[Milank]

I have a German layout keyboard atm (don't ask), and I barely even notice it.

~20 years ago I invested a lot of nerves into learning touch typing, so now I'm flawless with it.

But, let's talk about problems with touch typing - wrists for example. If you don't know touch typing, you move your hands more often, to do stuff. E.g. copy/paste, with touch typing, it's pinky + index finger all the time. Without touch typing, it's, for example, left index + right index. Or something else. Point is, you are not making the same moves all the time.

If you do, you develop RSI. For me, ALT + TAB was the problem. After ~15 years of touch typing, I started feeling first discomfort, and then pain in the wrist. Took some time to discover what's the problem, so now I'm aware and taking action, exercise, stretching, changing layout, switching to split keyboard, etc.

Touch typing is good, but be careful. Make breaks regularly, stretch your hands, invest in the ergo equipment. Think upfront, react before the problems occur. Better safe than sorry.

[hrktb]

The point on RSI is too often overlooked.

Beyond typing, it applies when considering any specific position or movement to be the only ‘correct’ form and optimize to do it again and again in that exact specific way.

However correct it is supposed to be, that’s a recipe for RSI. One way to mitigate that is to take frequent breaks, other ways include deoptimizing your movements to have more variation, rotating input methods, use a different hand etc.

Basically, extreme optimization and sticking to correctness is in my opinion overrated.

[qzx_pierri]

I fully agree. I type ~90 wpm. This isn't that fast, but it's great for what I do. My only training is years of sitting at my desk and using my keyboard. I don't touch type, so when I get a new keyboard, it's a pain at first to get my muscle memory down (65-70 WPM maybe for 1-2 weeks), but then I'm back to 90 WPM and typing buttery smooth.

[egsmi]

That’s interesting. Do you notice any meaningful loss of productivity during the 65WPM time compared to the 90WPM time?

I just did a word count on some emails I write and they’re usually about 100 words, but I know they took about 10 minutes to write. I have to think about it as I compose it, then edit for clarity. Obviously if I was too slow this time would go up but I’m wondering where the point of diminishing returns is.

[qzx_pierri]

No, I'm pretty good at expressing myself through text. My common phrases that I use in sentences and words that I use often are burned into my muscle memory, so I usually have a pretty good flow. I never considered how much time I might be wasting during those slower periods, but I'll probably think about it in the future.

[spanhandler]

MacOS’ cmd is a thumb press for me, except “cmd+space” which I just reposition my whole hand for, and making caps lock a control (a setting available in the system settings, not an addon or command line tweak or anything) means no more scrunching my wrist down and left to reach that. I miss the cmd thing very much when I’m not on Mac, and I did 15ish years of Windows and Linux first so it’s not because that’s what I knew first.

OTOH by making trackpads not-hell to use they’ve allowed me to discover that too many days in a row of that wreck my right wrist pretty badly.

[btown]

The macOS program Karabiner (especially in combination with BetterTouchTools) lets you go far beyond this, mapping arbitrary keys not just to different modifier keys but to any action desired.

Incredibly useful for coding (I have Caps Lock change focus between my IDE and most recent non-IDE window for mouse-free iteration cycles) and Mac gaming (tab-targeting is much more powerful with the caps lock button in play!)

[gimboland]

+1 on karabiner and BTT; if using karabiner, perhaps check out goku: it gives you a much nicer language for writing karabiner profiles than just slogging them out in pure json.

https://github.com/yqrashawn/GokuRakuJoudo

[anthony_romeo]

I think it's important to develop one's own style to fit one's needs. Touch typing isn't a system to follow -- it's a goal to achieve. I touch-type, but for example, I always use left shift and never use right shift. And when I do hold left shift, the other fingers on my left hand shift one key to the left (i.e. index on D, ring on A). And I'm someone who has done past work in typesetting and writing legal briefs, so I ain't no slouch. Maybe there's some theoretical inefficiency I could choose to iron out, but I haven't yet been hindered by my typing speed.

[codeknight11]

More people need to realise this and be cautious of such fads. I got caught up into the whole touch-typing hype and continued typing in that awkward posture for 3 months straight more than 12 hours a day and didn't stop even when my hands, shoulders and neck started hurting due to the awkward posture that's caused by touch-typing.

I am in the worst pain of my life right now. Absolutely regret it. Sure the error rate is slightly higher and you type slower. Atleast you won't be f*cked with RSI.

[aikinai]

I’m really confused by this whole thread and just want to clarify. “Touch typing” just means typing “correctly” right? As in with your fingers on the home row and reaching to type fluently?

Honest question, how is it that there’s debate about this and comments from people (on Hacker News in particular) about intentionally learning it recently? Maybe I just haven’t noticed, but I feel like everyone I know below a certain (not even very young) age knows how to touch type, even if they’re not particularly tech savvy.

Regarding this parent in particular, are you saying that hunting and pecking is better and typing from the home row is a fad?

[Izkata]

> I’m really confused by this whole thread and just want to clarify. “Touch typing” just means typing “correctly” right? As in with your fingers on the home row and reaching to type fluently?

Yeah, "touch-typing" is incorrectly used to refer to home-row touch-typing by people who hadn't learned another style.

I use a totally different one, with my left hand resting on roughly shift-a-w-d and my right on j-i-o-; which requires little to no twisting to reach every key. I think I'm also more likely to lift my hands than home-row typists I've seen - those keys are just resting positions between typing bursts, not actually where I move my fingers back to while typing. The whole thing is based on the edges of the keyboard, rather than the nubs on the f and j keys.

[encom]

I think there's a spectrum between grandma-style hunt and peck typing and perfect touchtyping, and I think many of us are somewhere in between. If you haven't specifically learned 10-finger touch typing, that's probably not what you're doing.

My typing certainly isn't Correct(TM), but some combination of muscle memory and bad habits formed over 30 years.

[codeknight11]

Yeah like what @encom mentioned below. I don't know about others but for me* it was a complete disaster. Your hands are always in one place. The posture is very similar to the posture that is required when lifting a single dumbbell with both hands. Hands are side-by-side and your hands sort of form a triangle. This posture also causes shoulders to hunch forward to make up for the hands stuck close together.

Sure. It might work really well for everyone. Not for me. I am going back to normal typing once I heal. It wasn't really that bad. Just a few errors here and there and slightly slower typing.

[pronik]

There is touch typing and correct touch typing. "Home row" and friends is the latter. I'm typing pretty fast with all ten fingers in both German and Russian layouts, however, I've never became friends with classical touch typing. This circumstance make using split keyboards impossible for me, since I tend to cover more of the keyboard with my right hand than considered "correct".

[neurotrace]

I don't understand how touch-typing forces an awkward posture. I had a self-taught typing style for something like 10 years before switching to touch-typing about 4 years ago. I'm just as capable of slouching, leaning, raising, and lowering my posture like I did before. I started getting pain in my shoulders and neck but that was from pushing my hands together on a tiny keyboard. As soon as I switched to a split keyboard, all of that went away.

[Milank]

Split keyboard, that's the key word. Solves multiple problems you mentioned in the first part of the post.

[Wandfarbe]

Just because someone says 'you will get RST when you do x' doesn't mean its true.

I'm touch typing now for over 18 years, quite fast, basically started with touch typing and i don't have issues.

There are plenty of alternative keyboards out there which will allow you to keep touch typing = fast and more ergonomic.

Alone the fact, that you need to look down to find your keys is weird to me. How do you correct your text while typing? Looking up and down all the time?

[fireattack]

Personally I never have any issue with using keyboard. It's the excessive usage of mouse that is detrimental for my (right) hand (not just the wrist, the fingers hurt more from clicking and using scroll wheel too much.)

[Wandfarbe]

I got slight issues with my trackpad. I have not figured out a proper pattern though.

It is still rare.

[triceratops]

If you have bad posture working at a computer, that's something you have to fix on its own. How you type has nothing to do with it.

[bananaface]

Look into voice coding. It's a usable substitute & getting better very quickly.

[codr7]

Not related to touch typing but the same is true of the eyes, focusing at a fixed distance all day kills the muscles.

I would guess that's often the issue with RSI as well, that the muscles don't get enough variation. I've practiced a lot of martial arts, yoga and rock climbing along the way and never had any problems despite spending A LOT of time with keyboards.

[auganov]

I've been touch typing naturally for way over a decade without paying much attention to technique. I have never felt (or paid attention to?) discomfort before reading about RSIs on HN. After looking into the lack of science around it and reading Dr. Sarno's book I have decided it's not something that's worth caring or thinking about. And perhaps even a dangerous idea.

I feel terrible for everyone experiencing this pain, but I'm not convinced it's something that can be reliably developed or avoided.

Obviously if you're feeling pain or discomfort for your own sake take a break or switch to a different finger for a few minutes. Just like you'd switch sides in bed or change your sitting style when feeling discomfort. But IMO this obsessing about developing an RSI is unhealthy.

[Milank]

You are unconvinced until it hits you. I never heard about it before it started bothering me.

It's individual. I have a friend, overweight, never played any sport, never saw him run, sits 16h a day, sleeps 8h a day, has no problem with his back. Another one, skinny, does sports, sits on a pilates ball at work, uses standing table, stretching, and still has back problems.

You can't make conclusions based on your own case. We are all different people, different physiology. Medicine is not maths, 2 + 2 is not always 4. The fact that they can't explain RSI doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's just that we don't fully understand what's going on there (yet).

[auganov]

Right which is why you can read about physically unexplainable chronic pain conditions at large. It doesn't mean that people don't have RSIs, TMJ or whatever. There's simply no evidence that these are reliably linked to some specific physical aliment. There is no reason to worry about developing these things. That you feel discomfort in your fingers doens't mean you're developing an RSI. Just like a little disordered thinking doesn't mean you're developing schizophrenia.

Just the sheer understanding that fingers/wrists of an RSI sufferer are no different from these of non-sufferers helps many people resolve or greatly reduce their pain.

> Another one, skinny, does sports, sits on a pilates ball at work, uses standing table, stretching, and still has back problems.

And if they are a chronic pain sufferer from a similarly weird (or untreatable) condition I would greatly recommend looking beyond the physical explanation of their pain.

[emodendroket]

I think hunt-and-peck is still a repetitive motion that can cause problems of its own. I think it's better to take care of your hands with strengthening exercises and the like (I got some from an OT and they helped) than to just rely on not having proper technique.

[Milank]

My idea wasn't to advise against touch typing, no way. It's an evolutionary step forward.

The idea was to warn people in time about the consequences so that they can take precautions. I wish someone warned me about that 15 years ago.

[emodendroket]

Well, unfortunately, it's something like an ironclad law of the universe that nobody worries about their health until they have problems.

[paulryanrogers]

I've heard one is supposed to use the palm to press Ctrl and not pinky. Though IME the palm is awkward and difficult to use precisely. Maybe it gets better with practice.

Swapping control and caps is another alternative, though in that case it's still using the pinky.

[escape_goat]

I believe that one of the original best practices of touch typing is to use the opposite hand to press any modifier key. This allows one to shift the hand so that the strain through the digit does not lead to an eventual injury. Given the number of strain complaints people that revolve around command key combinations, it would seem to be right up there with keeping your wrists floated in terms of injury prevention.