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Ask HN: Best way to increase typing speed?

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Re: Ask HN: Best way to increase typing speed?

#71

Post by shostack »

soared wrote: post #67

A lot of high effort responses here (practice, training, new keyboards, etc). Everyone I know learned to type very fast by pc gaming MMOs. WoW or other games force you to ‘practice’ a few hours a day, get extremely in tune with your keyboard, type the same few sentences thousands of times, and type short sentences extremely quickly. Short term a wow addiction is bad for your life, but you do gain exceptional keyboard…

This. Gemstone III and Dragonrealms and countless other MUDs when I was younger got me around 90wpm at near 100% accuracy. It is shocking how fast you improve when you are in combat against multiple critters and need to micromanage your attacks.

Incidentally, scripting for Dragonrealms was one of my first memories of really hacking together somewhat complex logic for travel and skill training.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to increase typing speed?

#72

Post by muzani »

ebg13 wrote: post #15

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing? Play a MUD?

I've played MUDs for decades. Spamming "k monster", "st", and "i" doesn't really make you faster at typing anything other than those letters. I'd still miss frequently on ; {} () and [], as well as capital letters. It'll train your skill writing macros more than typing.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to increase typing speed?

#74

Post by nefitty »

muzani wrote: post #73

keybr seems to be the best resource for me. It tracks what you're doing wrong and gives you buttons around that. There's less fluff and gamification. You can also practice punctuation, whuch is where many programmers have trouble.

https://typing.io was made specifically for programmers. It has helped me increase my accuracy and speed.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to increase typing speed?

#75

Post by muzani »

nefitty wrote: post #74
muzani wrote: post #73

keybr seems to be the best resource for me. It tracks what you're doing wrong and gives you buttons around that. There's less fluff and gamification. You can also practice punctuation, whuch is where many programmers have trouble.

https://typing.io was made specifically for programmers. It has helped me increase my accuracy and speed.

I tried that, but unlike keybr, it doesn't focus enough on my weaknesses. The programmer context also makes me uneasy because it messes with my autocomplete muscle memory.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to increase typing speed?

#76

Post by CyberFonic »

Learn to touch type. Don't look at the keyboard, just read what you are typing. Some touch typing tutors are good for the exercises. Just like learning the scales on a piano.

I do a lot of sysadmin work so I stick with QWERTY layout because it is everywhere. I did try Dvorak and split keyboards, didn't find any speed gain. Probably due to the fact that I learnt to touch type QWERTY on typewriters without white-out.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to increase typing speed?

#77

Post by dempedempe »

Mapping backspace to right command and swapping ';' and RET have been a complete game changer for me.

Most people don't think about the cost the extra 300 ms it takes to hit the regular backspace key, but given the frequency that you use it, it really adds up. Ditto for RET. Try it. And read this XKCD comic: https://xkcd.com/1205/

Re: Ask HN: Best way to increase typing speed?

#78

Post by _5659 »

Practice practice practice.

More obviously, you can't type faster than you can think. Take the effort to prepare your thoughts. Develop a flow for your stream of consciousness. Typing on the fly requires a kind of cadence and rhythm that only comes with developing a proper form.

Honestly best advice is just get a keyboard you're comfortable with. I'm quite fond of my WASD keyboard. The sticky keys on my MacBook Pro just don't cut it.

I learned through doing runs of Mario Teaches Typing so fast that the computer struggled to render frames.

My typing speed's gone down, substantially over the years. I think that's a good thing. I think slower. I pause before I speak. I try to say more with less words. I've also picked up a weird habit of using only my index finger for my right hand but my WPM is still around 100.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to increase typing speed?

#79

Post by Symbiote »

throwaway12757 wrote: post #3

I got a lot better and faster at typing when I switched to a das keyboard without key labels. It forced me to learn and not rely on looking down at the keys. 10/10 would recommend.. also it stops noobs from using your box.

Just put a towel or whatever over the keyboard / hands while practising.

That way, when you're using the mouse and just need to press "#" you can glance at the keyboard to do so.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to increase typing speed?

#80

Post by SuperPaintMan »

JCharante wrote: post #48

Are there any competitive typers here? I touch type around 105 WPM, peaking sometimes at 140. I'd like to get faster into the range of 200-300 as I see other people typing at on leaderboards, but I don't know what I should do. Should I switch away from QWERTY? Should I use a different type of keyboard? Should I be doing any mental tricks or is it just raw practice?

You should be using steno or some kind of briefing system. I hang out in the plover discord and bunch of the people there are over 150 on a slow day.

Just need to ditch character based input, it's not easy though.

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