I would be careful to extensively deliver my typing pattern over a non-https website because this is a known way to profile people online and later identify them.
Typing Practice for Programmers
151–160 of 172 posts
Re: Typing Practice for Programmers
#152Coding by typing fast never seems like a great idea for me. Isn't there a saying "weeks of programming can save hours of planning". Plus a decent IDE will eliminate the need for this type of thing.
1. I have found, when you know what the next word is, that there is a typing-speed line that if you are above, just typing the thing is faster than using IDE autocomplete. It also disrupts your flow less. I am convinced, although only based on anecdotal evidence, that a lot of the vim/other-editor vs IDE debate is significantly based on how fast you can type. 2. There are a significant number of programming tasks whe…
That typing-speed line is pretty darn high unless you use exceptionally terse identifiers. My English typing speed is around 85wpm and a good IDE's autocomplete is still significantly faster than typing out identifiers longhand.
Re: Typing Practice for Programmers
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
I switched to a variation on Colemak because I had used qwerty so long touch typing with left hand and pointer/ring only on the right that it was uncomfortable trying to learn to touch type from the home row.
I'm hesitant to take up any of those because not being able to use other computers seems like too much of an impediment.
I switched from QWERTY to Colemak about two years ago. When I had first gotten fully adapted to Colemak, and my typing speed in Colemak got up close to where my QWERTY speed had formerly been, my QWERTY speed took a big hit (down from 80 WPM to around 20 WPM). But now, two years on, I can touch-type QWERTY fast-enough (around 60 WPM). I kind of have to establish for myself a QWERTY context by starting to type while looking at the keyboard.
Re: Typing Practice for Programmers
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good, these are perfect indicators that I don't want to work with these people anyway.
It depends on whether the interviewee is using a piece of software that they claim to know. If they're calling themselves a senior dev and they use the mouse to select "save" instead of using ctrl+s, then I probably won't hire them. On the other hand, if they're doing a coding test in Linux and they claim no CLI experience, they won't lose any marks at all for asking how to launch a text editor.
I struggle when using my colleague's Mac, using the same IDE as my own machine. Mainly because the keyboard layout is different.
Re: Typing Practice for Programmers
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Slow IDE, slow compilation, spotty Internet force you to wait and captures your attention. Slow typing doesn't capture your attention, if you touch-type. Your hands are typing while you go on thinking. If you get to the point where typing is the bottleneck you are not thinking enough and you should be working on some more difficult problem instead.
Typing can be the bottleneck because your thoughts get too far ahead of your fingers. You can only hold so much in your head, so getting the code out into the editor as quickly as possible allows you to free up some short-term memory.
A pen and paper works wonders for me. If I have a moderately complex algorithm then I usually write / draw a diagram representing how it works before trying to code it.
Re: Typing Practice for Programmers
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, this doesn't seem helpful at all. Rarely am I typing the entire program without any autocompletion and intellisense based assists.
Those generally complete identifiers, not the various symbols like "->" "*" "&" "{" etc... So I think the parent's point is still valid. If anything autocompletion increases the symbol-to-letter typing ratio.
I use snippets, expanders, zen mode etc. Lots of people do too. Typing has never been the issue for programming really.
Re: Typing Practice for Programmers
#157In my opinion there's no better practice than playing Typing of the Dead. If losing in a game irks you even a little you'll definitely improve your typing speed by playing if your current speed is slow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jslf5hJMtvs
Epistory: Typing Chronicles is another fairly recently released great indie typing game that even runs on Linux and supports layouts other than QWERTY such as COLEMAK and DVORAK.
Re: Typing Practice for Programmers
#158In my opinion there's no better practice than playing Typing of the Dead. If losing in a game irks you even a little you'll definitely improve your typing speed by playing if your current speed is slow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jslf5hJMtvs
Epistory: Typing Chronicles is another fairly recently released great indie typing game that even runs on Linux and supports layouts other than QWERTY such as COLEMAK and DVORAK. http://store.steampowered.com/app/398850/
What blew my mind with the site in the post, and what Typing of the Dead lacks, is that it shows you which fingers to use to type. I never before realized that in all my 15 years of typing, I only use my index and middle fingers. I'm going to use this site to train myself to type using all my fingers instead, which I'm fairly confident will lead to a speed and accuracy boost.
Re: Typing Practice for Programmers
#159I don't feel that I need it but I thought I'd give it an honest try and follow the instructions. I never realized it but when it comes to curly braces and other keys in that corner "{ [ ] } \". I would take my hand off and use my ring and middle finger. Therefore I was under utilizing my pinky. I also noticed that I tended to use the same shift key for all the letters resulting in weird contortions of my hand.
Doing a quick 1 minute typing test comes up at 90 wpm. However programming, with all the mistakes from jumping around I think brings me down a lot more than this. So I found it surprisingly useful.