Hey HN. I'm looking to develop my typing skill, but I've found breaking my "6 finger" habit difficult. Would love to know any tips or resources.
Currently on a Macbook Pro.
Ask HN: How did you learn to 10 finger type?
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Re: Ask HN: How did you learn to 10 finger type?
#2It's practice. And the most difficult part is the initial few days, where you get frustrated that you can look and type faster than you can touch type. The key is to push through that phase and keep practicing without reverting back to the old habits.
In terms of software I used Tipp10 - https://www.tipp10.com/en/download/. Nowadays I have found https://www.keybr.com/ as an excellent resource.
At the end of the day, you will need to keep practicing to get better at it. A little consistency will get you far! Don't spend money on fancy hardware until you get to a point where you feel that the hardware is slowing you down. (80wpm or more)
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn to 10 finger type?
#3I have seen a first person shooter game in the horror genre that presents a word or sentence to type as fast as you can against the clock or you take damage. Using ten fingers gives you an edge in the game and you learn while at play. Try to avoid developing bad habits leading to repeat strain injury. For example, the right wrist fast flick to reach the right shift key to capitalize the left hand keys.
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn to 10 finger type?
#4I went to typing school.
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn to 10 finger type?
#5Not what you’re asking for, but after developing RSI, I decided that I’m probably better off not learning 10-finger touch typing. Especially on a laptop keyboard there’s a risk involved.
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn to 10 finger type?
#6I went to a typewriter course in the 1970s as a teen. A couple of years before I saw the first computer.
The interesting question would be do you use "correct" 10 finger typing?
I don't. I use some 6-8 fingers mostly blindly. Actually I have to do it blindly because the keys E-R-T and U-I-O on my current keyboard are so worn off that I cannot read the letters anymore. So I take a bit of pride that I can type blindly and don't replace my keyboard:)
This works well as long as I don't think about it. But as soon as I start to look at the keyboard and think about it, especially R and T or I and O get difficult to get right.
Yes, some colleagues type faster than myself. But the correlation between a fast typist and productive programmer is not very high in my experience.
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn to 10 finger type?
#7I went to typing school.
Not a class, but a whole school? Wow. For how long did you attend?
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn to 10 finger type?
#8I achieved what proficiency I now possess by chatting with people on IRC, newsgroups, forums, and IM platforms in the 90s[0]. I took a typing class in high school on clicketyclack typewriters and was buzzing around 80-90wpm much to the chagrin of my instructor.
[0]relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/386/
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn to 10 finger type?
#9Re: Ask HN: How did you learn to 10 finger type?
#10I learned in ancient times in a high school class, on a physical typewriter, one character at a time. There were lots of rote exercises intended to teach my brain that pressing the key on a particular finger, displaced from the home row by a particular distance, would physically produce a particular character. Words only came later.
This resulted in my brain making a positional map of QWERTY, which not only makes ten-finger typing faster, but also two-finger and touchscreen typing.