ago
  I have a logitech mini keyboard on standby in those cases.

Jonify 6y ago

So, basically he describes the software "PhraseExpress" for Mac and PC.

john4532452 6y ago

I still dont understand how is this different from autocompletion ? What did the author mean by "shortcuts" ?