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by LoganDark 957 days ago
> The main positive that I see is that typing no longer requires thought. I think of the code I want to write and it's transcripted onto the computer.

This. This is everything. Translating your thoughts to the computer efficiently is better than doing it quickly. It's not just for creating tons of code, it's for operating on your existing code without having to make space in your head for typing. Once typing happens automatically, your focus improves.
1 comments
jon-wood 957 days ago
This is why I love vim style editors so much as well, because they more directly translate the act you want to perform with what you tell the editor to do. While someone who hasn't learned to use vim is scrolling around with arrow keys and holding down shift to select, or trying to point a cursor at the right place to double click I've entered the three characters ciw into my editor and its already deleted the current word, place my cursor at the beginning, and put me into insert mode to start typing the replacement.

I wouldn't even say I'm a super proficient vim user, there are people who are way more immersed in it than I am and who can leap around files at phenomenal speeds, but even just the basics I know are a huge help in keeping in the flow of thinking about what I want to do rather than how I'm going to do it.

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sumtechguy 956 days ago
For me vim is deadly as a touch typist. 'woops wrong mode oh dear what did I just do?! because I just typed in 30+ commands into vi'
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LoganDark 956 days ago
Isn't the goal of touch typing that you no longer have to look at the keyboard? So you can still be paying attention to the screen while typing, i.e. you're not going to type 30 commands before noticing that something is off.
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sumtechguy 954 days ago
Touch typing you usually end up basically 'sending the commands' to your fingers before you put much though into it. So if you are off by 1 char or forget which mode you are in you can really destroy yourself. Most touch typing is also taught without you even looking at the paper/screen. The idea is your imagine what you want expressed and your fingers just 'do it'. I have done both of those things hundreds of times. I will do them again. As typing is just something I do not put much thought into until something is very wrong. At 90WPM you can get a lot of chars in before you figure out you have reallllly messed up.
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