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Typing Practice for Programmers

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Re: Typing Practice for Programmers

#121

Post by melling »

thomasahle wrote: post #48
melling wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why you use good tools. You select a region of code then reindent the entire region, right? Not line by line? You refactor a variable name in all places with one command, not individually. It's possible that typing is a bottleneck, but I bet if you calculated your actual keystrokes, you'd find that it's very few words per minute.

You don't type most of the time, but once you identify a few lines that need to be written or rewritten, it's useful to be able to at least type without conscious thought, so you can keep focus on the high level structure.

Absolutely no one said that you shouldn't learn how to type.

The point is that you shouldn't need to be particularly fast.

Re: Typing Practice for Programmers

#122

Post by crispinb »

macintux wrote: post #118
crispinb wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt there's a very significant productivity advantage to typing fast. But there seem to be a couple of advantages to practising fluid touch-typing: (1) the more automatically you type, the more your thinking as you type is in chunks larger than mere characters. To me at least this feels like text input is less of an interruption to the thinking I had been doing just before typing (2) I find it to be quite a handy…

About 25 (sigh) years ago, I worked alongside a former journalist. Listening to him type was awe-inspiring. I could type reasonably fast, but where I typed in words, he typed in complete sentences. Machine-gun. I think there's something to the idea that typing faster could help you think faster when it comes to text, but not sure it applies to software development.

Perhaps, but that's not what I meant. It's not the speed, it's the automaticity. The more automatic the typing, the less of a mental context switch there is when moving from merely thinking to thinking + entering text. I wouldn't want to over egg this. It's a small thing, but a little focused practise seems to keep my typing more automatic and thus out of my way.

Re: Typing Practice for Programmers

#123

Post by wallace_f »

chjohasbrouck wrote: post #84
quotemstr wrote: post #55

Programming is a unique field: if you're doing it right, it should never be dull. Frustrating? Draining? Rage-inducing? Sometimes. But not mind-numbing. Why? Because we can build our own tools. If we find ourselves doing repetitive work, we can build a tool to automate that work. This automation is itself likely at least somewhat interesting. What isn't repetitive and that can't be automated should be interesting as…

This is why no matter how much sense it makes to use something like vim or emacs as your primary development editor, I could never justify the amount of time it would take me to actually be totally comfortable and start seeing benefits (beyond just using it for small quick edits at the command line). Typing speed is never the bottleneck. You could double most developers' typing speed when they code and it'd probably…

I'm just curious what code editor do you use right now?

Re: Typing Practice for Programmers

#124

Post by tacon »

quotemstr wrote: post #55

Programming is a unique field: if you're doing it right, it should never be dull. Frustrating? Draining? Rage-inducing? Sometimes. But not mind-numbing. Why? Because we can build our own tools. If we find ourselves doing repetitive work, we can build a tool to automate that work. This automation is itself likely at least somewhat interesting. What isn't repetitive and that can't be automated should be interesting as…

From the preface of The Productive Programmer[0] by Neal Ford:

"Many years ago, I taught training classes for experienced developers who were learning new technologies (like Java). The disparity between the productivity of the students always struck me: some were orders of magnitude more effective. And I don’t mean in the tool they were using: I mean in their general interaction with the computer. I used to make a joke to a few of my colleagues that some of the people in the class weren’t running their computers, they were walking them. Following a logical conclusion, that made me question my own productivity. Am I getting the most efficient use out of the computer I’m running (or walking)?"

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Productive-Programmer-Theory-Practice...

Re: Typing Practice for Programmers

#125

Post by vacri »

paulddraper wrote: post #95
quotemstr wrote: post #55

Programming is a unique field: if you're doing it right, it should never be dull. Frustrating? Draining? Rage-inducing? Sometimes. But not mind-numbing. Why? Because we can build our own tools. If we find ourselves doing repetitive work, we can build a tool to automate that work. This automation is itself likely at least somewhat interesting. What isn't repetitive and that can't be automated should be interesting as…

I'm awful at typing. My friends make fun of my rapid chicken-pecking. I shrug and say I don't type enough to mind.

I encourage you to drink heavily. A friend of mine learned to touch-type because he came in to work hung over too many times, and felt queasy switching between looking at keyboard and screen... so it made him learn to touch-type...

Re: Typing Practice for Programmers

#126

Post by echelon »

I knew what the title meant when I first read it, but for a second I hoped this was an article or interactive tool to help engineers come up with better names for types and better type abstractions.

Re: Typing Practice for Programmers

#127

Post by lytol »

markestefanos wrote: post #119

If I can touch type at around 80 WMP with 95% accuracy, but I'm not using the 'correct' finger arrangement, is it worth relearning?

Depends. Do you ever have to look down at the keyboard? If so, then you really should learn to touch type. If you can fluently type without ever looking down, it would probably be a low return on the investment. The only caveat would be RSI-related issues, but I'm really not qualified to opine there.

Re: Typing Practice for Programmers

#128

Post by Stratoscope »

analog31 wrote: post #49

If I type more, I make more bugs. But my mom made me take a typing course, the summer before high school, i.e., in 1978. It has had an unexpected benefit, years later: I suffer from eyestrain headaches when I stare at a computer screen for a long time. I can type very fast, including all of the numbers and symbols, but if I slow down just a tiny bit, then I can type quite accurately. As a result, I can type long stre…

It may do you a world of good to see an optometrist and get a pair of single vision (not progressive) prescription lenses adjusted so you see clearly at the distance to your computer screen.

If you use a laptop, bring it with you. If you use a desktop with external monitor, measure the distance from your eyes to the screen.

But if you are currently doing something like getting up close to the display and squinting so you can see it better, don't do that. Instead, pick a distance that would be comfortable if you could see clearly at that distance.

For typical laptop use, this is probably around 20". Maybe a couple of inches farther for a desktop monitor, but measure to be sure. If you use both, maybe stick with the laptop distance since you can position your desktop monitor at the same distance.

Don't ask for a "reading" prescription: that is typically around 16", much too close for most computer use.

Once you know the distance, your optometrist can make a prescription adjusted perfectly for that distance, and you can try out the prescription on the spot with their collection of test lenses.

I avoided doing this for years. I thought I just wasn't the kind of person who needed glasses. Turned out I was, and it was such a relief for my eyes when I could see my screen with no strain.

Re: Typing Practice for Programmers

#129

Post by mherrmann »

pitaj wrote: post #51
mherrmann wrote: post #45

For anybody learning to touch type, I highly recommend looking at alternative keyboard layouts. I use QFMLWY, which reduces typing effort by 43% in comparison to QWERTY (for some measure of "effort") [1]. It greatly reduced my wrist pain, and just feels much "lighter" to type. [1]: http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization

I feel like learning a non-qwerty layout would make it difficult to switch between computers. What has your experience been? Is QFMLWY supported on pretty much every device? How does it compare to Dvorak?

That's a valid point. I now can't touch type on QWERTY keyboards anymore (but mostly because I never have to). Setting up QFMLWY requires special setup that is more difficult than "select the layout from the System Preferences". I'm certain it outperforms Dvorak, but I'm not sure by how much.

Re: Typing Practice for Programmers

#130

Post by mherrmann »

mmel wrote: post #67
mherrmann wrote: post #45

For anybody learning to touch type, I highly recommend looking at alternative keyboard layouts. I use QFMLWY, which reduces typing effort by 43% in comparison to QWERTY (for some measure of "effort") [1]. It greatly reduced my wrist pain, and just feels much "lighter" to type. [1]: http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization

I used left-handed dvorak for a while while my right hand was broken, and used colemak at home, but I reverted to QWERTY after realising I have to work with other people. Other people use my computers, and I use other peoples computers. Having to remember to switch maps before letting someone start typing at my computer, or having to cognitively switch back and forth between layouts whenever I used anothers wore thin…

You're right - I'm A).
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