It's not about how fast you can type, it's about how effortlessly you can type. Programming involves long periods of thinking interrupted by short periods of t

It's not about how fast you can type, it's about how effortlessly you can type. Programming involves long periods of thinking interrupted by short periods of typing. Anything you can do to reduce the mental effort of typing reduces the impact of this interruption to your train of thought. Try programming by hunt-and-peck typing -- it's certainly possible, but having to think about putting each individual character on the screen is incredibly tedious and distracting. This is why people learn things like Vim motions or minimalist keyboard layouts -- anything that speeds up the feedback loop between your brain and your code is an improvement. It's not a drastic difference, but it's significant enough that I now feel mildly annoyed using a regular keyboard when I have to move my whole arm to reach the arrow keys rather than having them right under my fingers on the home row.