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Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

Touch typing (almost) -can take awesome notes online, without having to hunt-and-peck

I got introduced to `keybr.com` on a random HN comment; spent some effort on it and IMO, it was for sure worth every second I spent on learning touch-typing.

My neck does not hurt anymore :)

Similarly, I am using typingclub.com daily. It is actually quite enjoyable.

This thread is making me wonder... what percentage of HN users don't already touchtype? I learned from a keyboarding class in junior high[1] and I've kind of taken it for granted that schools taught that kind of thing earlier now without making it into an actual class.

[1] Reason 146 I'm a cynic: it was supposed to be a programming class. There was exactly 1 day that involved any kind of programming, it involved BASIC entered manually from a 1 page set of instructions, contained 10 lines of code, and the teacher, being the quintessential "school marm" of yesteryear, was not able to provide any debugging assistance. I was disappoint. To this day I can trace my undying belief that periods get two spaces after them to that class.

I was homeschooled, and I'd imagine a lot of others who were didn't learn.

I spent about a half hour a day for a week trying, because I wanted to write an article on the learning process, and on Vim, from the perspective of someone with no background in muscle memory type skills or fast thinking..

But I got bored and busy with other stuff. I was up to a little under one letter per second with hone row only excercises, still counting fingers one by one to remember which was which for each letter..

But I did discover something pretty interesting, which is that I have no idea how people can learn from failure. Like, you hit the wrong keys, and then over time you hit them correctly, instead of just hitting the same exact wrong keys every time? Seems like we need new instruction methods for people to whom that process doesn't come naturally.

I was homeschooled too, but touch-typing was part of the curriculum. The process didn't come naturally; I used a training app. It had a series of drills you'd run through which built up the skills gradually.

I agree - we spend so much time communicating via a keyboard and yet few of us take the time to learn how to touch type. Was there any specific website/app that helped you improve your typing - I know there's a ton of free resources out there.

The typing tutor on a tops-10 Dec mainframe in 1979, and a typing tutor on Unix v7. Learn the home keys, and practice.

It took me about 10 years to realise I didn't need to look at my hands. Magic moment.

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