> I’m in software, like a lot of people here, so being able to type in speed is rarely the limiting factor
I think of typing speed in coding the same way I think of cardio in boxing – it won’t win you the round, but the lack of it can easily lose you the round.
You want topping to feel seamless and reliable. Whatever you think should come out on the keyboard reliably and without friction. Any time you have to stop and think about typing or go back to check for typos, is time you’re losing focus and flow.
Take an extreme example – search-and-peck typing where every character takes 2 seconds. Can you really hold a complex programming context sharp in your mind while it takes a minute to type a few instructions? I sure couldn’t.
But you probably also can’t think fast enough to fill a 200wpm typing buffer.
Somewhere in between those extremes lies the sweet spot where your typing speed and your thinking speed match.
Indeed, being able to type quickly is invaluable in minimizing the time your mind is blocked from continuing onwards.
Or, in general, being able to use keyboard quickly. I've seen a lot of people who, when troubleshooting some issue in a SSH session, are v e r y s l o w in shell (quick sequence of little tasks like: type a command, find a particular command in your recent shell history, bring it back up, change something in it, navigate to a different directory, grep some log output).
If even the simplest of those tasks takes you a few seconds, you risk losing the train of thought.
Interesting perspective. I have a decent wpm (like 120 if we are doing mavis beacon shit) but otherwise I usually go at like 70. I cannot think of a single time in my 10 year software engineer career where I have been like “damn, I wish I could have typed that faster and my typing speed was a limiting factor in my job”
That’s the fun part! You don’t notice it’s a problem until you pair with someone who can’t type fast or makes a lot of typing errors and you want to bang your face through the screen because it’s so frustrating to watch them struggle.
They don’t even realize they’re being held back by this. It’s an invisible friction until you notice it.
Easiest way to notice the effect is by switching to a new IDE where you don’t have the keyboard shortcuts in muscle memory yet. Or a language that’s easy but you have to think about the syntax because it’s new.
I think of typing speed in coding the same way I think of cardio in boxing – it won’t win you the round, but the lack of it can easily lose you the round.
You want topping to feel seamless and reliable. Whatever you think should come out on the keyboard reliably and without friction. Any time you have to stop and think about typing or go back to check for typos, is time you’re losing focus and flow.
Take an extreme example – search-and-peck typing where every character takes 2 seconds. Can you really hold a complex programming context sharp in your mind while it takes a minute to type a few instructions? I sure couldn’t.
But you probably also can’t think fast enough to fill a 200wpm typing buffer.
Somewhere in between those extremes lies the sweet spot where your typing speed and your thinking speed match.