Typing 118 WPM broke my brain in the right ways • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by horsawlarway » Mon, Jun 02, 2025, 9:04 PM UTC

meta-level wrote: post #37

dawnofdusk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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

You can find lots of ways to orient yourself, though.

Space and Caps-lock are enough to orient me on any keyboard I've used for more than a minute or two. Space and Enter orient on the right hand.

Basically - if my left pinky is touching the line between caps lock and shift on the left side of those keys, and my thumb is touching the bottom of the space bar, I know exactly where my middle fingers are resting.

With the added bonus of not contorting my wrist and fingers into a very uncomfortable space.

I have very large hands, and the "Proper" finger placement would be a guaranteed RSI injury for me.

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

#52

Post by n42 » Mon, Jun 02, 2025, 9:05 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #42

jchw wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I’m not sure if this how other people do it but my hands sort of float around as I type rather than being fixed in one place. They gravitate towards home row but I was never trained “classically”. I type (peak) 140wpm.

my understanding of the homerow style is that you have a sort of assigned finger for each key. while I type, there is plenty of overlap between fingers and it's constantly adapting based on where my hands are currently vs resetting to one position

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

#53

Post by squigz » Mon, Jun 02, 2025, 9:05 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #42

jchw wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Home row is a reference, and once you get used to where your hands are relative to that reference point, it's pretty easy to hit the other keys. This can of course be a reference other than home row, like GP - although I think home row is simply the most logical place for it to be.

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

#54

Post by colanderman » Mon, Jun 02, 2025, 9:05 PM UTC

mattlondon wrote: post #21

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.

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

I also credit straight-wrist typing with having not developed any keyboard-related RSI symptoms over 33 years. (Mice, on the other hand! Gripping a mouse started to cause me crazy wrist pain 20 years ago. Been using a trackball ever since.)

Opposite to you though, I find "desktop" keys (or I should say, keys with travel) preferable to "laptop" keys. Bottoming out each key on every stroke on a Macbook for years started giving me weird typing-spelling issues (some sort of precursor to focal dystonia? dunno). Keys with long travel prevent that for me. (Or maybe it's just because that's what I learned on – Apple //e keyboard.)

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

#55

Post by tristor » Mon, Jun 02, 2025, 9:06 PM UTC

My typing speed has degraded over time. I used to type ~130wpm and now I'm closer to ~90wpm. Throughout that though, I've tried many different keyboard configurations to address growing issues with my hands and wrists and found something that worked for me. I struggle with frustration though that my typing speed is not as fast as it once was, and yet I still find coworkers surprised by how quickly I type. Typing fast really is a super-power if you're on a computer all day.

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

#56

Post by Molitor5901 » Mon, Jun 02, 2025, 9:07 PM UTC

I was rather proud of myself at 18 as I typed 110 wpm with two fingers. My hands always felt too big for keyboards and so I learned to type with two fingers and my thumbs on the spacebar. Overtime I just memorized the keyboard that way.. until my fingers started breaking down requiring double hand carpal tunnel surgery. That forced me to learn to type with all fingers, much slower, but I can at least type as fast as I think.

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

#57

Post by bee_rider » Mon, Jun 02, 2025, 9:07 PM UTC

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 sorta disagree, however fast you can type, the computer can manipulate text faster. Our brains are huge slow things. We should employ them at what they are good at, coming up with better abstractions and better frameworks.

The desire to type faster is a strong signal indicating that you need better macros.

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

#58

Post by squigz » Mon, Jun 02, 2025, 9:07 PM UTC

ashwinsundar wrote: post #50

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 l…

Yeah I switched to an ErgoDox after 15+ years of normal keyboards, and it was quite an adjustment. It took me at least a year just to feel comfortable, and another year to get back up to speed. Now, I'm the complete opposite - I tried typing on a normal keyboard a few weeks ago and was just as confused as when I first switched :)

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

#59

Post by wonger_ » Mon, Jun 02, 2025, 9:08 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #46

erikpukinskis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Not OP but I pivot my wrists and use my ring fingers. I always found it difficult to reach and press keys with my pinkie. Small hands, I guess? Does anyone else do this?

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

#60

Post by squigz » Mon, Jun 02, 2025, 9:09 PM UTC

smithkl42 wrote: post #45

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).

Why put more barriers (not knowing how to type, keyboard shortcuts, etc) between your thoughts and reality? :)