3 ms·

I can totally relate to her thing about typing. I've been coding professionally for nearly 20 years and can't type for shit. My theory is that typing code is no

I can totally relate to her thing about typing. I've been coding professionally for nearly 20 years and can't type for shit. My theory is that typing code is not like typing words in sentences in paragraphs in [whatever]. Code is not structured the same (not always "word [space] word [space] word [punctuation]"). Code is not as linear as an email or story (well.. not the same kind of linear anyway). Code uses a totally different ratio of symbols/numbers/letters/etc (I type more dollar signs and under_scores in a day at work than in a whole month not at work). Well... that is my theory anyway.

finnh 13y ago
I've noticed this myself as well, with a similar timeframe. In college, right when I started coding, I would regularly type up a 8-10 page paper (for non-CS assignments), find 2 typos in spell check, and then just ... turn it in. No grammar snafus, no syntactic boo-boos, no problems at all. Nowadays even a short email can't measure up. I think it's because I edit code much more "interactively" than I used to write prose: editing a previous line as I think through the current one, deciding to change a variable name or edit a loop construct or what-have-you. That habit has transferred to writing prose, and I think it's for the worse. Rather than having a complete sentence planned out before I start it, I find myself getting partway through and then thinking "huh, I'd rather rephrase the beginning like so". And so I change the beginning and go back to the end, but often a conjunction or phrase-transition gets messed up in the middle and I don't notice it. EDIT: typo!
- fold 13y ago
  I do this all the time on anything longer than a couple sentences.
  - yannis 13y ago
    You can both benefit from adopting the Halmo's Spiral technique http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/36521/963 http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/36521/963.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
gruseom 13y ago
My theory is that when typing code, I'm thinking entirely about the code and have no attention left to spend on how I'm typing it. I end up with countless typos that I have to backspace and type over again, often adding more typos in the process, yet doing it that way somehow preserves my focus much better than being careful with the keys does.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
jenniferDewalt 13y ago
I am really glad I am not the only one who has experienced this! It really has been a strange and annoying phenomenon.
zodiac 13y ago
For this very reason, I used to map my right Alt key (alt-gr) so that, for example, alt-gr + e was left parenthesis

finnh 13y ago

I've noticed this myself as well, with a similar timeframe. In college, right when I started coding, I would regularly type up a 8-10 page paper (for non-CS assignments), find 2 typos in spell check, and then just ... turn it in. No grammar snafus, no syntactic boo-boos, no problems at all. Nowadays even a short email can't measure up. I think it's because I edit code much more "interactively" than I used to write prose: editing a previous line as I think through the current one, deciding to change a variable name or edit a loop construct or what-have-you. That habit has transferred to writing prose, and I think it's for the worse. Rather than having a complete sentence planned out before I start it, I find myself getting partway through and then thinking "huh, I'd rather rephrase the beginning like so". And so I change the beginning and go back to the end, but often a conjunction or phrase-transition gets messed up in the middle and I don't notice it. EDIT: typo!

fold 13y ago
I do this all the time on anything longer than a couple sentences.
- yannis 13y ago
  You can both benefit from adopting the Halmo's Spiral technique http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/36521/963 http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/36521/963.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

gruseom 13y ago

My theory is that when typing code, I'm thinking entirely about the code and have no attention left to spend on how I'm typing it. I end up with countless typos that I have to backspace and type over again, often adding more typos in the process, yet doing it that way somehow preserves my focus much better than being careful with the keys does.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

jenniferDewalt 13y ago

I am really glad I am not the only one who has experienced this! It really has been a strange and annoying phenomenon.

zodiac 13y ago

For this very reason, I used to map my right Alt key (alt-gr) so that, for example, alt-gr + e was left parenthesis