How to improve my typing?

hairy_hats

I learnt to touch-type on a clackety old manual typewriter and although I'm far from perfect I can still do pretty well when typing prose - it's programming that makes me look down!

Asynes yw brassa ages kwilkynyow.

Bassam Abdul Baki

Try MaxType Lite[^]. Why don't they ever spell light correctly?

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Wjousts

I think I learned to type (not really formal touch typing, but quick enough) from playing old text based adventure games back in the day. :)

Tim Carmichael

When I took typing in high school, and, yes, it was a typing course, on a typewriter (manual), our keys were all black - no letters, no numbers shown. We learned to type and not look at the keys since looking at the keys would not help. So, either cover your keys to prevent your eyes from straying, or, get a keyboard tray that fits under the desk and can be moved out of sight (this is what I have at home... if I want to see the keyboard, I pull the tray out, otherwise, I just reach in). Beyond that, there should be a host of typing programs available, some freeware, shareware or commercial, but they are not expensive. Tim

Lost User

get a life man! what are you an engineer or a typist? Tronché pas ma miche!

Dan Neely

Agreed. I think at 10-15wpm. The only time faster typing would speed my dev work would be if I was forced to reproduce copy/paste code manually.

Shog9 0

Amazingly, that works both ways - i can do 70 WPM easy on a normal keyboard, but revert to hunt&peck on the damn split ones...

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Lost User

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing[^] has been around forever and worked well when my wife used it about 10 years ago. I'm guessing the new version will work fine too. Don't let these others tell you that you don't need to bother. The whole "I didn't and look how well I turned out" argument doesn't wash. If you don't learn to use the basic tools of the trade, it will only slow you down; just like in any other profession. Cheers, Drew.

Ennis Ray Lynch Jr

I can transcribe nearly 100wpm on a really good day (ok I round cause 100 looks cool). But I only code logic at around 35 or 40. Comments get up there fairly fast especially when they are non-repetitive. However, if I divide the words I type during an average day and divide by the number of minutes worked I would probably be well under 10. One really good way to become a proficient typist is to get a lot of IM contacts and/or use IRC. Then insist that you spell and punctuate everything correctly. Overtime you will develop your typing. Also, develop for about a decade (Im getting old) and you will naturally progress. "Until the day of his death, no man can be sure of his courage" -- Jean Anouilh

Allen Anderson

go to a local community college and take a typing course. It's worth it's weight in gold. I took typing in high school and went from 30 wpm doing the two handed single finger thing to 80wpm touch typing.

amymarie3

I play the word "Text Twist" as often as possible. I generally go to www.bigfishgames.com and play it. It looks like you need to click on the buttons to get the words in but you can also type them. I practice by trying all the different three letter combinations. Surprisingly my typing speed increased very quickly.

Steffen Opel

I tend to disagree even with those who (correctly!) argue, that you usually don't actually type very fast while coding: * Don't you communicate a lot during a development process, e.g. by email/im? I certainly do! * Don't you document your code (properly)? I certainly ... promise myself to do so all the times ;) * Don't you ever write a spec or a user story or similar 'lengthy' things during design? My main point however is that stressing typing 'speed' alone puts a to narrow perspective on typing 'skills'. The definite benefit is to be able to really touch type, i.e. type without looking at the keyboard at all. This alone let you focus on many things so more easily even when still typing pretty slow, just because the keyboard is none of your concerns anymore. Adding to my three points above this proves even more useful when you are required to take notes while attending a meeting or discussing things with customers for example; you'll never be able to focus on the important things as well when you constantly struggle with your typing. So I'd definitely recommend it for anyone developing software, you'll never regret the effort! But to be fair it should be mentioned that for actual coding in particular (i.e. not the other typing tasks mentioned) it requires more time to achieve these benefits, because all those special characters commonly used in programming languages are the hardest to get by, touch typing wise (for all the others there is Intellisense anyway :) ) Ciao, Steffen Opel

Chris S Kaiser

Get into a long drawn out argument on a mailing list with some flaming trolls that you are very passionate about. Stop. Check blood pressure. Stop. Start the next flame thread, but make sure your passionate about. Stop. Check blood pressure, remember this is for the prosperity of your dexterity. Stop. Start another flame thread.... Or hang out in the soap box for a month and you'll be typing faster than you know what to do with it.

Fuzzychaos

A good one that I learned to type with is http://www.fonlow.com/kptypingtutor/ Typing skills are a definite must when not coding, and definitely take your mind off of the keyboard. KP Typing Tutor has the text invader game and supports several languages and keyboards, and several OSs. I do about 40 wpm before my arms start to hurt (can't keep it up for hours on end ;)). Jeremy Pemberton-Pigott
A programmer with a dream can accomplish anything. So, start by implementing your castle in the clouds and then working on its interface to a foundation :-D Quote by: Jeremy Pemberton-Pigott
New Dawn Engineering -- modified at 23:49 Thursday 6th July, 2006

P0110X

Just simple, put your four left fingers over the keys A S D F and your right fingers over the keys ; L K J And then just practice moving your fingers up and down, one by one, so you will be typing with the ten fingers of your hands Example: (well with my english I dont know the names of the fingers) The left index finger can use R T F G V B The right index finger can use Y U H J N M The other fingers will type three keys each one (ignoring the number keys), example, the left middle finger can type E D C. When I was in high school (about 12 years old) it took me 5 or 6 months to learn it from the beginning, so take your time! I'm the master of computing, but... where's the start menu? :laugh:

Varadhan M

In linux there is an program called 'gtypist', You can use this to learn typing. Download: http://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=gtypist Regards, Varadhan

Poyraz27

Marginal answer: Use 'F' keyboard layout. The dominant 'Q' layout was actually designed to slow down typers, for the sake of mechanical typewriters which were not so quick at the time. Their keys would easily become jammed. The unobvious reason why F layout works better lies in the clever layout of the keys: 1. Wowels and consonants are separated on the left and right sides. Since words are usually composed of a fine consequent order of these, you type in a LH-RH-LH-RH manner. 2. The most commonly used letters are in the center of the keyboard, near your strongest fingers. 3. It has much better suited versions for different languages (i.e. Turkish in my case), than the standard Q layout. I can't tell it's easy to switch. As a good Q-typer at the time, I had go through weeks of orientation. However, it has paid well off. I used to type real good in Q, now I can type even better in F. By the way, it also helps with the carpal tunnel syndrome on your wrists, because your hands travel little or none. Regards, Aykut Türker

jakeshare

Test yourself here: http://labs.jphantom.com/wpm/ Learn here: http://www.sense-lang.org/typing/ Fun here: http://2addicted.com/letters Enjoy Jacob

Ashley van Gerven

P0110X wrote:

practice moving your fingers up and down

And then practice with some actual text. Practice and practice and practice more. Start with Genesis 1:1 and stop when you get to Revelation :)

"Nothing ever changes by staying the same." - David Brent (BBC's The Office)

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Ashley van Gerven

Here's a fairly good online typing test: http://www.careerstep.com/site/page=typingtest[^] It times your for one minute then scores the correct words. I did ok: 88 Gross Words per minute 76 Net Words per minute 75 correct words

"Nothing ever changes by staying the same." - David Brent (BBC's The Office)

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