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Typing 118 WPM broke my brain in the right ways

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Re: Typing 118 WPM broke my brain in the right ways

#21

Post by mattlondon »

colanderman wrote: post #7
JohnMakin wrote: post #4

> Plot twist: I don't type "correctly" at all. My fingers just go wherever they want. It's like anarchist typing. My left pinky probably hasn't touched the 'A' key in months, but somehow I'm still in the 99.5 percentile. Turns out the "proper way" is just a suggestion. Like following PEP 8 or using semicolons in JavaScript. Sure, it's nice, but if your way works better, who cares? This is super interesting - I have t…

I also type unorthodoxly and quickly. Hands held diagonal (wrists straight), no particular finger-letter assignments. Closer to playing a piano. 33 years typing like this, going strong. I can't think of any benefit of home row typing other than it's easy to teach in a prescriptive manner.

Same here with diagonal hands and straight wrists. I sometimes wonder "why" I haven't got RSI but I assume it is because typing the "wrong way" allows you to keep your hands in a natural comfortable position, rather than the awkward positioning for wrists elbows shoulders and fingers required to do it the "right way".

That and chiclet keyboards being so much more comfortable to use than big chunky keys

Re: Typing 118 WPM broke my brain in the right ways

#22

Post by kccqzy »

dawnofdusk wrote: post #11

Typing fast is an underrated skill for developers. A lot of the value added by various intelligent tab completion and LLMs is easily replicated by typing variable and function names at 100+ wpm. Not a fan, however, of the desire to disparage the "right" way of doing things that's done in this blog. I type the "proper" way, home row and all, and can reach 150+wpm with high accuracy. So, based on this evidence, you're…

I also never learned the proper way of typing with home rows and all. And like the article author I also type at 100wpm. It's sufficient for me. I now need to try the author's suggestion of just typing as a therapeutic session. I suspect ~100wpm is enough for this therapeutic purpose whereas 60wpm isn't.

Re: Typing 118 WPM broke my brain in the right ways

#23

Post by unnamed76ri »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #5

> No home row bullshit. No "proper finger placement." Just pure, chaotic rhythm. This is me too. I've been a "high speed hunt and peck" typist since I starting using computers in 1985. I highly recommend it. Being able to type fast does make computers vastly more enjoyable to use. Using computers every day was all the practice I needed to make me type faster. IRC and AIM in the 90s/00s were the big drivers for fast t…

My typing class was one of the first in my school to use computers. Honestly we were probably a couple years behind other schools in this regard. I can still remember some of the students breaking down in tears because up until that point in their lives, they’d never touched a computer. These were high schoolers around 1997 or so.

Re: Typing 118 WPM broke my brain in the right ways

#24

Post by hx8 »

dawnofdusk wrote: post #11

Typing fast is an underrated skill for developers. A lot of the value added by various intelligent tab completion and LLMs is easily replicated by typing variable and function names at 100+ wpm. Not a fan, however, of the desire to disparage the "right" way of doing things that's done in this blog. I type the "proper" way, home row and all, and can reach 150+wpm with high accuracy. So, based on this evidence, you're…

My goal has always been to type as fast as I can think, and if I need to move a lot of text around in a dumb way to use tools to help. Vim commands, text macros, refactor tools, formatters, etc. I type at about 90wpm, but when actively developing rarely go above 65.

Re: Typing 118 WPM broke my brain in the right ways

#25

Post by jimbob45 »

dawnofdusk wrote: post #11

Typing fast is an underrated skill for developers. A lot of the value added by various intelligent tab completion and LLMs is easily replicated by typing variable and function names at 100+ wpm. Not a fan, however, of the desire to disparage the "right" way of doing things that's done in this blog. I type the "proper" way, home row and all, and can reach 150+wpm with high accuracy. So, based on this evidence, you're…

The only time typing speed has helped me is when people try to gish gallop me when I’m messaging them and I’m able to gish right back faster than they can respond. That’s…not exactly healthy though.

Re: Typing 118 WPM broke my brain in the right ways

#28

Post by jchw »

dawnofdusk wrote: post #11

Typing fast is an underrated skill for developers. A lot of the value added by various intelligent tab completion and LLMs is easily replicated by typing variable and function names at 100+ wpm. Not a fan, however, of the desire to disparage the "right" way of doing things that's done in this blog. I type the "proper" way, home row and all, and can reach 150+wpm with high accuracy. So, based on this evidence, you're…

I used to type >140 WPM at high accuracy when I was younger without home row. These days I think I likely sit closer to 90 WPM or so, since I really just don't really need to type super fast very often and am pretty out of practice. I reckon home row is probably not terrible or anything, but like a lot of weird old ergonomics advice, I just don't trust the idea that you must or possibly even should use home row. For example, the best advice regarding ergonomics I've ever had is not to have proper posture at all times, but rather to get up more frequently and not sit in the same position for too long. Likewise, it feels a lot more natural to let my hands move around a bit, and as it would turn out my mouse arm is the one that wound up having more discomfort from long term computer usage. So clearly, YMMV. But a lot of us who didn't do home row are confused; some people will go as far as to say it's literally wrong not to, and I say, burden of proof is on you all.

Re: Typing 118 WPM broke my brain in the right ways

#30

Post by horsawlarway »

colanderman wrote: post #7
JohnMakin wrote: post #4

> Plot twist: I don't type "correctly" at all. My fingers just go wherever they want. It's like anarchist typing. My left pinky probably hasn't touched the 'A' key in months, but somehow I'm still in the 99.5 percentile. Turns out the "proper way" is just a suggestion. Like following PEP 8 or using semicolons in JavaScript. Sure, it's nice, but if your way works better, who cares? This is super interesting - I have t…

I also type unorthodoxly and quickly. Hands held diagonal (wrists straight), no particular finger-letter assignments. Closer to playing a piano. 33 years typing like this, going strong. I can't think of any benefit of home row typing other than it's easy to teach in a prescriptive manner.

Similar here.

I grew up playing multiplayer games on PC, and my natural resting spots sound similar to yours: straight wrists, left hand defaults closer to a-w-d than a-s-d-f.

I avoid most pinky use outside of modifier keys, and there aren't strict finger-letter assignments. Middle of the keyboard gets hit by whatever hand makes it more likely to alternate nicely while typing a word.

Main benefit I see is that I know a lot of folks my age now complaining of RSI when typing, and I don't seem to have any of that (mouse related - yes, keyboard - no).

Funny since I didn't really make much association, but I also was learning to play piano at the same time I was learning to type.

Gaming was a lot more of an incentive to learn how to type quickly back in the days where you could only communicate with text chat.

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