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Comment by xeroalt | Hacker News Reader

What's the value add of touch typing? I tried it for a bit, but it seemed like a waste. I can consistently do ~90-100 WPM on https://www.livechat.com/typing-speed-test/#/ with very few mistakes just typing with 3 fingers on my left hand and 2 on my right. Feels like input speed is one of the least important parts of coding.

Did one test for this comment. https://imgur.com/a/GISaU6n

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Sounds like you are touch-typing, you just don't use the home-row standard. Neither do I. There's plenty of other ways to do it, they're just not taught classroom-style so people like to discount them.

The benefit of touch-typing is being able to get your thoughts into the computer without interrupting said thoughts to figure out where stuff is on the keyboard. Keeps the flow going.

I was hoping your image would be a video of you showing that you're actually two coffee-crazed squirrels.

You must know that average touch typing speed is 40 wpm, professional is 75 wpm, therefore you have nothing to gain by optimizing further. Especially since bragging about doing it the hard way lets you seem like you'd be even faster if you tried.

For a start you don’t have to look at the keyboard so you can spot typos as they happen and take advantage intellisense etc. Although at 90 wpm you’re probably not looking at the keyboard either.

For me the main reason I value touch typing so highly is due to the reduction in cognitive load. I think things and they appear on the screen without any conscious thought. I honestly couldn’t tell you what fingers I’d just used to type the words.

Good technique helps prevent injury. Rheumatoid arthritis and carpal tunnel are no fun. Adding “it’s going to hurt” to the list of reasons not to sit down and knock out that feature really isn’t helpful to your productivity.

I ended up tracing my pain to lazy technique in my right hand. Sorted that out and I’ve been pain free for years. It was _no fun _ before I figured it out.

The biggest benefit in my view is not typing speed but keeping your eyes on what you're typing instead of on the keyboard. You catch more mistakes that way. If you're already keeping your eyes on the screen, you've got most of the value already.

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