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Practice typing for Code

typing.lk

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Re: Practice typing for Code

#31

Post by Cushman »

nicpottier wrote: post #28

This is quite well done, nice work! One thing is I was constantly expecting that I could start typing the phrases instead of typing 'enter' first to begin. I think it seems more obvious to just let people hit the first key in the sequence to start the timer. I don't think I'm unique in this but I'm actually a horrible typist 'by the book'.. that is I use my index fingers for probably 75% of my typing. It was interest…

I've done exactly that: I was at ~100wpm with "advanced hunt and peck", and decided to learn touch-typing in Dvorak to "do it properly".

I type a little slower now, and my hands feel pretty much the same, but it makes my computer that much harder for other people to use so I'm calling it a win.

It's actually pretty fascinating, though— I can still type blind with speed in either layout, but the process is completely different. I know the location of an arbitrary key in QWERTY, but I'm not sure I could actually give you the Dvorak layout without putting my hands together. I don't use Dvorak keycaps, which might have something to do with it— on one of my laptops I actually rearranged the keys to be accurate to neither. I don't like it when other people use my computers, and I like that experience to be mutual :)

Re: Practice typing for Code

#32

Post by flexd »

This is great, but I am horrible! I do not touch type at all but I am a fairly fast writer. My left hand uses a few more fingers but I mainly use my index finger, and my left hand is kind of permanently kept on wasd... which is a dead giveaway I suppose. Looking forward to using this to actually learn how to touch type.

It's kind of ridiculous I haven't already to be honest, even if I've never had any troubles with sore wrists or anything like that.

Re: Practice typing for Code

#33

Post by arunoda »

thameera wrote: post #14
fredsted wrote: post #11

I found it hugely annoying that I couldn't just start, that I had to press "Enter" first. I don't know why that is necessary and I wish the author didn't force us to do this. Otherwise, very nice job.

We will be adding an Options panel soon, and we'll make it possible to opt for this. Thanks!

You can have a big start-typing button at the home page (initially). But when we select a lesson from the select box or retrying a lesson, it would be great if we could able to start typing immediately.

Re: Practice typing for Code

#34

Post by nerdfiles »

I call dibs on the (Whole) language acquisition app.

- It should [syzygy](http://journal.webscience.org/491/) search the Web for ideal-phrase candidates (linguistic constructs which conform to Whole language teaching practices) from an array of languages.

- It should intuitively accept as input, that said, hypernyms, undernyms, synonyms, vernacularisms, idiomatic alternatives for morphological units.

- It should present alternative typesettings, including notational fonts and dyslexic fonts (like AlphaSymbolic and OpenDyslexic).

- It should have an Easter egg where the scales of music are present for piano.

And actually, this all fits roundly into my project, Poemtrii. Thanks HN:.

Re: Practice typing for Code

#35

Post by bliker »

beyti wrote: post #22
wazari972 wrote: post #2

looks quite interesting, but it appears that there is no way to switch the keyboard layout, that not easy to 'see' the key they highlight, and press it somewhere else!

non-us keyboard layouts missing, since that, no way to use a semicolon after "l" is that way in my kb.

I was coding in no-US keyboard for a while. But switching to US was very helpful for me. I think special characters in most languages are arranged to be efficient on US keyboards. So take your time to switch and relearn. It will help in long run.

Re: Practice typing for Code

#36

Post by GhotiFish »

thameera wrote: post #14
fredsted wrote: post #11

I found it hugely annoying that I couldn't just start, that I had to press "Enter" first. I don't know why that is necessary and I wish the author didn't force us to do this. Otherwise, very nice job.

We will be adding an Options panel soon, and we'll make it possible to opt for this. Thanks!

Smart defaults. Requiring enter to start is not smart. It just isn't. Sorry.

Re: Practice typing for Code

#37

Post by UnoriginalGuy »

I never understood the obsession with coding speed. There seems to be a lot of people who claim a modest change in input speed is a massive productivity change to them (and how they justify their dedication to their preferred editor/UI/keyboard/language/et al).

I might be an edge case, but when I "code" the minority of the work is actually writing source code. The majority is research/thinking/copy+pasta/et al.

When I do write source code I guess it doesn't hurt if it is fast, but considering how little time I spend actually doing it it doesn't seem as important as other things.

If I had to pick for example between choosing to improve my code entry speed or better understanding of design patterns I'd choose the latter in a heartbeat.

Re: Practice typing for Code

#39

Post by politician »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #37

I never understood the obsession with coding speed. There seems to be a lot of people who claim a modest change in input speed is a massive productivity change to them (and how they justify their dedication to their preferred editor/UI/keyboard/language/et al). I might be an edge case, but when I "code" the minority of the work is actually writing source code. The majority is research/thinking/copy+pasta/et al. When…

It's a dubious metric anyway considering that most editors support some form of tab completion.

That being said, it's useful for a new practitioner to be able to experience a language's flow or cadence without having to come up with syntactically correct code themselves -- like just getting your feet wet.

In fact, I wish they'd put this up on GitHub, I'd like to add modes for Ruby, for koans, and for augmented documentation.

Re: Practice typing for Code

#40

Post by azernik »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #37

I never understood the obsession with coding speed. There seems to be a lot of people who claim a modest change in input speed is a massive productivity change to them (and how they justify their dedication to their preferred editor/UI/keyboard/language/et al). I might be an edge case, but when I "code" the minority of the work is actually writing source code. The majority is research/thinking/copy+pasta/et al. When…

Mostly I agree with you; on the editor issue, though, part of why I like vim, and probably why different people like emacs, is how much they're optimized for all kinds of variants of copypasta (yank the arguments from inside a set of parens, stick them somewhere else, jump to the 2nd comma-separated param, mess with it a little, etc.)

Which, by the way, this kind of typing practice doesn't help you with at all.

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