The author types at 120 wpm, so that’s probably what he recommends. He doesn’t say how much work it took him to get there from 60, but it was a conscious decision and special effort. On later occasion, he learned numbers.
Although he clearly advocates such speed, he doesn’t really argue for it. What motivated him to speed up was text chat. What struck me as a good argument is that lots of people say that they are limited by what they have to say, not typing speed, but being able to type more gives the option of writing different things, such as more back-and-forth on message boards. If that’s actually useful. But I didn’t take his advice and still only type at 60wpm.
I tried this test with results:
115 WPM, 606 keystrokes, 573 correct 33 mistakes,
119 WPM, 650 keystrokes, 593 correct 57 mistakes,
102 WPM, 566 keystrokes, 511 correct 55 mistakes,
Lots of mistakes :D Could probably get somewhat better results if I attempted this all day.
I never type as fast as in that test I just did, is it the same for you too?
I feel there’s no reason to do that, to get stressed out and concentrate on typing.
I do if I’ve got some text in my head and I’m getting it down, i.e. writing. It’s times like that I realise how much most keyboards I use suck, and wish I had a Model M here.
With skimming the article it seems like another anecdotal report of speaking for people learning to type better.
Does it provide any systematic evidence for the claim?
My Skeptics stackexchange question about the issue of programmer productivity due to typing is open for a long time without anyone providing real evidence for the claim.
As far as I understand the big tech companies don’t believe that it’s predictive of programmer quality to the extend that the test typing speed at interviews either.
Typing speed of course is not predictive of programming talent, that’s a remarkably stupid idea.
The right way to think about it is in terms of bottlenecks. When, say, you write code, what slows you down? If your fingers lag behind your mind, you should try to type faster. If they don’t, you’re good and should focus on improving something else.
Link: Steve Yegge on why people who spend literally all day every day in front of a keyboard need to learn to type (2008). Much like many others, but still true. Also includes answers to “I am a special snowflake” objections to people who could learn but just don’t.
If you already know how to touch type, how do you know if you should train some more so you can type faster?
The author types at 120 wpm, so that’s probably what he recommends. He doesn’t say how much work it took him to get there from 60, but it was a conscious decision and special effort. On later occasion, he learned numbers.
Although he clearly advocates such speed, he doesn’t really argue for it. What motivated him to speed up was text chat. What struck me as a good argument is that lots of people say that they are limited by what they have to say, not typing speed, but being able to type more gives the option of writing different things, such as more back-and-forth on message boards. If that’s actually useful. But I didn’t take his advice and still only type at 60wpm.
Typing on IRC in full sentences got me from 60wpm to 90wpm.
On this test, I got 74wpm (0 errors) on my crappy laptop keyboard, 72wpm (0 errors) on my work PC Microsoft Natural just now.
I tried this test with results: 115 WPM, 606 keystrokes, 573 correct 33 mistakes, 119 WPM, 650 keystrokes, 593 correct 57 mistakes, 102 WPM, 566 keystrokes, 511 correct 55 mistakes,
Lots of mistakes :D
Could probably get somewhat better results if I attempted this all day. I never type as fast as in that test I just did, is it the same for you too? I feel there’s no reason to do that, to get stressed out and concentrate on typing.
I do if I’ve got some text in my head and I’m getting it down, i.e. writing. It’s times like that I realise how much most keyboards I use suck, and wish I had a Model M here.
They do suck, but you can buy an actual buckling-spring keyboard here.
Highly recommended.
With skimming the article it seems like another anecdotal report of speaking for people learning to type better. Does it provide any systematic evidence for the claim?
My Skeptics stackexchange question about the issue of programmer productivity due to typing is open for a long time without anyone providing real evidence for the claim.
As far as I understand the big tech companies don’t believe that it’s predictive of programmer quality to the extend that the test typing speed at interviews either.
Typing speed of course is not predictive of programming talent, that’s a remarkably stupid idea.
The right way to think about it is in terms of bottlenecks. When, say, you write code, what slows you down? If your fingers lag behind your mind, you should try to type faster. If they don’t, you’re good and should focus on improving something else.