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Typing.io: Typing Practice for Programmers

typing.io

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Re: Typing.io: Typing Practice for Programmers

#21

Post by pioul »

I like how it can help dive into interesting open source code, as well as the look and feel of the app, but two things are holding me back:

- Like @padolsey, I do need some time to understand what I'm typing; I'm not sure practicing typing and learning from someone else's code are compatible

- More than code formatting, which has already been talked about, programming environments also have a direct impact on what characters need to be typed

So even though that tool stems from a blending of two great ideas (increasing code output, and learning from the best), I'm still pondering whether these two would be best left apart:

- Reading (and contributing to) someone else's code to learn from it

- Optimizing your coding environment to increase your output: great IDE/editor, clever shortcuts and auto-completion, custom snippets…

Re: Typing.io: Typing Practice for Programmers

#22

Post by jbcurtin2 »

This tool is perfect. - I'll recommend to you that you're marketing it all wrong. - I'd make this into a tech-interview/learn a new language site. Before I crack any book for any language, I download gists of the code and start typing it out.

Imagine, python/c the hard way in this? What is a namespace? What is an import? Inline explanations of what you're doing would go a long way.

Dare I say it, this could be the first Learning-Development-Enviornment I like. You're doing yourself more harm by only letting people use those 16 languages.

Re: Typing.io: Typing Practice for Programmers

#25

Post by peeters »

All this does is make me realize how much I take my IDE for granted. In no example that I tried did I even get past the first line before I missed using IDE autocomplete or shortcuts. It got under my skin that I had to type out each character.

Take the Scala example. I would NEVER type "@SerialVersionUID" with correct casing. I'd maybe type "@Ser" and then auto complete. Or "@SV" and then auto complete. I can't recall the last time I typed an entire type name. Or finished braces using Enter + "}" instead of CTRL-SHIFT-Enter.

The UI is well made though.

Re: Typing.io: Typing Practice for Programmers

#27

Post by pointernil »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #14

The problem is that nobody writes code like that (char by char, like prose). You often jump back and forth between statements and parens, and code from inside out.

... and thus some developer starts pondering an alternative editor for source code... usually culminating in a design of some sort of an "node" editor ;)

Seriously though, were there any useful ideas developed regarding code input besides code macros with variables? Any hints?

Re: Typing.io: Typing Practice for Programmers

#29

Post by dmnd »

teleclimber wrote: post #18
jreimers wrote: post #6

What's the motivation behind doing this exactly? Why not actually write some code to practice...writing code.

Their pricing page shows that it has what appears to be a nice set of features to actually help you get better (note to site owner: might be an idea to put this on the main page). Despite that I can't imagine myself typing code just for the sake of typing code. Seems to me this would make more sense as a plugin for an IDE. Watch my every keystroke as I do real work and show where I am constantly having to correct mys…

I'd definitely pay for a "typing analytics" addon to my OS, or maybe my editor, though I think that is needlessly restricting things. It depends if there are mistakes and advice that are specific to writing code versus just general typing.

Either way, it could watch for bad habits and common mistakes, show aggregating stats, etc.

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