4 ms·
Does touch typing versus less than ten finger typing really make a difference if one is programming in a terse language (assembly language, APL, etc.)? Is touc
by 101914 12y ago
Does touch typing versus less than ten finger typing really make a difference if one is programming in a terse language (assembly language, APL, etc.)?
Is touch typing really the only true way to control the computer "lever"? Does that mean an office secretary who touch types uses a more powerful lever than an APL programmer who does not touch type?
If what we are doing with the computer lever is ultimately just manipulating _symbols_ (not long strings of verbose text like this comment), then the question I have is whether entering these these symbols using all ten fingers really makes a difference.
Touch typing is underrated, but certainly, with the requisite knowledge, there is a lot one can do with a computer "lever" without typing more than 30 wpm.
- collyw 12y agoMost decent IDE's or text editors have autocomplete, even the Unix shell has tab complete. Touch typing is overrated.
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoTry it before you knock it. I took typing class in high school. It was the best leverage class I ever took for my chosen career. I have seen it repeatedly: the colleague that doesn't want to make some change because its going to be too much typing. It creates a potential-energy hump many programmers are not willing to marshall the will to cross. So simple-to-conceive yet hard-to-type things don't get done.
- melling 12y agoYeah, touch typing can come in handy. Hopefully someday soon we will create a lever and we won't have to do computer input the hard way.
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoI imagine one day telling the grandkids "In my day, we had to press down on switches to talk to the computer. There was this board with 96 switches, and you put both hands on it and pushed them as fast as you could. I was pretty good at it!" and they willlaugh and say "Grandpa, stop kidding around, that's ridiculous!"
- collyw 12y agoI have a set of Dorvak stickers on my keyboard (I read it was easier to learn, and easier on your hands). I can touch type with that layout, but its just so much slower, and I find I am too busy concentrating on the typing, so its difficult to think about code.
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoThe typing class consisted of drills in common phrases, 30 iterations of a phrase at a time. It takes time. But its only once per lifetime; then you have it.
- kirse 12y agoFWIW, I regularly type without my pinkies (the left sees most use for Shift/Ctrl and some words with a/z) and can hit 110-140wpm for bursts, with 85-90wpm easily achievable for extended periods of time. I used to only be able to type about 55-60wpm in my high school typing class, but the thing that primarily sped me up over the years was learning piano. I'm sure practicing proper touch typing (or switching to Dvorak) would speed things up even further, but there's always the option of diversifying finger acrobatics into music.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- leephillips 12y agoIt may not make much difference in laying down the actual code, but it is still a valuable skill for the coder to acquire. If you can touch type you're more likely to write useful comments, documentation, and notes. I suspect the subconscious barrier to writing these small but essential bits of prose is larger in the non-typist. You'll write better commit messages, and will be more likely to turn your notes into online articles to share your code and ideas.
- Roboprog 12y agoYes, and autocomplete won't help on this. I would also argue that the touch typist is more likely to come up with names like rowIdx (row_idx), colIdx, rowLimit, colLimit, findMatchingRow(), rather than (always punting to) names like i, j, m, n, scan().
- danso 12y agoThis is a great, often-overlooked insight: when there is considerable friction in doing something, you will often not only be slower, but you will do something in a decidedly counterproductive fashion. So it's not always accurate to use the XKCD comic Is It Worth the Time? (http://xkcd.com/1205/ http://xkcd.com/1205/) as a metric...efficiency can't always be measured in seconds/minutes shaved * number of times action is performed...because when it's easy to do something, it's easy to explore...and also, it's easy to follow best practices. Of course, the other side of it is...even if something does result in a large number of minutes/seconds shaved, you have to consider the opportunity cost of you spending your time implementing an automated system...and at certain early stages in a startup lifecycle, that premature optimization time can be fatal.
- fractallyte 12y agoJust extrapolating: that highly abstract symbolic language/keyboard, combined with an agile mind (think 'Limitless' the movie) and 10-finger virtuosity, would be an incredible coding force... Not entirely unrealistic, I might add.