
The Joy of Typing - dmnd
https://medium.com/message/the-joy-of-typing-fd8d091ab8ef
======
mikestew
"because you’re no longer struggling with the tool at hand."

I saw this coming somewhere around the first paragraph. Those students who are
trying to transcribe lectures and not actually learning anything? My guess is
it's because they're burning cycles mentally saying "'the', I need to find 't'
and an 'h', aaaaaand 'e'. 'quick', where the hell is 'q'?"

As a parallel, take Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) as a guitar player. Sure, his
playing was sloppy as hell when playing live. But the man knew the fret board.
He knew all of the places any note could be played, he knew which boxes will
allow the riff he wants to play (in fact, I doubt he thought "which box?" but
rather "here's where I need to be"), the man was _comfortable_ with his tool
and the guitar has the appearance of being an extension of his hand when he
plays. He never looks like he's mentally saying "okay, I need an A# next,
which is...". This allows him to move on from rote mechanics to making
incredible music.

Typing is the same IMO. If you struggle with typing, the first thing you're
likely to do is reach for the mouse for anything other than text entry. Which
means you reeaach over to the mouse, then mooooove the mouse, click,
and...what was it you were doing again? Then when text entry time comes it
comes out as "M...y...C...l...a...s...s... ...*...f...o...o". The tool is
taking up mental cycles when it should be more of an extension of your
thoughts.

It's been argued on HN and elsewhere that typing speed has little bearing on
productivity for programming since one spends more time thinking than typing.
My counter to that is that the two probably intersect more often than you
think they do, and when they do you don't want to be burning cycles figuring
out which finger to use to reach the "w" key.

~~~
ANTSANTS
>Those students who are trying to transcribe lectures and not actually
learning anything? My guess is it's because they're burning cycles mentally
saying "'the', I need to find 't' and an 'h', aaaaaand 'e'. 'quick', where the
hell is 'q'?"

I wouldn't be so sure. I can write and type just fine, but I always learned
better in class by listening to the teacher instead of trying to produce a
pile of notes. All of the kids I remember that wasted their time writing down
everything the teacher said without really _listening_ to them, did just the
same with computers or old-fashioned pen and paper.

~~~
joesmo
One can listen and take notes at the same time. I found that taking notes
helped a lot, even though I hardly ever to never reviewed them later. But it
helped to strengthen what I was listening to.

The simple takeaway is that different people learn differently. Don't assume
what works for you will work for others and vice versa.

~~~
ANTSANTS
I wasn't really trying to judge anyone's preferred method of learning (though
I see how I came off that way), just arguing that the "guy who takes tons of
notes but learns very little" phenomenon has nothing to do with typing skills.
I had a few people in mind from my school days who would practically
transcribe each lecture, producing pages of minutes and never putting their
pen down for a moment, yet understand less by the end than the stoner in the
back who slept through half of it.

------
nbouscal
> one 2007 study measured a small group of 21 college students and found their
> average typing speed was an abysmal 12.2 words per minute

That blows my mind. That's less than a tenth the speed I type at. How do they
get anything done??

~~~
mikestew
I can type that fast on a phone. I'll assume for the sake of discussion that
this number is accurate across a general population. If you sit at a keyboard
long enough, how can you _not_ get faster than 12.2 wpm? So much for "kids
growing up with computers". All that time in front of a keyboard since
kindergarten, and you're output is still restricted by your abysmal typing
speed?

OTOH, do typing classes even exist anymore, are are we to assume that kids
will just learn it by osmosis? When I was in high school I took typing class.
On a real typewriter. And it was a _manual_ typewriter...that we could only
use in a blinding snow storm while walking uphill. Anyway, I type around 100
wpm now which I attribute to that typing class. Had I just been left to my own
devices to hunt-and-peck my way around, I doubt I'd be anywhere near that
speed.

~~~
larrys
"which I attribute to that typing class. Had I just been left to my own
devices to hunt-and-peck my way around"

I learned on a manual as well. But by using a book. It took about 3 weeks. I
actually stopped at the part where you practice numbers (and regret it to this
day).

"that we could only use in a blinding snow storm while walking uphill"

I was lucky to be able to convince a college instructor to allow me to bring
in the manual typewriter so I could type the answer to an essay instead of
using one of the blue books. Same blinding snow storm that day!

~~~
mikestew
> I actually stopped at the part where you practice numbers (and regret it to
> this day).

We learned that in typing class, but I never did "get" the number row. Bane of
my existence to this day. I mean, mostly hit what I want but it's not
thoughtless tapping like the rest of the keyboard. Don't know if it's my
dainty little fingers or what the deal is.

> Same blinding snow storm that day!

Nah, probably not the same storm. Blinding snow storms were so common back
then, it just seemed like it we shared the same weather pattern. Not like the
constantly pleasant weather these kids today grow up with.

------
danso
I like that the OP references the NYT piece on how handwriting had cognitive
benefits...I guess I didn't read that NYT piece as presenting a dichotomy,
only asserting that handwriting had its own cognitive benefits independent of
how fast you could produce content. In fact, when I'm stuck in a problem-
solving bind, I'll sometimes sketch charts/tables on paper, even though I
almost always immediately throw the paper away.

That said, I wholly agree with the OP that _speed_ in production unlocks its
own benefits. Working with novice coders, I've become acutely sensitive to how
much lack of keyboard-shortcutting can hamper a novice's ability to understand
code, especially across a project. The 5 to 10 seconds it takes for them to
hunt-and-click for a file among Sublime Text tabs is enough for them to forget
what bug they were trying to fix in the first place.

If I had to run a learn-to-code bootcamp...I think the first thing I would do
is to remove the lab computers' default mouse input and replace them with the
80s-era steel-ball mice until students realized that using a mouse should be
the edge case.

~~~
kstenerud
"I think the first thing I would do is to remove the lab computers' default
mouse input and replace them with the 80s-era steel-ball mice until students
realized that using a mouse should be the edge case."

I'd fire you immediately if you did that. The mouse is not an edge case.

------
dmd
This is definite check-your-privilege/assumptions territory for me. Reading
the headline alone, I assumed this was going to be some sort of "you should
slow down, zen out, and think more clearly, by not typing so fast" post. The
idea of 60 wpm as being _fast_ took me a while to grasp.

------
sramsay
60 wpm? The monks who taught us to type in Catholic school would have beat us
for having that kind of sorry-ass typing speed.

------
kumarishan
I think those kids wrote longer and better essays also because when typing you
know you can edit, insert or remove whatever part whenever you want. This I
believe also makes the person less thoughtful about what he writes for the
first time. Contrary to writing, when you need to visualize the whole essay
first and then start writing. Which is much more difficult. So the result, ie
typing gave better result can also be because of the flexibility to modify any
part of the content. What if no edits were alloyed while typing ? does that
change the outcome ?

While writing essays or quick replies, typing can be better both because of
its transcription fluency and flexibility in editing (iterative style of
writing).

But in note taking, one needs another kind of flexibility. Like ability to
change the handwriting or write in any direction anywhere. How many times we
write illegible words, just to getaway with it and focus on the knowledge
while in classroom. Also while pondering on an idea, we need this flexibility.
We don't get this in typing. Only if we could scribble while typing (something
to solve) ....

Writing is certainly loosing its territory to typing. Emails replaced letters,
editing softwares, etc. But IMO once touch screen computers and tablet takes
over. We might see people preferring stylus pens and resort back to writing.
But Graphite is still going to loose.. :)

------
oldbuzzard
Perhaps Steve Yegge's post is germane, [http://steve-
yegge.blogspot.com/2008/09/programmings-dirties...](http://steve-
yegge.blogspot.com/2008/09/programmings-dirtiest-little-secret.html)

I'm not sold on typing per se, but mastering an appropriate output method for
your domain seems key. For programming, that is typing. For math, it could be
either manuscript or TeX. For the humanities it could be either manuscript or
typing. Typing always removes a transcription step, but that is unlikely to be
the limiting factor for any deep knowledge work.

As a homeschool dad, I think it is important to get kids to a relative level
of proficiency as quickly as possible. Difficulty writing or typing or
whatever certainly limits output. Different kids will prefer different options
and thats fine.

PS. Even if typing is faster, writing allows more free form
expression(maps/diagrams/etc) and that may mitigate the speed issue.

------
taeric
60 words a minute is still very slow, when it comes to thinking speed. Unless
I'm just off my rocker, of course.

This is also why folks that take really good notes by hand often have some
sort of shorthand system.

My question, then, is it worthwhile to investigate some of the more advanced
typing techniques out there? I'm curious, but highly skeptical.

~~~
nbouscal
I average 140wpm without any "advanced typing techniques", so I don't think
they're really necessary. I can't speak to whether or not they would be
helpful, though. I do think it's very worthwhile to be able to type this fast
- people speak somewhere around 150wpm on average, and being able to type as
fast as you speak is useful for instant messaging, etc.

~~~
streakerbee
How did you get so fast? I seem stuck at around 55 wpm.

~~~
saraid216
I developed speed from text MUDs. I'm the type of person who dislikes
customizing my setup and prefer to play straight; as a result, I had to
consume, digest, and react to pretty large quantities of barely-differentiated
text in tenths of a second.

It was good immersion practice.

------
z2
Back in college, I dictated the bulk of my (humanities) papers using Windows
Vista’s built-in speech recognition. It unlocked a new paradigm of revising
where I could speak an entire paragraph, delete it without hesitation, and re-
write, all in a minute’s time. Including pauses and corrections, I probably
got less than 100 WPM. That alone isn't impressive, but it came with minimal
fatigue and friction. It was very liberating to edit my logic and reasoning at
a multi-sentence level.

~~~
hackuser
Could you explain what you mean? Maybe speech recognition has features I don't
understand.

Decent text editors can delete and move sentences and paragraphs almost
instantly. How is speech recognition different?

~~~
z2
Sure, deleting is fast, but I meant that typing something back isn't. Speaking
makes it faster and easier to start over with multiple sentences until one
works. Maybe it's just laziness -- when typing, I am more hesitant to redo
entire paragraphs. When typing, I also feel more caught up in the details and
words inside my sentences. (Though that may not be a bad thing!)

------
zatkin
I think I have found the absolute worst typing test[1] on the Internet thanks
to this article. It keeps a timer running until you "hit tab and click stop".
You're telling me that I need to stop tying, move my hand over to my mouse,
dragm the mouse button to that "stop" button and click the button? That'll
lose me typing time...

[1]:
[http://www.calculatorcat.com/typing_test/](http://www.calculatorcat.com/typing_test/)

~~~
infogulch
You misread. It says "hit tab OR click stop". So just hitting tab out of the
text entry box stops the timer.

------
incision
I can certainly type sixty words a minute, but when it comes to retention
there's no comparison between typing and handwriting for me and I don't find
myself transcribing.

I have a notion that the permanence and chunkiness of writing keeps thoughts
'whole' whereas the ease of backspacing allows the same words to become
abstracted. I'll have to try typing with backspace mapped to newline or
something to see how the idea plays out.

------
worrieddot
This is especially interesting to me. I've been relearning how to type on an
Alphagrip and for much of the process (20-50wpm) I have felt like it was
dumbing me down because my thoughts all have to wait for me to slowly output
them. Now that I'm past 50wpm on alpha text the effect isn't as bad, but I
still feel hindered. (But.... that's worth it for not exacerbating carpal
tunnel issues, right?)

~~~
worrieddot
Btw, I would recommend this (learning a new keyboard layout) as a refreshing
exercise for anyone who has forgotten what the learning process feels like. I
imagine trying to read a book in another language is similar.

------
viseztrance
Unless you're a professional typist, 40 wpm as an average speed is definitely
OK. Realistically there are few people that average over 120 wpm
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute)).
As far as schools go, I hope they stick to using pens, as I don't know anyone
who got RSI after using one.

------
freshmeat
I cleaned my keyboard and ended up swapping two keys because of their
proximity to the keyboard when I reset their positions. A co-worker mistyped
one of the keys, then backspaced, then typed it again and on several other
places on the same line before stopping, looking confused, then staring at the
keyboard asking "You swapped your keys?"

"You look at the keyboard when you type?"

------
gknoy
"""One of the reasons we formally teach handwriting to young children is that
you don’t want a bottleneck between the ideas they’re forming and the writing.
"""

Talking with my son's teachers and pediatricians, one big reason that early
classes emphasize writing is not just about literacy, but rather about
developing hand muscles.

------
AdamFort
Great content. It's a pity that author didn't mention that average typing
speed for adults - 41 wpm according to infographic at
[http://www.ratatype.com/learn/average-typing-
speed/](http://www.ratatype.com/learn/average-typing-speed/)

------
donniezazen
Seems like GNU Typist is quite popular in this thread. I was wondering how do
you learn to use right fingers for right buttons. I could use GNU Typist but I
might just be practicing with wrongs fingers.

------
acd
Did you know that you can type the word "typewriter" on top row of your QWERTY
keyboard? It was part of sales demonstrations.

------
ommunist
It is not my university education that makes my living. Its touch-typing
skill.

------
oldbuzzard
[http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/09/programmings-
dirties...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/09/programmings-dirtiest-
little-secret.html)

I could figure out how to post this w/o it showing up as a dupe but I just
don't care enough.

------
jbranchaud
I was really hoping this would be about type systems.

------
insertnickname
Next up: The Joy of RSI

------
hmsimha
This is why the quality of text messaging is notoriously abysmal.

------
userbinator
I think there's also much to be said about the "standard" way of teaching
typing, which I find to be excessively constraining and inefficient [1].
Instead of forcing a strict "one key, one finger" correspondence, it's better
to teach _where_ the keys are, and to encourage the use of as many fingers as
possible. It's also not explicitly taught, but the skill of breaking up
sequences of letters so that you're typing complete _words_ and common pieces
of words (e.g. "ing") is also very important. Fast, fluent typing comes from
being able to quickly know which keys to hit for a given word - which finger
exactly to use matters only tangentially. I've seen people type 100+ wpm with
only 2 fingers on each hand, but they know which keys to hit, and know where
the next key they need to hit is.

[1] [http://www.onehandkeyboard.org/standard-qwerty-finger-
placem...](http://www.onehandkeyboard.org/standard-qwerty-finger-placement/)

