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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

#41

Post by colanderman »

dawnofdusk wrote: post #15
colanderman wrote: post #7

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.

My fingers naturally rest on... (checks) Q-E-F-V N-J-I-P. That is, sort of like a V diagonal spanning the entire alphabetic region. Which coincidentally puts them on or 1 key away from every letter except X, Y and Z. But they move all over while I type anyway.

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

#42

Post by dylan604 »

jchw wrote: post #28
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…

I don't even come close to groking how one types without home row hand placement. How does that even work? Where are your hands if not starting at home row?

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

#45

Post by smithkl42 »

I don't know how well this holds out, but one thing I've noticed is that the very best developers I've worked with are all fast on the keyboard - not just fast at typing code or comments or emails or whatever, but they have all the keyboard shortcuts memorized, and they navigate through their IDE of choice faster than you can follow (even if you're a pretty good dev yourself).

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

#46

Post by dylan604 »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #18
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 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.

atrophy? if you're not using your pinkies, how are you hitting shift/enter or other keys like [,],=,/,\? (that's an actual question, not trying to escape the punctuation)

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

#47

Post by dawnofdusk »

jchw wrote: post #28
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…

Staying at home row is not really about ergonomics. The best thing you can do (without breaking the bank, i.e., no bespoke split keyboard setups) for your hand ergonomics at the computer is to get a vertical mouse and tilt your keyboard downwards and away from you (the opposite of what most keyboard feet do, which is tilt your keyboard up and towards you). Both of these keep your wrist neutral/in slight flexion, whereas the typical setup keep your wrists in constant extension which contributes to carpal tunnel.

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

#48

Post by nand_gate »

jchw wrote: post #28
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…

WASD is my home row, still 120-140.

I lowkey judge any developer who is noticable slow at typing as I can't imagine they're using a computer effectively at such a pace given how much keyboard hitting needs to occur during regular use alone.

Not that it's a high bar but I'm surprised more companies don't test wpm when hiring over rote crap like LC.

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

#49

Post by HideousKojima »

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…

My Mom got me Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing and other tools to help me to learn to type "correctly", but I didn't have any motivation to learn how to type until I started playing the original Starcraft online. I needed to be able to communicate with teammates (and trash talk opponents) in a timely manner, so I was forced to learn to type fast. But as a result, I also developed my own unorthodox style that looks a lot like hunt and peck.

On a typing test where they provide me with what to type I can consistently get 60+ WPM, but when I'm typing something from my head I'm pretty sure I get 100 to 120.

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

#50

Post by ashwinsundar »

I started using an ortholinear split keyboard last year, and that was a huge adjustment. I went from typing 100+wpm on a simple membrane keyboard, to less than half of that. I had to basically relearn typing just to accomodate the ortholinear layout, not to mention that the split layout meant I could no longer "cheat" and use my right hand to type keys on the left side of the keyboard when I was feeling lazy.

I did learn the "right" way to type through all this, and my speedhas stabilized at around 100 wpm. This is more than enough for pretty much any activity I do on the computer.

More importantly, however, my wrists no longer hurt from typing continously for 30 minutes. The small sacrifice in speed is definitely worth it in my opinion.

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