1. It allows for minimal disruption to thinking process, close to 90% of the time even when coding is not actively typing, but when typing is subconscious and fast it removes the potential of where it interrupts the thinking process.
2. While this has no bearing on individual case (It would be Bayesian, some people consider that to be heretic), but a software engineer who does not type well have a greater chance of having had less practice.
Willing to dive into this a bit more? My personal experience is different so I figure this is a chance to learn something new. The subjective character of typing experience for me is like riding a bike, driving a car, walking, or speaking. That is to say that unless I'm mountain biking, off-roading, on a balance beam, or trying to say a tongue twister, for the most part I'm unaware of the intention-execution-results loop, and the intention-results loop is all that consciously exists. My paltry 50-60wpm doesn't feel like an impediment to putting thoughts into text, but maybe others feel differently.
Now, from a philosophical point of view, I believe that it's possible to have programming tools that allow a 60wpm user to program at the speed of a 120wpm user without those tools (e.g. autocomplete allows you to type 10-character identifiers with significantly fewer keystrokes) - I just haven't finished building them. That is, I believe that having a slow typing speed shouldn't impede programmers, but does with our current tooling.
That may be high enough that you don't have the impediment, but when you work with someone who types down around 10-15 WPM... You can definitely tell they're spending a lot of brainpower on hunt-and-peck instead of the problem they're actually trying to solve.
Basically there's diminishing returns on increasing WPM and you may be at or past the tipping point. I expect it'll be different not just for different people, but also for whatever they're currently working on.
I am not defending 10-15 WPM here ofc. just statingt that the majority of work happens before we start typing in code, and after we typed it.
Depends entirely on the individual developer. For me its think-think-think-think-drinkcoffee-think-type.
And after the first iteration, the typing to make changes is usually miniscule compared to the initial amount.
I always wish I could type faster and with less effort, or -- better yet -- just wish the code into the shape I want. ~100wpm touchtypist here.
This arguments wholly arbitrary. Maybe someone who types slowly will put a lot of thought into each word and create fewer bugs. Who knows? Why argue random claims you pull out of the air?
National Slow Talkers of America
I agree, and even wrote an article about that a few years ago. :-)
https://github.com/Dobiasd/articles/blob/master/how_touch_ty...