20 ms·
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
by 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 agoThere's always stenography http://www.openstenoproject.org/ http://www.openstenoproject.org/
- taeric 6y agoI'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 agoFor programming, we should be trying to type less. Tools like TabNine should help: https://www.tabnine.com/ https://www.tabnine.com/
- Silhouette 6y agoInteresting 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 agoIt 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.
- ThePadawan 6y agoBesides the deep learning part, this is already very much what working in C# and Visual Studio (Code) is like. To get to > new FoobarGenerator().Create(new FoobarOptions { foo = 3 }); , the keystrokes would be more like < new Fo<tab><enter> > new FoobarGenerator() < .Cr<tab><enter> > new FoobarGenerator().Create( < new<tab><enter> > new FoobarGenerator().Create(new FoobarOptions < { f<tab><enter> > new FoobarGenerator().Create(new FoobarOptions { foo = < 3 } ); > new FoobarGenerator().Create(new FoobarOptions { foo = 3 });
- eitland 6y ago> Besides the deep learning part, this is already very much what working in C# and Visual Studio (Code) is like. Or any of the big 3 Java IDEs.
- 1123581321 6y agoNot everyone’s words are equally valuable. Someone who does not vomit but actually has things worth saying, and a limited time in which to express them, would benefit from faster typing. Worst case, it’s nice to get one’s job done faster to make time for other things. You can always take your hands off the keyboard periodically if you want to write less.
- bonestormii_ 6y agoRight, but it's the vim effect. For vim to become worth your time to learn to use effectively, you have to have a purpose to use it quite a lot. But it takes quite a lot of time, and causes quite a lot of errors in the mean time. Eventually, you are left with a skill and a tool that are a pleasure to use, but you literally must spend time actively learning how to use it. You cannot just pick it up, because you need to first memorize key combinations and the behavior of various modes. Then, you need to actually practice them. And this proposed solution is even worse, because it suffers not only from the "vim effect", but from the "vim config effect", where you not only need to memorize, and practice, but actively configure your custom solution, which can take tons of time; is subject to loss/deletion; and is not universally available. And god help me, what about programming? I honestly do not want to even think about multi-layered completions wreaking their havoc on everything I write, and the only alternative is different completions for different types of environments--even more cognitive load. This seeks efficiency as represented by speed, but ignores efficiency as represented by ubiquity, generality, and low cognitive load. If I want to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, it is more efficient to run. If I want to get from point A to point B with the minimum energy expenditure, it is more efficient to walk. To be truly efficient, you need smart, balanced goals.
- 1123581321 6y agoI disagree with most of this. These skills may be worth the time tradeoff to learn. They don’t increase the error rate. They can be learned during unproductive time (I learned Dvorak on conference calls at an old job.) They can be picked up and used marginally for immediate small gains with potential to improve over time (Vim is like this, not that I use it much.) Many programmers work in a couple bread-and-butter environments that already provide a lot of completions and macros—-typing speed in programming has long been evaluated differently from writing prose. Everything you wrote about considering tradeoffs is sound, but is being misapplied because you’re overestimating the difficulty and underestimating the benefit due to placing too low a value on words.
- copperx 6y agoSpeaking is faster than typing. Speech recognition is my go-to for writing prose these days.
- DoingIsLearning 6y agoDo you have any particular software you recommend for Speech recognition? Do you know of any software that can cope with programming language syntax without introduced a tonne of dictation errors?
- Multicomp 6y agoLast year, I used nuance dragon professional individual 15 for completing nanowrimo with ywriter 5 and an old work hand-me-down headset (Jabra Pro 9450 or thereabouts). Over 98% of the prose was written by voice, and because of the headset's wireless range, I was able to wander around the house while thinking about what to say, with dragon happily riding down what I said and easily letting me correct when it made mistakes. I got very good at saying "full stop new paragraph" or, "select line, quote that, go back" to quote lines of dialogue. I expected to have to learn a million commands by rote memorization, but it seems like it became second nature within a day or two for first draft noveling purposes, I have no doubt that medical or legal uses have more advanced commands, but for writing a 50,000 plus word draft it was fine. If you don't want to pay $300 for nuance dragon, I got scarily good results from trying out Microsoft office online word dictation via office 365 about 2 months ago via a $60 bluetooth headset for wfh. I won't rely on the latter service myself because it is not offline speech recognition, and can be taken away at the flip of a switch, but for trying out if speech recognition is worth it for you to pay $200 on eBay or $300 in the store for dragon, it is certainly a useful feature to get off the ground.
- wenc 6y agoJust curious, how did you deal with homonyms that get persistently misrecognized? (I argue a lot with Alexa because she keeps getting stuff wrong even when I enunciate slowly. It is very annoying.)
- aqme28 6y agoThis. I can type at about 100 wpm, (which is faster than most people), but I cannot _think_ at 100 wpm for any sustained period of time. I can speed-type a sentence or a few lines of code, but my output is still constrained by the time it takes to think through and revise the sentence or code in my mind.
- Silhouette 6y agoI can type at about 100 wpm, (which is faster than most people), but I cannot _think_ at 100 wpm for any sustained period of time. But the sustained part matters there. Personally, my desire to write long-form text is extremely bursty. If I'm making notes during a discussion, I might not write anything for a considerable time. However, when an important point is made, I want to record it as quickly and passively as possible, so I can stay connected to whatever else is being said. If I'm thinking deeply about something, again I might not write anything for a long time. Then if the idea I've been searching for all week clicks, I might make a lot of notes over the next couple of minutes, while the line of reasoning is completely clear in my mind. I type English text at a comparable speed to a professional secretary, but a way of recording important thoughts even faster when I encounter them would be valuable to me. The same goes for concepts that aren't plain English, too, such as code, mathematics or some sort of diagram.
- aixi 6y agoyes, but if you had difficulty typing your outbursts of thought then your output would be constrained by your typing speed i suppose
- jedimastert 6y ago> Additionally, beyond Dvorak, is there a better way to increase typing speed... I'm really not convinced Dvorak intrinsically speeds up typing
- xmprt 6y agoEven if Dvorak doesn't speed up typing intrinsically, it's still beneficial because it significantly reduces injuries caused by typing.
- AceyMan 6y agoLook into the Workman keyboard layout project. Very neat stuff.
- highmastdon 6y agoOr Colemak for that matter
- asdff 6y agoTyping fast is fools gold. I find I write gooder the slower I type. Be it writing code or composing emails.
- itsdsmurrell 6y agoDamn, you must have motored that comment out.
- m463 6y agoThat's an interesting question. If your REPL loop[1] gets faster by increasing your typing speed, can you get more of your ideas out there whether you're a blogger, author or coder? [1] read-eval-print-loop^2
- swiley 6y agoPersonally I'm blocked from success because I spend too much time on Hacker News.