[OmniBus]

Average typing speed is enough. Programmers do not look at the keyboard when typing.

Novice speed does hamper efficiency. Finding alphabets, numbers and symbols on keyboard interrupts programmers' thought.

Fast does help much as programmers do not type much one at time but thinks more between lines of code. Usually programmers write a few lines even a few characters for adjustment.

For programmers, good use of editor is more important. Able to use keyword short-cuts to cut and paste, replacing pattern of text, finding text, moving text between files is a key to efficiency.

[cagey]

Agree on all points.

I watch "over the shoulder" of many software engineers at my (Windows-based) work, and 90% of them work at a CMD shell/console with QuickEdit mode disabled; software that I'm responsible for spits fully qualified logfile names out to said console, but rather than copy + paste the filename into Outlook's attachment File Open dialog, they laboriously click their way thru the "Explorer" dialog pane trying to find the same file. I sometimes point out that they could easily copy and paste the name from the console into the dialog, and some of them have an "aha!" moment, but most simply don't "get" it.

OTOH I've watched experienced unix developers who type at fantastic speeds, but with a significant error rate: bzzzzz (a command line) enter [error]; bzzzzzz (a whole new command line intending to duplicate the intent of the first) enter [error]; (third time's the charm?). Slow down or use line-editing? No... These are far less the rule than the mouse-click-happy Windows users, but clearly there are many ways to be inefficient...

The fewer times I (a marginal typist) am forced to type out a copy of text I see on the screen, the more productive I am. My work processes are optimized along this axis: let the computer do the work instead of my fingers whenever possible.

[T-hawk]

Funny, I usually observe the opposite use of copying at a command-line window. I often see co-workers and client users copying and pasting as little as 4 or 6 characters out of a command window, when in that case it would be more efficient to simply retype it rather than reach for and point and aim the mouse. These are tokens usually like investment account numbers or ticker symbols or the like. The excuse is usually "to make sure I get it right" -- as in many jobs, covering your ass from any mistakes is more important than actual productivity gains.

[cagey]

Maybe your co-workers and clientele are all skilled typists who never make transposition errors. But I've dialed enough wrong numbers due to simple transposition (mental) errors (and made analogous typing errors) to know how easy it is to make them. If 'persons unknown' had to move my personal investment account number around via data-entry, I'd feel much better knowing they were copy-pasting and not manually transcribing.

[xenophanes]

What do you think "average typing speed" is? I find it strange how much people talk about typing speeds without giving any actual numbers.