Do you use the home row?

Question

When I was taught keyboarding in school, much emphasis was made on keeping your fingers centered on the 'home row', with your left hand on ASDF and your right hand on JKL; However, this placement was never comfortable for me so I continued to use the tried-and-true hunt-and-peck. Years later I'm able to type much faster and without looking down at all, and while I'm not a speed demon, I type fast enough (about 65WPM) for my needs.

One interesting side effect is that I find the so-called 'ergonomic' keyboard absolutely intolerable, as the keys aren't where I'm used to them being, and some of the keys I'm 'supposed' to hit with one hand I sometimes hit with the other, making the ergonomic split rather frustrating.

Are there are any other developers out there that don't use the traditional hand posture for touch-typing? Am I the only one?

Followup question: The only online typing speed tests I've found require you to type paragraphs of text. A better test for programmers would be to have the user type out source code for a simple program. I suspect that home-row typists are at more of a disadvantage than I am when it comes to hitting some of the symbols around the edge of the keyboard because they try to stretch their hand instead of move it.

So my question is: how well does the typing speed of a paragraph of text compare with the typing speed of a block of code, and does using the home row introduce a disadvantage when attempting to type symbols instead of letters? (all this assumes use of QWERTY, of course)

Answer 1

There's only one way to hold your left hand on the keyboard:

WASD

That's a habit I don't think will ever leave me.

Answer 2

No, obviously you're not the only one.

But as for myself, I think that of any class I had in high school, the one whose skills I use every day is touch-typing.

Answer 3

I never learned to touch type. I wish I had, but got bored with the touch typing tutor on my TI-99

My father still bangs his keyboard violently - from his days typing away on typewriters...

Maybe I will look for a touch typing program online...

Answer 4

I keep my fingers on AOEU and HTNS...

Answer 5

I'm a touch typist, so I keep my fingers on the home keys. I recommend Programming's Dirtiest Little Secret to anyone who doesn't.

Answer 6

Learning to type was considered "Girly" when I was in high school back in the late 70s/early 80s, but I did it anyway. Damn glad I did! :)

Answer 7

I touch type for efficiency's sake. Regular expressions only go so far.

For gaming I use AWEF instead of WASD. I haven't found many people who prefer this method, but it allows for finer control IMHO. A=back, W=left, E=right, F=forward. It also leaves QSDR and ZXCV for alternate sets of input. WASD is just cramped.

LOL @LFSR...I wonder how many people caught that. See: [http://wbic16.xedoloh.com/dvorak.html]

Answer 8

I do, actually. Learned to do it the hard way, by having to memorize hotkeys in old RTS games - particularly Age of Empires 2.

Answer 9

I do touch-type. I also had training on the numeric keypad when I was in HS, and that's very handy when you need to enter a bunch of numbers into tables or something.

Answer 10

Home row all the way for me -- I've gone mad trying to use keyboards that don't have the J/F bumps. On the other hand, I don't think that following the "traditional" method -- or having a high speed -- is as important as simply being able to type and code most anything without having to think about what you're doing with the keyboard. Smooth the road between thinking of what you want to say and having it appear on the screen. Abstract it away entirely. It should be like breathing.

Typing 80 WPM vs 60 WPM won't make a huge difference while coding, but having to think about typing while you're trying to code is going to destroy you, even if you somehow managed to get 200WPM. That's what's important, IMHO.

I can't use ergonomic keyboards for the same reason as you -- I don't pay too much attention as to which hand is supposed to hit which key. I even hit space bar with my LEFT thumb, which is supposedly wrong but I find it a bit easier. It's just naturally what I do.

Answer 11

Touch-typing from the home row is torture for programmers. We have to hit too many keys that are nowhere near the home row. (Backticks, pipes, parens and braces, punctuation above the number row.) Keeping your fingers on the home row means you get to stretch your fingers to hit those keys, which is very bad.

Typing those keys the proper way also often involves using your pinky fingers, which is also bad (ever heard of Emacs pinky?) Additionally if you're a Vim user, your hands are constantly flying up to hit Esc. Maybe some people's hands are big enough to reach that far from the home row, but not mine.

Given that my hands are all over the place anyways, I make no effort to keep them on the home row. I can type around 80 WPM without looking at the keyboard, but my hands are nowhere near the home row most of the time, they're moving all over the keyboard. And I never use my pinky finger for any keypresses, I move my whole hand and use another finger instead. People still tell me they're impressed with how fast I type. Doing anything for 8 hours a day 6 days a week will make you fast at it.

I agree WPM isn't the best measure of typing speed for programmers. Code in many languages is not made of words, it's a mess of mostly punctuation keys.

Answer 12

I touch type - in that I don't need to look at the keyboard whilst typing. However, I neither put my hands over the "home row" initially, nor return them to that position.

I keep my fingers in a natural position, and use whichever finger is easiest to press a key - that can at times means both hands on the same side of the keyboard, depending on what I'm typing.

I can type standard text easily exceeding 120 WPM, much faster if I know in advance what I'm writing. (And I rarely practise writing lots of text).

Never encountered a coding speed test, but I'm plenty quick at that too - I can easily write code, whilst holding a conversation, without looking at keyboard or screen, and still work fast enough to impress people. :)

So yeah, the "home row" thing is definitely not a requirement for fast typing, and I'm glad I didn't get sucked into that method, because it's not how my hands work.

Answer 13

I actually do use the home keys and touch typing. In fact, if I get distracted, I often find myself searching for those little bumps on the F and J keys to realign myself without looking. Still, the ergonomic keyboards bug me.

Answer 14

I honestly don't know.. I was never "taught" how to type, but I can type, well.. quickly.

Not sure how many words per minute - something I find a bit meaningless, given that a lot of what I type are keyboard shortcuts, function names and so on..

I don't consciously keep my fingers on the home-row - my fingers generally hover around what I plan to type next, although I've never really thought about it.. For example, after switching from another application back to this browser window, my fingers were resting on/around most of the following keys.. [Cmd],[space]qwe,.;jio and shift (not necessarily in that order..). Now they are hovering over the tab and space to post the answer "click" the "Post your Answer" button..

Answer 15

I first learned to type using the home row method, but as a programmer, my right pinky got far too much of a workout hitting all the keys I couldn't easily reach on the right side of the keyboard. My left hand still rests properly on the ASDF keys (and additionally takes care of the Y key), but over time my right hand has shifted one position right to the KL;' keys instead. It makes it a lot easier to use the Enter and Backspace keys as well as some of the keys less commonly used in writing like the pipe and slash keys. Not only that, but it made hitting the P key a lot easier (in my opinion the most poorly placed key on a QWERTY keyboard). I'm not sure why this typing method isn't more common. The right pinky has to do a LOT less work.

Answer 16

how well does the typing speed of a paragraph of text compare with the typing speed of a block of code, and does using the home row introduce a disadvantage when attempting to type symbols instead of letters?

I can type a paragraph around 90-100 wpm w/o errors. Considering most of programming is letters (names of functions, variables, etc), and that TextMate (and other text editors) autocomplete the closing characters like (), {}, [], '', "", <>, I'd bet my code typing is around 60-70 wpm.

1/2 to 1/3 of the characters in my source code are inside of comments. If I was a hunt and peck guy I have no doubt my comments would be non-existent.

So to answer you question, I believe there is far more disadvantage than advantage for coders who can't type "from the home row".

After-all, { and [ are no different than q and Q. And | is not much different than delete, which most typists can get to rather easily.

Answer 17

I'm a touch typist or whatever you call it, I think. I never learned it, or anything, ... just started using the keyboard at one point, and after a while people were talking "how good that kid's doing". That was some time ago, though. I can do about 100wpm*(1), mostly due to my friends and family exploiting me for a long time, to just "help them transcribe that few pages of text they need tommorow morning". "You're good at that, it'll be faster, and I'll put the kettle on in the meantime". (It was a nice sum of pages, so I usually also got the cookies baked in the meantime :-)

But, no, I don't think transcribing text has any correlation to speed of writing of code.

It should also be noted that, while all of here use english, it is not a native language for many of us. The knowledge of the language you're using also affects your speed.

For the end, I think that typing speed is not that important for programmers. For programmers should think before they type, and if they think through, they'll not have that much to type. The thinking speed and logic is what's important, not the typing (this can probably be proven by correlation by watching some senior programmers at work ... lots of them people still use only 2 fingers, but still, manage to get better code more quickly out ...)

Another thing which can (and does) affect speed of writing code is that many non-EN keyboard layouts don't have curly and square brackets (my language, Croatian, and several neighbourhood ones, doesn't). Using the alt key to get them also slows you down.

(1) ... as long as I'm not forced to use ergonomic or any weird looking keyboard. By weird looking I mean pretty much everything that doesn't resemble the ibm's M-model (with the exception of Win keys). Laptop keyboards are ok, also.

Answer 18

Best thing for learning touch typing is playing text-based muds, 'cause then you need accuracy and speed and you continually get instantaneous feedback from whatever you type or mistype.

As far as programming, even if the symbols used during programming don't correspond directly to home row, the averaging process means that having your hands spread out over the keyboard at home row gets you close to the letters that you'll need.

And beyond that, when you're communicating with other people via email or IM, touch-typing at home row is certainly going to be beneficial to you, because then the characters that your fingers are closest to -are- going to be the ones that you use most.

Answer 19

I personally don't find 65WPM sufficient for my needs. I basically have always practiced typing from the home row - I first learned on a typewriter. As a result, I now can regularly break the 100WPM mark and if I'm trying, I've gotten up to 120WPM.

Yes, that slows down when I am trying to find an asterisk, or a backslash or something, but not all that much. Because I stay on the home row, I can just keep typing and I at least know where my hands have to move.