181–190 of 233 posts
I'm all for bad form. Playing MMOs broke me and I type probably 75% of the keyboard with my left hand (gotta keep on the mouse!)
In the same vein, I credit playing original WoW on a PvP server for much of my ability to type quickly. Can’t be sitting there pecking out a message for too long when there’s undead rogues lurking!
Wow, Today I Learned that every commenter on HN types over 100 wpm (which is probably around 2-3 standard deviations faster than the mean). Here I thought I was fast at 70. I picked up a bad early habit of not using my right ring and pinky fingers, so I unfortunately only use 8 fingers. My typing is still faster than my thinking, though so I've never felt the need to race any faster.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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, wher…
I wasn't getting RSI per se, more like my arms were fatigued after a day of development. I did the pricey split keyboard thing. One advantage there is that my vertical mouse sits between the keyboard halves which means I don't have to "reach around" to grip it which has saved a whole bunch of muscle movement.
When I started learning Colemak-DH, my QWERTY WPM was about 45. QWERTY was never a well-designed layout, but I wonder how much of it came down to actually relearning how to type with the right fingers. Within a couple months, my Colemak was 95 WPM, while my QWERTY is now <15 WPM.
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…
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, wher…
I've used computers since early childhood, but I never learned the proper technique. One day, I simply noticed I couldn't type a non-trivial text without significant pain. When I started learning Colemak-DH, my QWERTY WPM was about 45. QWERTY was never a well-designed layout, but I wonder how much of it came down to actually relearning how to type with the right fingers. Within a couple months, my Colemak was 95 WPM,…
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…
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 contrapositive of this is that, if you don't type at 100+ wpm, intelligent tab completion and LLMs add a lot of value you wouldn't otherwise get. Most of us don't, so this ends up being a vote in favor of the AI.
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 don't think I could Mimik a LLM. But I'm prompting fast so that helps