4 ms·

On the subject of touch typing; I’m curious how many people here are touch typists vs not? I am also curious what your thoughts are, if you’re a hunt-and-pecker

On the subject of touch typing; I’m curious how many people here are touch typists vs not? I am also curious what your thoughts are, if you’re a hunt-and-pecker, of how much that does or does not affect your productivity? I have this ongoing argument with my kids because they want to hunt-and-peck with one or two fingers per hand and to me that’s like swimming with one arm when you have another arm and two whole legs to use.

Talanes 6y ago
I'm somewhere inbetween, which honestly just means that I'm a bad touch typist. I don't hunt-and-peck, but I'm also not perfectly keeping at rest on the home row. The result is mostly touch-typing, but if I don't have the keyboard in my peripheral vision, I start to drift. Really just means I can't sit in complete darkness, but I'm sure it would have some implications if I were to try and use VR with anything that requires actual typing.
bstar77 6y ago
I never had an aptitude for touch typing, but became very good at hunt and peck typing. This year I finally started to use proper form and not look at my fingers to type. I’m still slower than I was hunting and pecking, but I can pretty much write anything now without looking at my hands. Only took 35 years.
seibelj 6y ago
I’m self taught and have a strange style. I am hunt and peck touch typist, at about 70wpm, and use my left thumb for space and left pinky for shift. Otherwise I just use both my index fingers very quickly, but there is an upper limit on how fast two index fingers can move. An unexpected benefit is my hands and wrists are positioned in such a way that I don’t get much strain / carpal tunnel. My hands get more stressed from using the touchpad than typing.
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
I'd probably be classed as a hunt and peck typist, but I've never had issues with typing speed or accuracy. So I don't think it has affected my productivity at all. Of course I don't know what would have happened if I'd started with touch typing. Although in fact I tried to learn touch typing with Mavis Beacon not long after it appeared, but it cramped my fingers almost instantly, so I stopped. As for typing in general - depending how old your kids are, I'd consider the possibility that by the time they reach college age typing will be as much use to them as handwriting is to current students. I.e. some value, but not as important as other skills. I'd be very surprised if we don't have conversational interfaces with human-level comprehension within twenty years - possibly ten at a push. You might think code will always be typed, but I honestly wouldn't be sure about that.
- fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
  Human level comprehension would be a pain for code: there’s a reason why people start writing on a whiteboard when explaining things where the details matter.
tmm84 6y ago
I've seen many hunt and peckers (mostly older adults 55+ who never had a reason to type daily [computers, typewriters, etc.] and younger people <18 [cellphones]). For older adults it makes sense they use the hunt and peck method because they have little reason to learn touch typing (they got this far without it and if they only need to interact for a few minutes with a keyboard here and there that's okay). However, for younger people their world is different. They do most of their typing on tablets/phones where two finger pressing via the hunt and peck method is easier/reliable (try and type up something on a tablet screen using the touch typing method and see how often you'll make a mistake). So, your opinion of learning touch typing applies mainly to solid keyboards used for extended periods of time while hunt/peck skills serve them better with touch screens. My wife is a hunt/peck user and while her speed isn't the best she seems to have decent speed when she has hunt/peck-ed the same key multiple times (aka warmed up). So, with all that said, hunt/peckers in my opinion only type best when they are warmed up and usually tend to only have limited amount of things to type into the machine.
jimbob45 6y ago
130WPM, thanks to TypeRacer. Went from 70-130 and made the leaderboards a few times. It’s not particularly useful outside of IM where you can get your thoughts out before getting interrupted.
analog31 6y ago
My mom made me take a typing class just before high school -- in the late 70s. She said: "I'm not going to type your term papers for you." Then I took a class in BASIC and fell in love with programming. By the time I got to college, I was a very fast typist. I noticed that between my two kids, both graduated from high school now, the one who never learned to type had a hard time throughout school because of it. If there's a physical obstacle to typing, it will translate into a difficulty learning to write. They did vastly more writing in school than I ever did. In college, I preferentially chose courses where the grades were based on written work rather than exams, and I got to the point where I could sling text like nobody's business. I was also the first student at the college to submit a word processed paper. I don't know if typing should necessarily affect coding. After all, you really shouldn't be coding faster than you can think anyway. What matters is how much good code you can write, and that might include time spent away from the keyboard altogether.
cgriswald 6y ago
In elementary school we used some software that thought teaching, but IIRC it was for some special program and it also was mostly for fun (we had access to LogoWriter and some other software). We quickly figured out you could type nonsense, delete it, then type out the required text and the software would measure ~350 wpm. Learned nothing else. : ) I took typing as an elective one semester in high school because I couldn’t stand hunt and pecking when I was trying to get things done. We’d get done early and just type out lyrics to House of the Rising Sun. We’d also replace homonyms or type nonsense lyrics. A few years later internet chat rooms were big and I’d be in half a dozen of them plus various private chats. My wpm ended up being such that people who saw me in real life would notice the speed. Easily over 100 wpm (not 350 though!). These days I very quickly adapt to macros, function keys, and remappings. I type nearly as fast as I can think of the words. I thumb-type on the phone noticeably fast (lead singer of a bar band called me out on my speed one NYE). And I memorize my passwords physically. I lay that all at learning to touch type in the first place.
Baeocystin 6y ago
We had mandatory typing classes when I was in the equivalent of middle school. Not every day, something like 3x/week for a few months. It was all 100% manual typewriters that were built for practice, and had pull-out plastic sheets built in that would hide your hands from view for test time. I actually genuinely enjoyed it. The force of the long-throw of the manual keys was fun to feel, and the different heights of the rows made it pretty easy to learn where your fingers should be. It did always annoy me a little to use the lower-case l as the number one, though.
- gwd 6y ago
  We had two full semesters, 5 days a week -- one in seventh grade and one in eight grade, on manual typewriters. What never made sense to me is that my friends who were also into computer programming totally slacked off in the class. Come on guys, you plan on typing for a living, and you have to be here 45 minutes a day anyway; why not just take advantage of the opportunity?
spike021 6y ago
When I was a kid, we had Mavis Beacon both at home and at school, along with other interactive programs and games for learning to type. In school we also had those silicon mask things to hide which keys were which in order to learn "home row" and all that. These days though, I've memorized the positions of all of the keys, so while I _mostly_ use my index fingers to type, I also will switch to thumbs or other fingers on occasion depending on the keyboard. I rarely if ever look at the keyboard. So it's almost like I use a combination of touch typing with pecking. Works well enough for me and my WPM isn't bad, either.
dnautics 6y ago
I was taught touch typing in 1st grade, then straight on to logo and basic. This was in 1986, so the school I was at was a bit ahead of its time.
gwd 6y ago
I had typing classes on a mechanical typewriter in junior high school; after that I maxed out on Mavis Beacon (i.e., got to the point where all she could think to do was give me more speed or punctuation drills). I don't think typing quickly helps you code more quickly per se. But it certainly helps me write out comments more quickly; and at some point, a big chunk of your time is spent arguing^W discussing with people about how to code properly; at that point, being able to type more quickly is a big advantage.
arunix 6y ago
One of the tips in "Practical Vim: Edit Text at the Speed of Thought" is to learn touch typing, which is what prompted me to take the plunge. I got a 2nd hand CD of KAZ and within about two weeks I'd got the "I know kung fu" feeling. Productivity definitely improved. Now if I could only find something similar for learning piano.

Talanes 6y ago

I'm somewhere inbetween, which honestly just means that I'm a bad touch typist. I don't hunt-and-peck, but I'm also not perfectly keeping at rest on the home row. The result is mostly touch-typing, but if I don't have the keyboard in my peripheral vision, I start to drift. Really just means I can't sit in complete darkness, but I'm sure it would have some implications if I were to try and use VR with anything that requires actual typing.

bstar77 6y ago

I never had an aptitude for touch typing, but became very good at hunt and peck typing. This year I finally started to use proper form and not look at my fingers to type. I’m still slower than I was hunting and pecking, but I can pretty much write anything now without looking at my hands. Only took 35 years.

seibelj 6y ago

I’m self taught and have a strange style. I am hunt and peck touch typist, at about 70wpm, and use my left thumb for space and left pinky for shift. Otherwise I just use both my index fingers very quickly, but there is an upper limit on how fast two index fingers can move. An unexpected benefit is my hands and wrists are positioned in such a way that I don’t get much strain / carpal tunnel. My hands get more stressed from using the touchpad than typing.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago

I'd probably be classed as a hunt and peck typist, but I've never had issues with typing speed or accuracy. So I don't think it has affected my productivity at all. Of course I don't know what would have happened if I'd started with touch typing. Although in fact I tried to learn touch typing with Mavis Beacon not long after it appeared, but it cramped my fingers almost instantly, so I stopped. As for typing in general - depending how old your kids are, I'd consider the possibility that by the time they reach college age typing will be as much use to them as handwriting is to current students. I.e. some value, but not as important as other skills. I'd be very surprised if we don't have conversational interfaces with human-level comprehension within twenty years - possibly ten at a push. You might think code will always be typed, but I honestly wouldn't be sure about that.

fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
Human level comprehension would be a pain for code: there’s a reason why people start writing on a whiteboard when explaining things where the details matter.

tmm84 6y ago

I've seen many hunt and peckers (mostly older adults 55+ who never had a reason to type daily [computers, typewriters, etc.] and younger people <18 [cellphones]). For older adults it makes sense they use the hunt and peck method because they have little reason to learn touch typing (they got this far without it and if they only need to interact for a few minutes with a keyboard here and there that's okay). However, for younger people their world is different. They do most of their typing on tablets/phones where two finger pressing via the hunt and peck method is easier/reliable (try and type up something on a tablet screen using the touch typing method and see how often you'll make a mistake). So, your opinion of learning touch typing applies mainly to solid keyboards used for extended periods of time while hunt/peck skills serve them better with touch screens. My wife is a hunt/peck user and while her speed isn't the best she seems to have decent speed when she has hunt/peck-ed the same key multiple times (aka warmed up). So, with all that said, hunt/peckers in my opinion only type best when they are warmed up and usually tend to only have limited amount of things to type into the machine.

jimbob45 6y ago

130WPM, thanks to TypeRacer. Went from 70-130 and made the leaderboards a few times. It’s not particularly useful outside of IM where you can get your thoughts out before getting interrupted.

analog31 6y ago

My mom made me take a typing class just before high school -- in the late 70s. She said: "I'm not going to type your term papers for you." Then I took a class in BASIC and fell in love with programming. By the time I got to college, I was a very fast typist. I noticed that between my two kids, both graduated from high school now, the one who never learned to type had a hard time throughout school because of it. If there's a physical obstacle to typing, it will translate into a difficulty learning to write. They did vastly more writing in school than I ever did. In college, I preferentially chose courses where the grades were based on written work rather than exams, and I got to the point where I could sling text like nobody's business. I was also the first student at the college to submit a word processed paper. I don't know if typing should necessarily affect coding. After all, you really shouldn't be coding faster than you can think anyway. What matters is how much good code you can write, and that might include time spent away from the keyboard altogether.

cgriswald 6y ago

In elementary school we used some software that thought teaching, but IIRC it was for some special program and it also was mostly for fun (we had access to LogoWriter and some other software). We quickly figured out you could type nonsense, delete it, then type out the required text and the software would measure ~350 wpm. Learned nothing else. : ) I took typing as an elective one semester in high school because I couldn’t stand hunt and pecking when I was trying to get things done. We’d get done early and just type out lyrics to House of the Rising Sun. We’d also replace homonyms or type nonsense lyrics. A few years later internet chat rooms were big and I’d be in half a dozen of them plus various private chats. My wpm ended up being such that people who saw me in real life would notice the speed. Easily over 100 wpm (not 350 though!). These days I very quickly adapt to macros, function keys, and remappings. I type nearly as fast as I can think of the words. I thumb-type on the phone noticeably fast (lead singer of a bar band called me out on my speed one NYE). And I memorize my passwords physically. I lay that all at learning to touch type in the first place.

Baeocystin 6y ago

We had mandatory typing classes when I was in the equivalent of middle school. Not every day, something like 3x/week for a few months. It was all 100% manual typewriters that were built for practice, and had pull-out plastic sheets built in that would hide your hands from view for test time. I actually genuinely enjoyed it. The force of the long-throw of the manual keys was fun to feel, and the different heights of the rows made it pretty easy to learn where your fingers should be. It did always annoy me a little to use the lower-case l as the number one, though.

gwd 6y ago
We had two full semesters, 5 days a week -- one in seventh grade and one in eight grade, on manual typewriters. What never made sense to me is that my friends who were also into computer programming totally slacked off in the class. Come on guys, you plan on typing for a living, and you have to be here 45 minutes a day anyway; why not just take advantage of the opportunity?

spike021 6y ago

When I was a kid, we had Mavis Beacon both at home and at school, along with other interactive programs and games for learning to type. In school we also had those silicon mask things to hide which keys were which in order to learn "home row" and all that. These days though, I've memorized the positions of all of the keys, so while I _mostly_ use my index fingers to type, I also will switch to thumbs or other fingers on occasion depending on the keyboard. I rarely if ever look at the keyboard. So it's almost like I use a combination of touch typing with pecking. Works well enough for me and my WPM isn't bad, either.

dnautics 6y ago

I was taught touch typing in 1st grade, then straight on to logo and basic. This was in 1986, so the school I was at was a bit ahead of its time.

gwd 6y ago

I had typing classes on a mechanical typewriter in junior high school; after that I maxed out on Mavis Beacon (i.e., got to the point where all she could think to do was give me more speed or punctuation drills). I don't think typing quickly helps you code more quickly per se. But it certainly helps me write out comments more quickly; and at some point, a big chunk of your time is spent arguing^W discussing with people about how to code properly; at that point, being able to type more quickly is a big advantage.

arunix 6y ago

One of the tips in "Practical Vim: Edit Text at the Speed of Thought" is to learn touch typing, which is what prompted me to take the plunge. I got a 2nd hand CD of KAZ and within about two weeks I'd got the "I know kung fu" feeling. Productivity definitely improved. Now if I could only find something similar for learning piano.