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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

#111

Post by sevensor »

98codes wrote: post #40
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…

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.

Same. Can touch type accurately while maintaining eye contact during a meeting. Young people find it unnerving.

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

#112

Post by TZubiri »

nand_gate wrote: post #48
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…

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.

Small note, when programming, there's other keys involved which allow for hierarchical navigation (ctrl, alt tab, up/down/left/right keys), which adds both some technical challenges by broadening the keyset and cognitive challenges (but of course code itself is highly cognitive.

I try to avoid the mouse, but I usually queue (mentally) a lot of keypresses at max speed, while the only bottleneck is the loading speed of the computer.

For example: alt tab (change window to browser), fn+F5 (refresh website , Ctrl Shift (change brower tab), fn+f5, ctrl shift tab (back to original tab), alt tab (back to editor or command line), etc...

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

#113

Post by Macha »

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?

My left hand is on WASD which I suppose you could call home row and my right hand sits at KL;

So it's not too far from home row but definitely something more influenced by my gamer days than any formal typing lessons. Just tried a web based wpm test and got 90WPM at 95% accuracy. Used to be around 120WPM in my college days where I typed more essays, but these days typing speed isn't close to the bottleneck so not much need for faster typing and I guess it's atrophied some.

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

#114

Post by TZubiri »

DavidVoid wrote: post #93

This just makes me want to get back into learning stenography again. It requires a hell of a lot of practice, but being able to write at 200 WPM (without frantic finger movement) would be quite nice. Here's a demo/explainer at 200 WPM for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jVXrX5TDk4

Probably not very helpful for programming. At least yet, maybe if voice command lines like Alexa or MCP Agents advance you could run a Stenographer to voice like 100% faster than what you could achieve just by running text-to-speech. But also at that point you could just speak, I guess.

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

#115

Post by TZubiri »

matt_lo wrote: post #79

5 minutes of typeracer saves 1 hour of procrastination Typing fast is a way to unlock the brain. Anything past 90, you start to focus on exactly what is needed to type accurately with speed. I average around 106-130 (depending on recent races) for the past 15 years, and it's still one of the best ways to "get into dev mode" really quickly.

Playing a musical instrument also achieves this, it makes a game about the little things about the brain (an organ we all love), like sequencing, motor skills, etc..

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

#116

Post by TZubiri »

Pet_Ant wrote: post #76

I cannot get above 93% accuracy... on a good day. That really hampers my speed. I even switched layouts permanently to Dvorak before the pandemic in an effort to force myself to really drop all my bad habits but even in this comment I probably made close to two dozen typos unless I really concentrate.

I never touched Dvorak, I feel like it would hurt more than it would help, as I would often switch back to Qwerty, and I would confuse my brain.

A couple of recommendations on my end.

1- Go slower. (Then you can speed it up) 2- Try playing an instrument, or to a lesser extent, dancing.

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

#117

Post by ryandv »

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 am at least 99th percentile on typeracer. I wonder how much of these alleged LLM speedups are from people with low WPM and/or vim fluency.

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

#118

Post by convolvatron »

esseph wrote: post #77
nand_gate wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Typing fast may be the least important thing towards developing a well designed, long-lived product.

you're right. but the ability, given a good idea, to spit out a substantial amount of code that compiles and basically runs in a single session removes alot of the consternation and back and forth in those discussions

despite industry motion to the contrary, the truth is that we really can build anything we want. if we just weren't such cowards about it

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

#120

Post by Boogie_Man »

sevensor wrote: post #111
98codes wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Same. Can touch type accurately while maintaining eye contact during a meeting. Young people find it unnerving.

Just did this today. When people ask I tell them I'm a big Ray Charles fan.
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