3 ms·

Does CTRL-TAB (or whatever is used for auto-complete) count as a word?

• TacticalCoder 3y ago
  Not in measuring WPM / typing speed but... You need one heck of a quick editor to be able have suggestions showing up and selecting the suggestion be quicker than just typing the darn thing. If you know what you need to type that is (which is another topic btw). I've got my editor setup with a very quick way to pick up suggestions (which I optimized to minimize both the number of keypresses needed to pick a suggestion and the finger travel distance [it's configured to use the "stronger" fingers first, no pinkies, and it's configured so that the most likely suggestion is on keys in the hands home position]). Even that way, it's still typically faster to type the whole thing. And don't get me started on slow as molasses IDEs that exhibit noticeable delays when showing suggestions. To put it simply: even if you count auto-complete as a word, it's highly unlikely you'll be anywhere near close to 80 wpm (which ain't even that quick).
• rgoulter 3y ago
  Stuff like autocomplete or GitHub's copilot suggestions are helpful for reducing the time it takes put the code you want on the screen, sure.
  • eichin 3y ago
    Not to deny your particular experience - but The Humane Interface (Raskin, 2000) talks a bunch about how doing comparisons between keyboard and mice (and hybrid interfaces) was difficult because user's self-reported experience of the time interacting was inconsistent with actual measurements - there's some cognitive editing of the boring parts, or something like that :-)