Programming's Dirtiest Little Secret

http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/09/programmings-dirtiest-little-secret.html

by erictobia • 18 years ago

70 102 18 years ago

steve-yegge.blogspot.com

burnout15402• 18 years ago

Not being able to touch type is not a bad thing; not being able to type fast is. I can't touch type and I used to be able to type 130+ wpm without errors. I can still average around 100 wpm.

prospero• 18 years ago

What's your definition of "not touch typing"? Do you use two fingers? Do you keep your fingers on the home row?

yters2• 18 years ago

I think he means looking at the keyboard as he types. I can see how that can help a person type faster, makes sense to me.

burnout15402• 18 years ago

I was actually thinking of "touch typing" as being the standard method that is taught in schools and typing classes - put your fingers on the home row to begin and use all eight fingers to type.

I type by mainly using two fingers, with occasional pinkie and middle finger use. I also use my thumbs for the spacebar sometimes.

If you define "touch typing" as not having to look at the keyboard, then I guess I do touch type and I apologize to the author. I was mostly taking offense to the idea that there is only one correct way to type.

thorax• 18 years ago

I don't do the home row touch-typing stuff, either. Nothing formally taught, all organically grown typing from using computers since I was a teenager. I'm typically in the range of 80-100 wpm depending on the test.

Primarily only using the index fingers, thumbs for shift keys, spaces and sometimes the other fingers will hit keys in the farthest reaches, depending on what the index fingers are doing.

It's kinda neat-- I discovered I type different words differently. For example, if I type "provide" my left hand index finger hits the "v", but in "forever", my right hand index finger does. Not a beat skipped-- they just do it.

I think typing with fewer fingers does put a maximum on my typing speed, but I'm perfectly comfortable with ~100 wpm.

This site says I type about 93wpm at top speed: http://www.typeonline.co.uk/typingspeed.php

ken• 18 years ago

> Hell, if you're having trouble, just email me, and I'll give you a personalized pep talk. I can afford it. I type pretty fast. Plus your email will be really short.

I'm tempted to email him just to find out what Steve Yegge's idea of a "really short" email is.

epe• 18 years ago

Hehe, good one, but I think he means the email that the can't-typers send him will be "really short".

DenisM2• 18 years ago

Accoridng to Mythical Man-Month average programmer produces 2000 LOC per year. Other data I've seen backs this up. Typing speed is not really a problem.

ojbyrne2• 18 years ago

Umm, nice rationalization. But that's 2000 lines of debugged, documented code. It takes a lot more typing than just 2000 x 80 characters. The article basically describes why.

Plus he's not talking about "average."

DenisM2• 18 years ago

Even if you are 10 times the average that's coming out to 55 lines per day. Seriously, did you ever find your coding constranied by your typing speed?

ivank• 18 years ago

Does anyone else type on QWERTY but never from home row? I get 115wpm but with a disastrous 96% accuracy. The upside is much better access to the number keys and punctuation. I once tried to switch to Colemak, but never managed to completely switch over. I think this was because my muscle memory of QWERTY in 8 different positions was too powerful to unlearn.

cbetz• 18 years ago

One of my co-workers types with his two pointer fingers and I'm sure he hits at least 80 wpm if not more. He looks at the keys on occasion, but he mostly does not need to. However, I get the impression his error rate is quite high.

All that being said, I think he could type even faster if he just bit the bullet and learned to touch type. This is why Steve is right. You might be a pretty fast typer already, but you can probably be a lot faster using all your fingers instead of just two.

henning2• 18 years ago

Three-word summary: learn to type.

KiwiNige• 18 years ago

Thank you

Edit: why is learning to type a dirty little secret?

jamesbritt• 18 years ago

I think the secret is that those who type slow are picking up speed by being hasty in their code decisions.

I'm skeptical, since far more development time is spent thinking about what to do than in banging out text to implement it.

And maybe some faster typists just emit more bad, buggy code.

time_management• 18 years ago

My typing speed is about 75 wpm, which probably sucks by HN standards. I don't type nearly as fast as I think.

When I'm writing Java code, I find that my typing speed is often a bottleneck. In Ocaml or Lisp, it never is.

djb• 18 years ago

"SQL, Lisp, and Haskell are the only programming languages that I've seen where one spends more time thinking than typing."

—Philip Greenspun, http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2005/03/07/how-long-is-th...

Xichekolas3• 18 years ago

While I'd agree with Lisp and Haskell, I not sure how SQL could be considered that dense. I often find myself frustrated that a split second thought takes so long to express as a query, and I type a decent 80wpm or so.

cglee• 18 years ago

I find that when I'm doing Java, I'm not thinking or typing as much as I am hitting ctrl-space for the IDE to autocomplete superLongMethodNamesFactoryStubHome().

In Ruby, it seems I think and type in equal parts.

mhartl2• 18 years ago

I remapped my Escape key to a more convenient place on my keyboard (it's a thumb key now); as a result, when I write Ruby code in TextMate, half of it appears virtually instantaneously. The downside? Sometimes accidentally pressing Escape when typing anywhere else. D'oh!

cousin_it• 18 years ago

I'm reminded of some K guy (Stevan Apter?) posting working code to the newsgroup from a WebTV. The language is that terse. 1 line of code == 1 page of explanations.

rtf• 18 years ago

If Steve Yegge typed slower, I wouldn't have to read as much.

projectileboy• 18 years ago

Amen, brother. Proving once again the old adage that raw output doesn't amount to much by itself.

DanielBMarkham2• 18 years ago

I just skipped down to the bolded text. Took about 10 seconds.

I'm sure he had something else important to say.

Maybe?

briancooley• 18 years ago

Ironically, he also said this:

"You'd be absolutely astonishedly flabbergasted at how many programmers don't know how to READ. I'm dead serious. You can learn to speed read even faster than you can learn to type, and yet there are tons of programmers out there who are unable to even skim this blog. They try, but unlike speed readers, these folks don't actually pick up the content."

gtani• 18 years ago

The "Even Dirtier Secret", HN edition: devs who can't type, don't read books, can't understand LtU or git or BDD, get all their info from Stackoverflow. Oh, yeah, they're not in the top 99.999999%, so now way Joel will hire them.

zandorg• 18 years ago

I go by Andy Hertzfeld (Apple)'s credo: Your productivity can be measured in how many lines you REMOVE that week...

This is especially true with Lisp - you compact it down like one of those trash compactors.

[folklore.org]

rms3• 18 years ago

Typing is by far the most useful thing I learned in school.

blogimus• 18 years ago

Really? Not math and/or English?

rms3• 18 years ago

I had typing class in 6th grade. So I'll restate it as the most useful thing I learned in school, from 6th grade on.

abstractbill• 18 years ago

I can see his point, but most of my "typing" consists of pressing two or three keys, followed by M-/ so how much would it really help to touch-type?

aston• 18 years ago

I'm a two-fingers-and-a-thumb, look-at-the-keyboard, what's-the-home-row? typer, and I can still hit 70+ on a bad day. Still not sure what that has to do with 1) my ability to code, 2) my ability to communicate.

rms3• 18 years ago

It's just an all-around upgrade to your personal ability. We all spend a lot of time at a computer. Why not try learning? The process of learning touch typing will make you better at two finger typing, if nothing else.

http://www.freetypinggame.net/ http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3552142/Typing_of_the_Dead

bootload4• 18 years ago

"... Yeev noticed that one of the electives, surely placed there by mistake, was Typing. Like, on a typewriter ..."

What an elective? Mine was compulsory complete with manual typewriters and battle-axe teacher. One thing I do miss about those old clunkers was the solid feel the keys had. You had to learn to position your index fingers at 'F' and 'J' remember where each key was positioned and hit hard. So letters like 'P' and 'q' required a greater force than say 'v' or 'n' (because my index fingers are stronger than pinkies). Keyboards these days have no resistance so typing fast leads to random hits.

What's the most solid keyboard you have used?

phr2• 18 years ago

I have an ancient Northgate with delicious feel. It's huge, and heavy, with some kind of mechanical switches that snick into place in the coolest way when you press a key. Feels like an IBM Selectric typwriter, if you remember those.

I haven't used it in years, since I now use laptops exclusively. I can't bear to get rid of it, though.

bootload4• 18 years ago

"... It's huge, and heavy, with some kind of mechanical switches that snick into place in the coolest way when you press a key. Feels like an IBM Selectric typwriter, if you remember those ..."

My last IBM model died. The Selectric model was good. Big & heavy I used these in undergrad for creating camera ready artwork. Are the laptop keyboards you use any good?

iigs3• 18 years ago

I'm partial to most of the Apple Desktop Bus keyboards. That my nickname here is an Apple computer is correlative, not causative. :)

My favorite keyboard of all time is: http://www.old-computers.com/museum/photos/Apple_IIgs_Keyboa...

Its keys are wonderfully weighted, tactile without being obnoxiously loud, but it's not really practical these days as it doesn't have F keys and the ins/del/home/end/pgup/pgdn set, and the arrows aren't in inverted-T form, which is annoying.

Otherwise I prefer laptop keyboards (50/50 between Dell's current-ish stuff and the traditional ThinkPad design). I'm more than happy to be more gentle in order to extend the life of my fingers and wrists.

bootload4• 18 years ago

"... I'm partial to most of the Apple Desktop Bus keyboards. ..."

I'm pretty tempted to look at Apple kb's next time my MS bendy board lucks out.

"... I prefer laptop keyboards (50/50 between Dell's current-ish stuff and the traditional ThinkPad design). ..."

What is about laptop kb's that's better?

kqr2• 18 years ago

The Happy Hacking Lite keyboard is nice and compact with a solid feel:

http://pfuca-store.stores.yahoo.net/haphackeylit1.html

Previously they also carried a "professional" model which featured blank keys. Not only was it "l33t", but it was supposed to improve your speed by forcing you to learn to touch type which of course is required for late night hacking sessions in the dark.

Finally, there is the classic carpal tunnel inducing IBM keyboard:

http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/customizer.html

bootload4• 18 years ago

"... Previously they also carried a "professional" model which featured blank keys. Not only was it "l33t", but it was supposed to improve your speed by forcing you to learn to touch type which of course is required for late night hacking sessions in the dark ..."

That is pretty sad. While I can touch-type, typing accuracy at night decreases not because I can't find 'F' & 'H'. Must be murder with long passwords.

lallysingh• 18 years ago

Kinesis advantage pro. The keys are placed very well, and require little movement to register. A small speaker goes off when it registers the stroke, so you know when you can stop pressing.

mhartl2• 18 years ago

It frankly never occurred to me that any programmers wouldn't know how to touch-type. How does that happen?

jrockway3• 18 years ago

Remember that the set of "any programmer" is pretty big. It probably happens by not spending much time programming. Or by not noticing your bad habits.

I think most "kids" today can type pretty well because it's essential for IM-ing. I know that's how I learned to type quickly. Older people might not do much real-time communication, so they might not know how slow their ad-hoc typing is.

iigs3• 18 years ago

I started hunt and peck typing at 5 (Apple //c represent!), and had evolved to a four finger lazy-look typing method by 7th grade typing class. I didn't start actually typing without looking at the keyboard until I purchased a factory defect keyboard from a computer fair when I was in 9th grade. This keyboard had no lettering ink on any of the keys. I remember my mom being in disbelief that I could look at her and type something else quickly at the same time.

Best $10 I ever spent.

Because I learned to type this way I have rather unconventional / poor form. My hands rarely center properly on the home row, I tend to use my middle fingers for the upper inside letters, and I don't always use the same fingers for the same keys (I type the first "e" in "letters" with my middle finger and the second with the proper finger).

One other positive side effect of that keyboard while I was exploring UNIX was that there was no value in looking at punctuation either, so I learned to touch type all punctuation, not just the secretary subset, at the same time.

Xichekolas3• 18 years ago

I also have a 'modified style' when I use qwerty... via legacy of learning it on my own before being taught.

When I switched dvorak I figured I might as well do it right. As a side effect, my hands no longer hurt like they did with qwerty...

phony_identity2• 18 years ago

Hmmm. I want to hear from some great programmers who are often here on HN. Do you guys type quickly? Paul Graham and Patrick Collison, are you speed typists? How about Ryan Davis and Jey Kottalam? Suggest some more great hackers, too.

khafra• 18 years ago

I can't speak for them, but I've been able to type at ~80WPM for 20 years, since about age 10. I took Pascal and C in college 12 years ago, but to this day I'm a borderline useless scripter.when tasks call for a bit of Perl, Ruby, automated bash, or whatever.

phony_identity2• 18 years ago

This: http://www.typeonline.co.uk/typingspeed.php tells me I type at about 55 wpm with about one error. Apparently this sucks. Damn it.

mroman2• 18 years ago

If you need to type that much, to where whether or not you can touch type matters . . . you are doing something wrong. Saying touch typing matters amounts to stating that programming is actually carried out ON THE SCREEN YOU ARE TYPING ON and I could not disagree with that more . . . programming takes place in the mind of the programmer, typing on the screen is a byproduct.

I can't wait to see how his argument holds up once we have brain to computer interfaces that allow us to skip typing altogether.

jrockway3• 18 years ago

programming takes place in the mind of the programmer, typing on the screen is a byproduct

As he says in the article, the actual programming is not what requires much typing. It's communicating with others on IRC (or e-mail, whatever you kids use these days), typing documentation, writing blog posts, etc. that require typing skills.

I will agree with him on this. I don't type much when actually programming, but I do type a lot when talking with people on IRC (including co-workers, since we all work from home) and writing documentation. And writing HN comments :)

eru• 18 years ago

So touch typing let's you procrastinate more efficently? ;)

mroman2• 18 years ago

While typed communication IS a very big part of the work related to programming, it is not programming itself, which is what I believe to be important, and what I was referring to.

IRC, email, are secondary in importance.

Documentation and code comments should be concise.

"succinctness = power"

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

jrockway3• 18 years ago

I learned something from this article; I can't touch-type numbers. After reading that part, I moved over to a friendly unused xterm and tried to type 65536. My head immediately began to bend down to gape at the keys. I tried not to look, but I couldn't do it.

Interestingly, I can type the symbols on the numbers just fine. (hello "world"). $here @are &some #sigils!

maxklein• 18 years ago

He should not try to hard so be funny. He is not succeeding, he's just drowing his point in superfluous words.

kirubakaran• 18 years ago

That's like... just your opinion man :)

palish• 18 years ago

Incidentally, Steve brought up an interesting topic. Musicians practice by playing fast, then slow, then medium. Fast, slow, medium. Over and over. That seems like a good way to write software.

You first try to implement your idea as quickly as possible, stopping to think only when necessary. The goal is to not spend too much time overthinking the implementation -- you want to find out if your idea is worth executing on.

If you decide that your idea isn't worth it, then you move on to your next one. Otherwise you take it slow, going back over your code and refactoring it. (I personally don't believe in "make one to throw away", but rather that it's possible to refactor an ugly design into a succinct one.) At this stage, you should meditate on the best way to accomplish your engineering goals. It will pay off in the long run to spend extra time here.

Then comes the final stage in your project's lifecycle: medium. The core structure of the design has solidified, and you need to add the flourishes that make software truly great. But you have to take your time to ensure that the codebase stays clean. At this point, the design of the various smaller subsystems should flow naturally from the architecture you decided on in the "slow" phase.

Repeat for each core feature.

andreyf2• 18 years ago

That's exactly where I thought he was going...

I just recently started writing software >40 hours a week, and have been constantly torn between "getting things done" and "doing things right". The best way to program well might very well be a variation between the two modes.

ibsulon2• 18 years ago

The mantra from eXtreme Programming:

1. Make it work. 2. Make it right. 3. Make it fast. 4. Make it small.

#1 first, then if you have the need, #2. If you have a need, #3. If you have the need, #4.

It's a lot easier to make it right once you've made it work.

johnyzee• 18 years ago

Not looking at the keyboard as you type is important for secretaries who have to copy text off a hard copy. For a programmer I'd say it makes little difference.

But hey, don't let that get in the way of smug superiority.

biohacker422• 18 years ago

Can you convince me you're just as fast if you have to look at the keyboard?

I bet you'd be faster if you didn't need to.

run4yourlives2• 18 years ago

Can you convince me that the quality of a programmer has anything to do with speed?

(At least, to the degree that keyboarding skills would make a measurable difference. I'm not arguing that it's ok to spend all week building a single function.)

nostrademons2• 18 years ago

I switched from typing qwerty while looking at the keyboard (but definitely not hunt-and-peck; I knew where the keys were, I just needed a trigger) to touch-typing Dvorak. My typing speed went from 70 WPM to about 75-80. That's not all that much of a difference, and much of it may be attributable to Dvorak.

I really don't think it makes that much of a difference, as long as you're not hunt-and-peck.

Incidentally, my speed now is about 55 WPM because the T and M keys on my lapop are broken and often don't regiser. You can lose more with bad hardware than you gain wih good training.

staunch• 18 years ago

Although I already had a computer I was taught to touch type "properly" on a typewriter. It really did take just a few weeks to get totally proficient and it's been handy ever since.

The only time I've managed to make a significant boost was when I bought a Das Keyboard. Not having any labels on my keys means I have learned to absolutely never peak at the keyboard. It's improved my speed overall, but especially with the number row.

I have known a lot of programmers who don't type fast. I don't think it's a massive impediment, but I do think there's a strong correlation between bad programming and lack of typing ability.

I don't think any of the people I personally know and consider uber programmers type really badly. Certainly could be though and I just haven't noticed.

pavelludiq• 18 years ago

i just realized that i may be a fast typist, but i use only 4 fingers. Left pinky for shift, ctrl,alt, left index for left letters, right middle finger for right letters, right thumb for space(sometimes left). I can type with a descent speed in two languages(English, Bulgarian) and i can even mix em and still type pretty fast. But i look at the keyboard pretty often and i my backspace key is the most clean one. This blog post has inspired me to just load KTouch and practice(KDE 4 came with a fast typing teacher, cool). I don't actually have a problem, because i make many mistakes, but i got really good at correcting them fast, so i still have a pretty good WPM count, haven't measured it, but its descent for a person who types a lot. I hope KTouch can help. After just 20 minutes with it i feel uncomfortable typing the way i used to, seems inefficient.

bitdiddle• 18 years ago

This is less an issue when programming in lambda calculus, if one takes the combinator approach and just uses S, K, and I.

I know, I can hear the complaints about the lack of good libraries...

caustic• 18 years ago

Guys, could you please take a look at the project I am working on: http://keybr.com I thought it could be a good touch typing trainer web application.

jrsims• 18 years ago

Well done! Thank you!

gills• 18 years ago

That's a nice app.

jjames• 18 years ago

I learned to type "correctly" on keybr.com (with a little startup in gtypist). I probably owe you some money :) 50wpm and gaining.

Timothee• 18 years ago

It's nicely done! I'm not sure that I like the fact that the text doesn't mean anything... I guess it's in purpose so that you have to look at the words and not type mechanically for words you know but at the same time, I spend a lot more time figuring out what is going on...

cstejerean2• 18 years ago

The words are throwing me off. Not because I can't type them fast enough, but because I can't read them as fast as I type so I need to slow down and pay attention to the letters.

fendale• 18 years ago

I just gave that app a try there - I like it.

I second (or third now!) that I don't like the meaningless words. Makes it much harder to type them I reckon, and some of the words seem to be real words, but with missing letters, so you find yourself typing the real word, which is wrong!!

iron_ball• 18 years ago

Personal request: next time Steve posts, let's just assume the "long post is long lololol" angle has been thoroughly covered, and let's discuss the contents. If the contents do not merit discussion, let's ignore them.

michaelneale• 18 years ago

I actually don't know anyone that doesn't touch type that is under the age of 35 (but perhaps I need to pay more attention). Anyone that went and did an engineering level degree surely would be able to (due to thesis writing at least).

Even when I was in high school (back pre 1992) we learned by having a tea-towel over our hands and having to type without looking.

geebee• 18 years ago

I'm always a little surprised to find a programmer who can't type while looking at the screen. I never actually sat down and learned to touch type, it was a by-product of coding.

But this isn't just about programmers, you can see it in the movements of any expert.

Systems administrators know how to move around directories with minimal keystrokes - the characters seem to just fly by the screen. I know I'm in the presence of a good one when this happens.

A former colleague of mine proved that he'd spent many years in the trenches as a consultant through his mind-blowing ability to do excel. Any shortcut, he knew. He could set up a pivot table, create a LUT, denormalize data, simulate a query, set up scrolling, and automate charts in, like, 4 minutes. I could do this, but I'd have to hunt around the help, and it would take me a long time.

Good tennis racket stringers chat with you while they instinctively weave the crosses through the mains with a slight waving pattern that reduces friction and extends the life of the string job. They use the clamps and tensioner without really looking at it. I have my own machine and I can string a racket fine, but it takes me an hour and requires my full, fumbling focus - I certainly can't multi-task.

When a Judo expert falls backwards he/she just sort of rolls through it. No thought is necessary.

It goes on and on. Programmers type fast without thinking about it. It's one of the things they are simply able to do as the result of programming. I'm not saying it's critical, but it would be really odd to get good at programming without making this skill inate.

Programming's Dirtiest Little Secret

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