Comment by jchw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jchw | Hacker News Reader

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I used to type >140 WPM at high accuracy when I was younger without home row. These days I think I likely sit closer to 90 WPM or so, since I really just don't really need to type super fast very often and am pretty out of practice. I reckon home row is probably not terrible or anything, but like a lot of weird old ergonomics advice, I just don't trust the idea that you must or possibly even should use home row. For example, the best advice regarding ergonomics I've ever had is not to have proper posture at all times, but rather to get up more frequently and not sit in the same position for too long. Likewise, it feels a lot more natural to let my hands move around a bit, and as it would turn out my mouse arm is the one that wound up having more discomfort from long term computer usage. So clearly, YMMV. But a lot of us who didn't do home row are confused; some people will go as far as to say it's literally wrong not to, and I say, burden of proof is on you all.

Staying at home row is not really about ergonomics. The best thing you can do (without breaking the bank, i.e., no bespoke split keyboard setups) for your hand ergonomics at the computer is to get a vertical mouse and tilt your keyboard downwards and away from you (the opposite of what most keyboard feet do, which is tilt your keyboard up and towards you). Both of these keep your wrist neutral/in slight flexion, whereas the typical setup keep your wrists in constant extension which contributes to carpal tunnel.

When my old mouse died, I bought a vertical mouse and sold it after a week. I was just too cumbersome to use. When I use a mouse, I keep the forearm and the wrist static and move it mainly with the tips of my thumb and pinkie. This was impossible with a vertical mouse, which expects you to grab it with the whole hand.

I found a regular mouse instead, but a decidedly asymmetrical one. This way my hand can stay in a less pronated position while still controlling the mouse the way I am used to.

Interestingly, vertical mice I've tried (yes plural) feel intensely uncomfortable and make my wrist hurt. I actually quite like to use a trackball, but I'm not sure that did much for me either. Best I've ever done is just use the mouse less I guess. Maybe I'll learn to use a pen tablet as my primary pointing device instead.

I'm a big fan of using the mouse less. When I was having issues, I learned to use the mouse with my left hand. I got used to it enough to be nearly as fast, but I never liked it so it encouraged me to just use keyboard shortcuts.

I thought I invented it, but I've since seen occupational health and safety websites recommend alternating.

Here's a link to an Australian gov PDF: https://www.comcare.gov.au/about/forms-pubs/docs/pubs/safety...

I've seen it in NZ too. I think they suggested swapping the mouse buttons but I prefer to just leave them and do my left clicking with both fingers when using my left hand.

Interesting! My personal experience is that using a vertical mouse very quickly cured wrist and forearm pain that I had, and that the reason is because the "handshake" position is the most neutral hand/forearm posture from an anatomical perspective. But everyone is different, of course

I also agree that it doesn't feel like it makes any sense, hence trying it a few times. I never actually tried going to a medical professional to figure out why though, and thankfully it has not gotten worse (mostly better, with being more careful.)

I use a trackball mouse and anything else feels very cumbersome. It's so much movement moving my entire hand. With the trackball I just flick it directionally with one finger and then catch it with the other finger.

It's more natural for your palms to be basically facing each other. That's how they are when you're just standing up. Also think of steering wheel, joystick on e.g. a crane, or control yokes on aircraft where people have to hold it for hours at a time and possibly apply force. Neutral grip is also a thing in resistance training, for instance neutral grip pull-ups are easier on the joints. It stands to reason the sideways mouse, and some kind of keyboard that allows the hands to lie in a more natural position, would be less stressful on the various small parts. You don't want to be constantly moving things far away from their natural position!

I have been using a vertical mouse for a long time now, and it is very comfortable for me. But it does take some getting used to, when I watch others trying to use my computer they always struggle with it. Interestingly as well as being more comfortable to use, I find that it improves my pointing accuracy, feels like fewer unnecessary movements.

I wasn't getting RSI per se, more like my arms were fatigued after a day of development.

I did the pricey split keyboard thing. One advantage there is that my vertical mouse sits between the keyboard halves which means I don't have to "reach around" to grip it which has saved a whole bunch of muscle movement.

I got a split keyboard and for the first time in my life, my wrists are quite strained when I type. It might be a learning curve thing, but I wouldn’t go for a split keyboard for health reasons, just because they’re cool.

I do this but with a trackball. Works great.

I use my standing desk to change the height for sitting here and there. I imagine it helps my wrists and shoulders.

Yes.

Instead of the endless search for the perfect static posture, just keep moving the various joints now and then. Adjust your elbow or wrist or the desk or the chair every now and then. This can make you look "unprofessionally" seated if you take it far enough so hopefully your workplace doesn't mind that.

Even if you are moving between multiple so-called "bad" postures, you'll be much better off compared to just being static in a "good" posture for 4 hours.

I don't even come close to groking how one types without home row hand placement. How does that even work? Where are your hands if not starting at home row?

I’m not sure if this how other people do it but my hands sort of float around as I type rather than being fixed in one place. They gravitate towards home row but I was never trained “classically”. I type (peak) 140wpm.

my understanding of the homerow style is that you have a sort of assigned finger for each key. while I type, there is plenty of overlap between fingers and it's constantly adapting based on where my hands are currently vs resetting to one position

Well said. I also "float", had no formal training and peak around 140-150wpm.

I'd never say I'm a classic home-rower, but I do use it as a starting point. My left hand mostly conforms, but I really only use my thumb and first two fingers on my right hand, so i get what you're saying about your hand moving all around.

And, yeah, 120-150wpm. I wonder if "kids these days" don't type as fast because they didn't grow up with IRC and AIM and so on. Of course, they're way faster with their thumbs than I am. My phone typing started bad and gets worse every year (somehow).

The best answer to this is literally "I don't know." I can actually observe what my hand does and give you an answer, but the truth is that I don't conciously make a choice. I do rely on the bumps on f and j to align my fingers initially, and I know I make use of keys with different shapes as landmarks. Otherwise though it just kind of floats around. I would guess it looks a bit like playing a musical instrument (but I don't play any, so hell if I know.)

My hands float around and don't really have any rules except left hand for left side and right hand for right side, where the sides are loosely defined. Some keys I may hit with one finger just to hit it with a different finger on the other hand the next word. I don't really know how I do it, I guess it's all about using whatever finger is closest and my hands float around so that the closest finger isn't always the same. I don't need the ridges on the keys, if I can find the space bar I can find every key. I also rarely use my right pinky finger except to hit Enter, it's usually too slow for anything else. I learned to type playing PK MUD games and I was up to 130-140 WPM. Nowadays I don't play MUD games very much and I'm usually around 110 WPM when I check. Also, I need a specific layout or else I'll miss a lot. Laptops don't generally have the layout I need and I'm very bad on them.

My left hand is on WASD which I suppose you could call home row and my right hand sits at <space>KL;<rshift>

So it's not too far from home row but definitely something more influenced by my gamer days than any formal typing lessons. Just tried a web based wpm test and got 90WPM at 95% accuracy. Used to be around 120WPM in my college days where I typed more essays, but these days typing speed isn't close to the bottleneck so not much need for faster typing and I guess it's atrophied some.

I have a coworker with the wasd left hand. He ends up in this weird claw grip typing style. lol

Home row is a reference, and once you get used to where your hands are relative to that reference point, it's pretty easy to hit the other keys. This can of course be a reference other than home row, like GP - although I think home row is simply the most logical place for it to be.

WASD is my home row, still 120-140.

I lowkey judge any developer who is noticable slow at typing as I can't imagine they're using a computer effectively at such a pace given how much keyboard hitting needs to occur during regular use alone.

Not that it's a high bar but I'm surprised more companies don't test wpm when hiring over rote crap like LC.

Typing fast may be the least important thing towards developing a well designed, long-lived product.

So the saying goes, but this article, and many people's honest experience, suggests otherwise.

Yes, developing complex systems is about thinking, not typing. But human head only fits so much, and once you pick up a tool to externalize your thinking, be it pen and paper, or text editor, or a whiteboard, you're limited by I/O. Reading is by far the fastest part, but if you're typing (or sketching) slower than you think, your entire thought process is now I/O bound.

There are many ways to improve this - with editors, you can use shortcuts, compose complex commands, use autocomplete, etc. - but the nice thing is, most of these improvements are purely additive. So it really doesn't hurt to learn to type faster than you think, and it'll definitely help some.

Instead of just disagreeing, I find I actually agree! At least with the premise of the I/O bound system.

At some point I realized that linear writing (typing or writing on lined paper) does not have the flexibility to express the thought processes that I want to commit to writing.

Now I write on blank paper (or an iPad if the thinking needs to be active for a long period of time).

I might be I/O bound but at least this way I don't need Serializable thoughts.

Try communicating with a coworker when the "I" in "IM" is closer to "wait several minutes while he hunts and pecks the next reply".

Maybe, but I often think fellow developers would get more mileage out of Mavis Beacon than the latest flavor of training from Pluralsight/AWS/etc

When effective comments, appropriate variable names, and the like can flow effortlessly from your fingertips, you're more likely to use them. Plus you're not expending your precious mental energy on the mechanics of typing out your ideas.

you're right. but the ability, given a good idea, to spit out a substantial amount of code that compiles and basically runs in a single session removes alot of the consternation and back and forth in those discussions

despite industry motion to the contrary, the truth is that we really can build anything we want. if we just weren't such cowards about it

Do you find that typos are the biggest barrier to quickly writing code that compiles and runs in a single session? I'm an absolutely _atrocious_ typer (in terms of both speed and accuracy), and yet I still genuinely don't think that actual typing takes within an order of magnitude of the time it takes me to get out a quick prototype compared to debugging.

Small note, when programming, there's other keys involved which allow for hierarchical navigation (ctrl, alt tab, up/down/left/right keys), which adds both some technical challenges by broadening the keyset and cognitive challenges (but of course code itself is highly cognitive.

I try to avoid the mouse, but I usually queue (mentally) a lot of keypresses at max speed, while the only bottleneck is the loading speed of the computer.

For example: alt tab (change window to browser), fn+F5 (refresh website , Ctrl Shift (change brower tab), fn+f5, ctrl shift tab (back to original tab), alt tab (back to editor or command line), etc...

Same.

Also, if I leave WASD for home row I quickly feel pain. Seriously, place the middle finger on W (alao used for S), ring on A, and indicator on D. It's so much more ergonomic it's insane.

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