[nand_gate]

WASD is my home row, still 120-140.

I lowkey judge any developer who is noticable slow at typing as I can't imagine they're using a computer effectively at such a pace given how much keyboard hitting needs to occur during regular use alone.

Not that it's a high bar but I'm surprised more companies don't test wpm when hiring over rote crap like LC.

[esseph]

Typing fast may be the least important thing towards developing a well designed, long-lived product.

[TeMPOraL]

So the saying goes, but this article, and many people's honest experience, suggests otherwise.

Yes, developing complex systems is about thinking, not typing. But human head only fits so much, and once you pick up a tool to externalize your thinking, be it pen and paper, or text editor, or a whiteboard, you're limited by I/O. Reading is by far the fastest part, but if you're typing (or sketching) slower than you think, your entire thought process is now I/O bound.

There are many ways to improve this - with editors, you can use shortcuts, compose complex commands, use autocomplete, etc. - but the nice thing is, most of these improvements are purely additive. So it really doesn't hurt to learn to type faster than you think, and it'll definitely help some.

[fn-mote]

Instead of just disagreeing, I find I actually agree! At least with the premise of the I/O bound system.

At some point I realized that linear writing (typing or writing on lined paper) does not have the flexibility to express the thought processes that I want to commit to writing.

Now I write on blank paper (or an iPad if the thinking needs to be active for a long period of time).

I might be I/O bound but at least this way I don't need Serializable thoughts.

[userbinator]

Try communicating with a coworker when the "I" in "IM" is closer to "wait several minutes while he hunts and pecks the next reply".

[anonymars]

Maybe, but I often think fellow developers would get more mileage out of Mavis Beacon than the latest flavor of training from Pluralsight/AWS/etc

When effective comments, appropriate variable names, and the like can flow effortlessly from your fingertips, you're more likely to use them. Plus you're not expending your precious mental energy on the mechanics of typing out your ideas.

[convolvatron]

you're right. but the ability, given a good idea, to spit out a substantial amount of code that compiles and basically runs in a single session removes alot of the consternation and back and forth in those discussions

despite industry motion to the contrary, the truth is that we really can build anything we want. if we just weren't such cowards about it

[saghm]

Do you find that typos are the biggest barrier to quickly writing code that compiles and runs in a single session? I'm an absolutely _atrocious_ typer (in terms of both speed and accuracy), and yet I still genuinely don't think that actual typing takes within an order of magnitude of the time it takes me to get out a quick prototype compared to debugging.

[TZubiri]

Small note, when programming, there's other keys involved which allow for hierarchical navigation (ctrl, alt tab, up/down/left/right keys), which adds both some technical challenges by broadening the keyset and cognitive challenges (but of course code itself is highly cognitive.

I try to avoid the mouse, but I usually queue (mentally) a lot of keypresses at max speed, while the only bottleneck is the loading speed of the computer.

For example: alt tab (change window to browser), fn+F5 (refresh website , Ctrl Shift (change brower tab), fn+f5, ctrl shift tab (back to original tab), alt tab (back to editor or command line), etc...

[spookie]

Same.

Also, if I leave WASD for home row I quickly feel pain. Seriously, place the middle finger on W (alao used for S), ring on A, and indicator on D. It's so much more ergonomic it's insane.