Learn To Type Week
As I’ve traveled around and programmed with a lot of different people, I’ve noticed a really frightening thing: in general, programmers don’t type correctly. I’m not sure why this is, but it makes me sad. Most of the people I meet that don’t touch type still can bang away a lot of words a minute, but if you watch their heads, it is like a bobbing robin, constantly looking down to see where their hands are. What a waste of motion and context switching.
Typing is a fundamental skill for programmers. We spend our days manipulating text, so it makes sense that you should have it mastered. In a way, it would be like hiring a carpenter and seeing them flailing around with the screwdriver, missing the screw sometimes, maybe poking their finger. What would you think? That’s how it looks when you are hunt-and-pecking. Embarrassing!
So, I thought I would put a challenge out there: Learn To Touch Type! For the most part, you know where the keys are, it is just a matter of quieting your hands down and learning the home row position. I wager that, for most people, it would take about a week of daily 30-minute practices. A Pomodoro! That’s all.
In fact, why not do it next week, July 12th – July 18th. I declare next week to be “Learn To Type Correctly” week (hashtag: #learn2typewk)! If we do it as a community, supporting each other, then it is more likely that we’ll shed the baggage of bad typing skills. Come on, you can do it! Blog about it, twitter about it, get the word out. Everyone will feel better, and imagine your pride when you sit down at a keyboard and don’t ever have to look at your hands.
But, Corey, you say, I thought typing wasn’t the bottleneck. No, it isn’t, but ineffective typing can be. Having to look down at your hands disrupts your flow. When you can just let the words come out without thinking, you will be much more effective.
Typing Resources
There are plenty of online typing courses that you can use. Here’s a couple I checked out:
http://www.powertyping.com/qwerty/lessonsq.html
This one is very structured, using extreme repetition to push the positions into your head. Try it out.
http://www.freetypinggame.net/default.asp
This is one of my favorites. I’m not sure about the actual lessons, but the games are a lot of fun (I like Keyboard Revolution).
http://www.goodtyping.com/default.htm
This is a step-by-step lesson plan. You have to register, but it keeps rankings and lets you print out certificates.
This is just a short list. If you don’t like them, feel free to use another.
About Corey Haines
Corey Haines has spent much of his 13+year professional career in the Microsoft ecosystem, until moving out of the corporate world and joining a small startup doing Ruby on Rails. After leaving the startup in 2008, he began a year-long journey, traveling the midwest and east coast of the United States on a pair-programming tour. He would spend anywhere from a day to a week at different places, pairing with people in exchange for room and board. While on the road, he has also focused on expanding and defining the message of the Software Craftsmanship movement, as it pertains to both professionalism and career development. You can read his blog at CoreyHaines.com or follow him on twitter: @coreyhaines.
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Michael Kozakewich
It’s a pretty useful skill to type the same speed as someone speaks. It’s not a ‘bottleneck’, per se, but it’s one of those things where better performance is instantly useful.
After two years typing in college, I decided to try typing without looking at the keyboard, and I realized I could. Sometimes all you need is a couple years, and then a leap of faith.
I still have a bit of difficulty hitting some keys in the dark, so I think I actually use my peripheral vision to align my hands on the keyboard.
July 8, 2010
Josh Walsh
Michael – This first day has been pretty enlightening. I’ve always thought of myself as an average typist. About 90 wpm with 5% error rate. But, I’ve developed some nasty habits that are going to take some getting used to.
July 12, 2010
Mark W Schumann
I had a wonderful second grade teacher who noticed I had a lot of slack time when the rest of the class was learning basic arithmetic. She set me up with a Selectric and a typing tutorial book, and I practiced while waiting for the other kids to catch up.
After a few months, I was up to about 72wpm. At age seven.
Besides everything else, it was a great skill to have in college. I made a lot of money typing papers for humanities and social science majors. (Yes, that was in the days when students wrote drafts in longhand. Go ahead and laugh.)
Anyway, yes, I totally agree with Corey on this. It’s so liberating to be able to look at other things, or listen, or talk, or whatever else, while touch-typing. It removes one of the impediments to Flow. It’s convenient.
Learn to type.
September 22, 2010
George Kom
I have seen many programmers unable to touch type too.
Programming skills are not measured by wpm and there are indeed many ‘good’ programmers who cannot touch type.
Apart from the fact that it looks ‘unprofessional’ it’s also naturally slower. Which means slower delivery times and wasted time.
Although, I consider myself a competent ‘typer’ I still practice every now and then. It really helps to avoid bad habits.
…. off to practice some more now…
September 28, 2010
Design Interactive « Multimedia Design
[...] Learn To Type Week [...]
November 4, 2010
David Murphy
Typing well is a useful skill for a programme,r but most of a programmers time is not spent typing like a member of a secretarial pool, but spent in thinking about an problem.
The key skill for a programmer is problem solving.
December 5, 2011
Corey Haines
David, that is very true.
However, just because a skill is not the KEY skill does not make it less important of a skill. There are lots of skills that make up software development, some in the forefront, some in the background.
I don’t think anyone here has said that typing is the most important skill a developer needs.
December 8, 2011