My typing speed is not that good, its about 40 words per minute. But there are people who can type at more than 100 words per minute.

What is your typing speed? Does typing speed really matter?

  • Dessalines
    link
    fedilink
    102 years ago

    One of the best coders I knew was a peck-typer, index fingers only, and he still wrote books of code.

    Unless you’re a court stenographer or something, its not that necessary.

    That said I’m still obsessed with alternative keyboard layouts, and I’m on my 3rd one now. They won’t necessarily make you type faster, but def a lot more comfortably.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      42 years ago

      One of the best coders I knew was a peck-typer, index fingers only,

      there must be some interesting back story to this 😅🤔

    • @[email protected]OP
      link
      fedilink
      22 years ago

      Pretty cool.

      QWERTY is the only layout I am familiar with. How long does it take you to learn a new layout?

      • Dessalines
        link
        fedilink
        12 years ago

        You can get passable in a week, and back up to your usual speed in around 2 months. Don’t get me wrong its a difficult process, and it takes discipline to not revert back, so a lot of people give up after a week or so.

        The best advice I can give is to switch, then go through the tutorials at typing.com or anywhere else, with the new layout, every day. It does a lot of repetitive exercises to get the new keys wired into your muscle memory.

  • Lionel C-R
    link
    fedilink
    72 years ago

    As someone else replied here I think all that matters is that it doesn’t slow you down when writing your thoughts or taking notes for example.

    I do also think that more than typing fast, being able to type without looking at the keyboard makes you save even more time and makes typing much more comfortable.

    • @[email protected]OP
      link
      fedilink
      12 years ago

      Yeah. I can type without looking at the keyboard but I make a lot of mistakes when I don’t look. I guess, I need more practice.

  • flbn
    link
    fedilink
    52 years ago

    imo, you kinda reach an inflection point after 60-70 wpm where it probably doesn’t impact productivity all that much, not based on any objectivity just a figure i threw up based on my own up’s and down’s.

    no matter how fast you type, nothing impacts productivity more than being comfortable with your environment. someone who types at 30wpm but understands and uses their keybindings and shortcuts effectively can get much more done in less time than someone who can just type fast. as always, there’s also the whole competency thing. if you can say more with less words, doesn’t really matter how fast you type, does it? same goes for code, i feel.

    • flbn
      link
      fedilink
      42 years ago

      just read the comments and someone else mentioned that it makes for more fluid writing, since you can type as you think. i believe this is what i meant by the 60-70 wpm mark. so long as your typing doesn’t impact your stream of consciousness, i think it’s largely trivial. though i could be wrong and spiteful about having maxxed out at 85-90 wpm.

      ps: i spent so much time working on getting that number up, only for it to fall QUICKLY after not keeping up with my practice. anecdotally, i haven’t felt that it’s a damper on my productivity at all.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    4
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    If it’s what you’re slow at then exercise better speed. I’m not a fast typer but I can do it without looking at the screen for a minute or two, when my eyes hurt. As a programmer, learning to use snippets, copy-paste and debugging efficiently have been more important.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    3
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    It depends on what you do with it. In general, it’s a plus – especially if you can write so fast that it doesn’t interrupt your thoughts. Typing shouldn’t be an obstacle in between one’s thoughts and the medium. It really annoyed me when I started to learn the Colemak layout, since I noticed that it slowed down my thinking because I got too distracted by the typing process itself. It improved after a while, but it still gets in the way, so unless you have a good reason for changing your default keyboard layout, I’d recommend sticking to the first layout you learned and slowly improving on your typing speed.

    Btw, I should add that the faster you type on a real keyboard, the more annoying it feels to type on a virtual keyboard, but then again I guess most people wouldn’t type longer text on a virtual keyboard anyway.

    • @[email protected]OP
      link
      fedilink
      12 years ago

      Btw, I should add that the faster you type on a real keyboard, the more annoying it feels to type on a virtual keyboard, but then again I guess most people wouldn’t type longer text on a virtual keyboard anyway.

      yeah, virtual keyboards suck

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    22 years ago

    it does, but only to a certain point, and there are other much more important factors that pure speed in my opinion

    in typing competition websites I reach speeds of 150 wpm, sometimes more than that, but in real life I almost never reach sustained speeds that high, primarily because in real life typing scenarios you typicaly have to think about what you want to type, not just mindlessly type out the things off the screen, and coming up with things to write is mostly slower than typing them out, and also sustaining such speeds for prolonged periods of time is pretty straining

    learning colemak made the most difference for me not by virtue of its speed, but rather the comfort that comes with layouts that have a more efficient key positions, fewer finger movements, less uncomfortable wrist movements than qwerty does

    if I could go back, and choose another layout, I would probably go with drorak, because I later came to realize that probably finger rolling (which is the primariry technique utilized in colemak) is less efficient than hand alternation (primary technique used in dvorak), but I doubt it makes a major difference, if any at all, and someone with experience with both of these layouts should probably be asked about this issue, and after all, one of the most (if not the most) proficient typists in the world uses qwerty 🤷‍♀️

    plus, after about 100 wpm the speed return per unit of time invested starts to really diminish, and it takes a lot of time after that threshold

    tldr i don’t think anything over 80 wpm makes much practical sense, and a better keyboard layout plus a split ortholinear keyboard would go a long way in terms of comfort and hand health, hope this helps

    • @[email protected]OP
      link
      fedilink
      12 years ago

      You are right. In monkey type and other type speed testing platforms, I am able to type somewhat fast. But when I need to leave a comment or type an essay, there is significant slowdown because I need to think.

      Hmm… I never knew choosing another layout would help in increasing typing speed. Cool!