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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

#32

> 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…

Looks like we overlapped in writing our comments. I'll leave mine, but I wanted to voice support for yours. I started at 8 y/o and have a similar "story". In particular, it sounds like your hands and mine do a lot of the same thing.

Anecdotally, I don't know anybody who types w/ a personalized style who has wrist RSI.

I absolutely adore doing "improvisational piano" terminal sessions w/ people watching, particularly when I'm operating a GUI or CLI that I know really well. I slow myself down by narrating and, if it's an in-person gig, gesturing. Doing stuff in front of people in realtime feels a lot like jamming on a musical instrument for me.

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

#33

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 wonder if it’s a bit better for your hands. I feel like having my pinkies just kind of hanging there while I type causes the nerves to atrophy.

Not a home row typer but I believe that's generally the idea; it's supposed to minimize the amount of travel. I learned to type home row for a brief period though and it just felt very uncomfortable, I never got used to it. It feels a lot more natural to me to let my hands linger around the keyboard, even when using a split ergo keyboard.

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

#34

> 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…

For me it was MERC flavored DikuMUDs. When you're fighting a strong boss and you need to communicate with your team, you gotta be able to issue commands to the server as well as carry a conversation with your teammates.

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

#35
It happens I just needed to hear this.

Have had a recent challenge I ran out of steam on and the suggestion of focusing on correctness not speed to achieve speed really helps.

Beat Saber, I am back!

(I am actually serious. It’s my quick upper-body-emphasis cardio, and running out of motivation due to a wall impacts my health! I play it with additional constraints, which I relaxed to get through maxed out challenges. But then hit a wall anyway. Realize I need to stay strict, and take the fails upfront!

The simple things we know, but somehow need reminding of at every level.)

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

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>I can't think of any benefit If you want to minimize the time it takes to travel to a particular key, it makes sense to keep your fingers at the "center of mass" of the keyboard... which is the home row.

Also f and j are marked and you can find them blindly

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

#38

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…

Learning to touch-type effortlessly is IMHO one of the most useful thing to learn, for anyone typing regularly, but especially for programmers. It doesn't have to be fast, but just fast (and automated) enough not to cause a bottleneck.

Unpopular opinion nowadays: This bottleneck is what makes needlessly verbose programming languages annoying. Having to wait for your fingers (or eyes) to catch up with your toughts tends to kill the flow.

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

#40

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…

When I was in the 8th grade (back in the 1900s), I took a typing elective class, because I figured if I was going to be in front of a keyboard typing for a living as a programmer, I should learn to do it right.

That was a rare very good decision for kid me back then, and it's paid off ever since.

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