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Typing.io: Typing Practice for Programmers

typing.io

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Re: Typing.io: Typing Practice for Programmers

#31

Post by Edmond »

peeters wrote: post #25

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 recal…

I have to somewhat disagree, I think autocomplete is one of those IDE features that is no doubt quite useful but I think its contribution to developer productivity is greatly exaggerated... frameworks that are well designed for instance are far more important contributors to developer productivity...

so my question to you is, what if a tool has a framework that allows you to get a lot done with significantly less coding but lacks autocomplete, would you not consider it?

Full disclosure, I am the founder of a browser based IDE software company so my take may be biased, but I have also written enough code to kill a horse :)

We currently don't have code completion though it is on the product road map. Our middle-ware however almost completely eliminates writing code for doing C.R.U.D operations, sending email, uploading files, doing configurations and using http restful services... I think such advantages greatly outweigh the lack of code completion.

I do concede though that maybe in your specific case, code completion is a major productivity booster.

Re: Typing.io: Typing Practice for Programmers

#32

Post by ics »

petercooper wrote: post #30

Learning to type quickly is a valuable skill. But with programming, is typing speed a common bottleneck? It seems akin to learning how to turn a steering wheel more quickly or how to hammer faster.

I think it really depends on your process. If you're efficiently pragmatic, then maybe your work environment includes an IDE with tab-completion, project skeletons, lots of snippets, and plenty of experience tying together existing frameworks and other tech to achieve your goal. On the other hand, some people actually want to do that sort of dirty work (even in verbose environments) because they get an overview of every single thing that's going into their program as they build it. They'll be a little slower than the first person but potentially have a much better grip on the underlying architecture of what they're working on which is incredibly valuable as you move forward and make decisions. So for these people, faster rote typing could be beneficial.

Re: Typing.io: Typing Practice for Programmers

#33

Post by cedias »

petercooper wrote: post #30

Learning to type quickly is a valuable skill. But with programming, is typing speed a common bottleneck? It seems akin to learning how to turn a steering wheel more quickly or how to hammer faster.

I do agree with you speed typing might not be the most valuable skill to a programmer. Being able to type without a lot of typos is a lot more usefull since they can create hard to find bugs.

Re: Typing.io: Typing Practice for Programmers

#39

Post by ffk »

Edmond wrote: post #31
peeters wrote: post #25

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 recal…

I have to somewhat disagree, I think autocomplete is one of those IDE features that is no doubt quite useful but I think its contribution to developer productivity is greatly exaggerated... frameworks that are well designed for instance are far more important contributors to developer productivity... so my question to you is, what if a tool has a framework that allows you to get a lot done with significantly less cod…

Except it isn't just auto complete he is describing. It is also code generation. The example he gave would come with an auto import. Other examples would include class and method generation, exception handling, parenthesis matching and test stubs.

Re: Typing.io: Typing Practice for Programmers

#40

Post by neil_s »

Why would programmers need a separate tool for programming practice? Isn't the act of programming itself the best form of typing practice? I don't see a market fit for this for the stated purpose.

Also, the UI when you make a mistake is confusing, I didn't realise I had to backspace and correct it. While that seems obvious in hindsight, I actually opened it in a different browser to make sure I wasn't just hitting some bug before reading the comments here and realising.

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