3 ms·

Typing fast may be the least important thing towards developing a well designed, long-lived product.

by esseph 1y ago

TeMPOraL 1y ago
So the saying goes, but this article, and many people's honest experience, suggests otherwise. Yes, developing complex systems is about thinking, not typing. But human head only fits so much, and once you pick up a tool to externalize your thinking, be it pen and paper, or text editor, or a whiteboard, you're limited by I/O. Reading is by far the fastest part, but if you're typing (or sketching) slower than you think, your entire thought process is now I/O bound. There are many ways to improve this - with editors, you can use shortcuts, compose complex commands, use autocomplete, etc. - but the nice thing is, most of these improvements are purely additive. So it really doesn't hurt to learn to type faster than you think, and it'll definitely help some.
- fn-mote 1y ago
  Instead of just disagreeing, I find I actually agree! At least with the premise of the I/O bound system. At some point I realized that linear writing (typing or writing on lined paper) does not have the flexibility to express the thought processes that I want to commit to writing. Now I write on blank paper (or an iPad if the thinking needs to be active for a long period of time). I might be I/O bound but at least this way I don't need Serializable thoughts.
anonymars 1y ago
Maybe, but I often think fellow developers would get more mileage out of Mavis Beacon than the latest flavor of training from Pluralsight/AWS/etc When effective comments, appropriate variable names, and the like can flow effortlessly from your fingertips, you're more likely to use them. Plus you're not expending your precious mental energy on the mechanics of typing out your ideas.
smohare 1y ago
[dead]
convolvatron 1y ago
you're right. but the ability, given a good idea, to spit out a substantial amount of code that compiles and basically runs in a single session removes alot of the consternation and back and forth in those discussions despite industry motion to the contrary, the truth is that we really can build anything we want. if we just weren't such cowards about it
- saghm 1y ago
  Do you find that typos are the biggest barrier to quickly writing code that compiles and runs in a single session? I'm an absolutely _atrocious_ typer (in terms of both speed and accuracy), and yet I still genuinely don't think that actual typing takes within an order of magnitude of the time it takes me to get out a quick prototype compared to debugging.
userbinator 1y ago
Try communicating with a coworker when the "I" in "IM" is closer to "wait several minutes while he hunts and pecks the next reply".
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

Typing fast may be the least important thing towards developing a well designed, long-lived product.

by esseph 1y ago

Typing fast may be the least important thing towards developing a well designed, long-lived product.

So the saying goes, but this article, and many people's honest experience, suggests otherwise. Yes, developing complex systems is about thinking, not typing. But human head only fits so much, and once you pick up a tool to externalize your thinking, be it pen and paper, or text editor, or a whiteboard, you're limited by I/O. Reading is by far the fastest part, but if you're typing (or sketching) slower than you think, your entire thought process is now I/O bound. There are many ways to improve this - with editors, you can use shortcuts, compose complex commands, use autocomplete, etc. - but the nice thing is, most of these improvements are purely additive. So it really doesn't hurt to learn to type faster than you think, and it'll definitely help some.

fn-mote 1y ago
Instead of just disagreeing, I find I actually agree! At least with the premise of the I/O bound system. At some point I realized that linear writing (typing or writing on lined paper) does not have the flexibility to express the thought processes that I want to commit to writing. Now I write on blank paper (or an iPad if the thinking needs to be active for a long period of time). I might be I/O bound but at least this way I don't need Serializable thoughts.

anonymars 1y ago

Maybe, but I often think fellow developers would get more mileage out of Mavis Beacon than the latest flavor of training from Pluralsight/AWS/etc When effective comments, appropriate variable names, and the like can flow effortlessly from your fingertips, you're more likely to use them. Plus you're not expending your precious mental energy on the mechanics of typing out your ideas.

smohare 1y ago

[dead]

convolvatron 1y ago

you're right. but the ability, given a good idea, to spit out a substantial amount of code that compiles and basically runs in a single session removes alot of the consternation and back and forth in those discussions despite industry motion to the contrary, the truth is that we really can build anything we want. if we just weren't such cowards about it

saghm 1y ago
Do you find that typos are the biggest barrier to quickly writing code that compiles and runs in a single session? I'm an absolutely _atrocious_ typer (in terms of both speed and accuracy), and yet I still genuinely don't think that actual typing takes within an order of magnitude of the time it takes me to get out a quick prototype compared to debugging.

userbinator 1y ago

Try communicating with a coworker when the "I" in "IM" is closer to "wait several minutes while he hunts and pecks the next reply".

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]