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A tool that increased my typing speed

vasilishynkarenka.com

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Re: A tool that increased my typing speed

#51

Post by stevage »

dnautics wrote: post #17

Having used it for 20 years now... I don't find that dvorak improves my typing speed. If anything it probably net reduces my productivity since often I'm hitting paste (ctrl-v) and I miss and hit exit window (ctrl-x). However, I like it because it feels comfortable typing in it, way more so than qwerty.

I've been using Dvorak 20+ years as well. Definitely faster than I ever was with QWERTY, and more accurate. And more comfortable.

With MacOS, I use the DV+QW layout where the layout is QWERTY if you're holding down Cmd. So Cmd+V etc work just like on a QWERTY keyboard. It's a pretty good compromise.

Re: A tool that increased my typing speed

#52

Post by tartoran »

surfsvammel wrote: post #22

Record yourself writing, or programming, or whatever it is you do at the keyboard. You will see that it is not the speed of your typing that is the bottleneck, it is the creative process. You are not a mindless machine hacking away at the keyboard. And, if you are, then the life hack take away is to stop and think a bit before typing. Going slower often has lots of benefits.

Good point. But I personally make use of a lot of keyboard shortcuts and find that they make my process not necessarily faster but seamless. I don’t have to think of how to do something as my muscle memory translates the intent into command. That also helps not break my context by using the mouse, opening a menu, etc so it keeps me in my creative/productive zone. So the typing speed is not necessarily the productivity boost we need but the seamlessness of the process I think. If you’re using emacs for example the typing speed may also hold you back a bit if you’re slow.

Re: A tool that increased my typing speed

#53

Post by stevage »

red_hare wrote: post #6

The author's ultimate solution of "use OSX/iOS shortcuts for every word to speed up your typing" is pretty wild. I could imagine myself using this method when I think about the _tens of minutes_ of my life I've probably saved now by just making "@@" a shortcut for my email address. Unfortunately, like Dvorak, which the author also proposes, it has the "doesn't work on my friend's computer" problem. Although, maybe a…

>"doesn't work on my friend's computer" problem

As I've gotten older, I find this situation almost never comes up. Occasionally in some workplaces you are temporarily using someone else's computer. In which case, you either fall back to QWERTY, or take the 60 seconds to add Dvorak to their machine.

Re: A tool that increased my typing speed

#54

Post by tartoran »

jbjbjbjb wrote: post #39
surfsvammel wrote: post #22

Record yourself writing, or programming, or whatever it is you do at the keyboard. You will see that it is not the speed of your typing that is the bottleneck, it is the creative process. You are not a mindless machine hacking away at the keyboard. And, if you are, then the life hack take away is to stop and think a bit before typing. Going slower often has lots of benefits.

Everyone says slow typing is ok but I also see a lot of people get frustrated at input lag when typing into a slow IDE

The larger the input lag the bigger the discomfort I have when typing and navigating a domcument. It’s doable but feels uncomfortable as we have to wait for the confirmation we hit the right keys. It helps not to look at the screen at all but if you find an error in the previous sentence it’s a pain to navigate back and fix it

Re: A tool that increased my typing speed

#55

Post by bonestormii_ »

1123581321 wrote: post #29
jamesfe wrote: post #10

The author proposes that we're somehow blocked from success because we can't type fast enough. Is that true? I don't agree; in fact, I'd rather be concise and communicate well than vomit more words onto the screen. Additionally, beyond Dvorak, is there a better way to increase typing speed than spending what must be hours and hours building a bespoke solution for each one of your machines? And what is the cost of the…

Not everyone’s words are equally valuable. Someone who does not vomit but actually has things worth saying, and a limited time in which to express them, would benefit from faster typing. Worst case, it’s nice to get one’s job done faster to make time for other things. You can always take your hands off the keyboard periodically if you want to write less.

Right, but it's the vim effect.

For vim to become worth your time to learn to use effectively, you have to have a purpose to use it quite a lot. But it takes quite a lot of time, and causes quite a lot of errors in the mean time. Eventually, you are left with a skill and a tool that are a pleasure to use, but you literally must spend time actively learning how to use it. You cannot just pick it up, because you need to first memorize key combinations and the behavior of various modes. Then, you need to actually practice them.

And this proposed solution is even worse, because it suffers not only from the "vim effect", but from the "vim config effect", where you not only need to memorize, and practice, but actively configure your custom solution, which can take tons of time; is subject to loss/deletion; and is not universally available.

And god help me, what about programming? I honestly do not want to even think about multi-layered completions wreaking their havoc on everything I write, and the only alternative is different completions for different types of environments--even more cognitive load.

This seeks efficiency as represented by speed, but ignores efficiency as represented by ubiquity, generality, and low cognitive load.

If I want to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, it is more efficient to run. If I want to get from point A to point B with the minimum energy expenditure, it is more efficient to walk. To be truly efficient, you need smart, balanced goals.

Re: A tool that increased my typing speed

#56

Post by tartoran »

ogre_codes wrote: post #24

I find it a bit ironic that an article about how to type 3 times faster is roughly 4 times longer than it needs to be to make its point.

I liked the saussage anecdote/analogy. My wifes family used to split sausages like that as well not knowing exactlty why they’re were doing it. Somebody started the practice and they got stuck with it. Likewise we’re stuck with QUERTY and is not a big deal really but it was an accident of history.

Re: A tool that increased my typing speed

#58

Post by tartoran »

xtracto wrote: post #12
Moru wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3-ish weeks is what it takes to learn to touch-type in general, whatever layout. Put in the time and choose a layout to learn. Dworak is better if you are typing only english, there are other layouts for other languages. This is where it broke down for me, I can't learn several layouts depending on the language I want to type. And convincing some programs to use the dworak layout for hotkeys can be tricky too.

I tried moving to Dvorak in the late 1990s and I stumbled in the multiple language problem. In addition to me typing in English and Spanish, the fact that I do programming was the nail in the coffin to really being efficient in something else than qwerty. It also didn't help that I already was 95wpm in QWERTY.

If you alreay have a large repertoire of shortcuts it’s an extra pail to worry about when making the switch. I find that im using some shortcut that i can’t recite what they unless look down at the keyboard as they’ve embedded in the muscle memory.

Re: A tool that increased my typing speed

#59

Post by garaetjjte »

cortesoft wrote: post #36
garaetjjte wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, QWERTY was designed to prevent jamming of early typewriters, allowing to type faster . http://widespacer.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-hidden-secrets-of...

Even that theory has been questioned: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fact-of-fiction-... It seems likely the keyboard layout was the result of working with typists to develop the best layout.

Linked paper [0] correctly states that QWERTY wasn't designed to slow typists down, but authors argue that it was not designed to avoid type-bar jams, but only vaguely suggest some letters were moved around due to Morse operation practice. They base that conclusion on analysis of radial distances of common digrams on typebar basket. But there's no justification why only angle criteria was considered, and they omitted that layout clearly minimizes adjacent typebar digrams, which is shown by [1] and [2].

They also without much evidence reject idea that TYPEWRITER ending up on same row was intentional design, but curiously enough [2] calculated odds of that occurring randomly as about 1 in 2500, so it might have been.

[0] https://repository.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2433...

[1] http://widespacer.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-hidden-secrets-of...

[2] https://cyber.sci-hub.se/MTAuMTAxNi9qLnJlc3BvbC4yMDEzLjAzLjA...

Re: A tool that increased my typing speed

#60

Post by taeric »

samatman wrote: post #41
taeric wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a patato patahto thing. It would only jam if you went too fast, so the story goes. Get rid of the jamming, or force a max speed that is lower.

It's actually a critical distinction. If QWERTY was designed to be the worst possible layout, to make typing slow in order to prevent jams, then now, with n-key rollover, we're all stuck with the worst possible layout. If instead it was designed to be the most jam-free possible layout , with a secondary goal of being as fast as possible given that criterion , it's probably not that bad, and we'd live in a world where…

I am not claiming to support that it is the worst. Just saying that, if it helps you type faster by keeping the device from jamming because you are typing too fast, then it is by definition helping you type faster by limiting the speed that you can type. Hence, slowing you down so that you don't go so fast that you crash.

As per the claim of the fastest typist. I would be shocked it steno doesn't win that, hands down.

Edit: Added in "because you are typing too fast", which was part of the original claim. I should have noted I don't know if I believe it, but I did want to raise that something that makes you go as fast as you can by keeping you from going too fast, both slows you down and makes you type faster. At the same time.

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