It's easier with iPad if you only use three fingers of each hand.
Poll: Do you touch-type?
41–50 of 78 posts
Re: Poll: Do you touch-type?
#42I touch-type quickly but poorly, and it's because of my father.
I was ten years old, writing BASIC programs on a Tandy CoCo2 that someone gave me. My father saw that between chores I was spending inordinate amounts of time with my CoCo2 hooked up to the family TV. He told several times that I should type with all of my fingers.
Then one day he walked over to the TV and turned it off. He told me that unless I use all of my fingers, I wouldn't be allowed to use the computer anymore.
Re: Poll: Do you touch-type?
#43I learned to touch-type on a basic mechanic typewriter in the late 80s -- no electricity whatsoever, you had to hit the keys very hard to make it work. The teacher was an old style professional typist; she was almost able to hear each mistake (in a class of 20 people). There was a huge screen at the end of the classroom that showed a keybord; when the teacher would say "A" she would lit the letter up at the same time…
I learnt to type on mechanical typewriters too.
They force a rhythm, and it's that rhythm which is useful when you're trying to increase speed.
I don't touch type now because I find it uncomfortable. I use three fingers on each hand. I'm very accurate, but not very fast. About 80 wpm.
There are much better typing tutors than Mavis Beacon though!
Re: Poll: Do you touch-type?
#44I was taught to type in school. The class was boring, and the program (All The Right Type) was easy to fool by pasting in text, but 3 years of repetitive typing taught me how to type the right way. Definitely one of the most valuable classes I've ever taken - it's made everything I do on the computer so much easier.
Re: Poll: Do you touch-type?
#45Truthfully, I don't think 'proper' touchtyping is necessary, per se. I type without looking at the keys, but I only use - I think - three or four fingers of each hand, tops. No doubt proper touchtyping would be more natural for me had I learnt it from the beginning, but I haven't, and trying the proper way hurts my hands after a few hours. I'm able to keep up 100wpm with ease just by having typed a lot in my life. I…
Those exercises are just building muscle memory, so that when you get to complete sentences you don't have to look at the keyboard.
There's a niche in the market for a product that helps people unlearn poor habits and retrains them to use the correct method. (If those people want to. I agree that you have no need! I also find that my arms hurt if I use the correct method.)
Re: Poll: Do you touch-type?
#46I like http://keybr.com/
You can choose the French keyboard layout with this link. Thanks !
Re: Poll: Do you touch-type?
#47I typed the way that you're describing for years, but with my dissertation looming I decided that it wasn't good enough. Having tried and failed to pick up QWERTY touch-typing in the past (it was very easy to relapse into my non-touch style), I tried Colemak and it stuck. http://colemak.com/
Re: Poll: Do you touch-type?
#48I took a typing class in high school; it was probably the most useful course I took over the entire five years. It has paid for itself literally thousands of times over in increased productivity (my cruising speed is around 100-120 wpm). I'm with Steve Yegge: if you can't touch-type, your productivity will remain stuck under a pretty hard ceiling. http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/09/programmings-dirties...
I don't really agree with the Steve Yegge comment. When I am programming I spend upwards of 85% of the time thinking, not typing. As such I don't see how being at 80wpm (my sloppy sometimes-touch-sometimes-look typing speed) affects my productivity significantly.
Touch-typing isn't about WPM. It's about the fact that, once you're half-decent at it (and it only takes a few months) the fact that you're typing disappears. So you can write or code without even thinking about typing because the muscle memory turns your verbal thoughts into text.
Hunt-and-peck is more than fast enough (30-40 wpm for skilled hunt-and-peck typists) to crank out code but it's a lot easier to lose the state of "flow" and in programming, Flow is King.
Re: Poll: Do you touch-type?
#49i retrained myself to touch-type when i was 16. only thing it took was forcing myself to not type any other way, no matter how slow i ended up being. within a month or two i was typing at my previous speed. (and continued to improve from there. these days i type faster than almost anyone who isn't training for competitions) no tutorials, guides, books, teachers needed. just do it. ps: yes, those two months are painfu…
I have the same experience, but it took only a week or two to match my two-fingers speed. Talking for hours on IRC helped :)
Re: Poll: Do you touch-type?
#50I'd recommend gtypist, if you're a CLI lover. A few minutes everyday of self-paced deliberate practice should get you touch typing in a matter of days.