This is super interesting - I have typed "wrong" since the time I first picked up a keyboard, 6 or 7 years old, back in an age where typing was not taught in school or an expected skill everyone was just automatically meant to know. As such, I developed my own "style" which looks a lot like "pecking" a lot of beginners will do, but has adapted over the decades to something that is my own.
I typically just use the index/middle finger on my left hand that covers most of the left hand side of the keyboard, depending on word (index might reach for the 'y' key sometimes) and the pinky for shift key. Right hand uses mostly the index, ring (for hitting backspace and enter) and thumb (for spacebar). I've often wondered if I was ever able to retrain myself to do it "properly" whether I'd type even faster than I do. now I am not sure.
I have "peaked" at 125+ wpm in 1 minute tests, and in casual conversation with familiar words, probably can maintain easily around 110-120. I think for most things I typically cruise around 100 without trying too much. It is a nice skill but I've never been able to figure out why I type so much faster than most people I meet, especially given being self-taught and the unorthodox way in which I type. Often when I am showing something on a terminal, for instance, which includes a lot of auto complete and muscle memory, I need to slow down by about 10-20x for people to follow what I am doing.
I can't think of any benefit of home row typing other than it's easy to teach in a prescriptive manner.
If you want to minimize the time it takes to travel to a particular key, it makes sense to keep your fingers at the "center of mass" of the keyboard... which is the home row.
Space and Caps-lock are enough to orient me on any keyboard I've used for more than a minute or two. Space and Enter orient on the right hand.
Basically - if my left pinky is touching the line between caps lock and shift on the left side of those keys, and my thumb is touching the bottom of the space bar, I know exactly where my middle fingers are resting.
With the added bonus of not contorting my wrist and fingers into a very uncomfortable space.
I have very large hands, and the "Proper" finger placement would be a guaranteed RSI injury for me.
Different keyboards with macros or weirdly formatted buttons throw me for a loop with this method though, while the f and j keys guarantee correct positioning.
That and chiclet keyboards being so much more comfortable to use than big chunky keys
Opposite to you though, I find "desktop" keys (or I should say, keys with travel) preferable to "laptop" keys. Bottoming out each key on every stroke on a Macbook for years started giving me weird typing-spelling issues (some sort of precursor to focal dystonia? dunno). Keys with long travel prevent that for me. (Or maybe it's just because that's what I learned on – Apple //e keyboard.)
Biggest improvement to my typing QOL was getting one of those split keyboards[1]. I can rotate the two pieces independently so that my forearm-wrist-hand-fingers system form a straight, relaxed line, both pointing a little towards each other. This is much more comfortable than the outward-splaying pose that most single-piece keyboards force your wrists into. I'm convinced this will reduce the risk of RSI and other hand injuries as I age. Stops me from hunching and constricting my chest too; it allows for a better upper back posture and deeper breathing.
Secondary benefit is being able to remap the keys, particularly punctuation, into more reachable places.
[1] Moonlander Mk1, but really any split one will do.
I grew up playing multiplayer games on PC, and my natural resting spots sound similar to yours: straight wrists, left hand defaults closer to a-w-d than a-s-d-f.
I avoid most pinky use outside of modifier keys, and there aren't strict finger-letter assignments. Middle of the keyboard gets hit by whatever hand makes it more likely to alternate nicely while typing a word.
Main benefit I see is that I know a lot of folks my age now complaining of RSI when typing, and I don't seem to have any of that (mouse related - yes, keyboard - no).
Funny since I didn't really make much association, but I also was learning to play piano at the same time I was learning to type.
Gaming was a lot more of an incentive to learn how to type quickly back in the days where you could only communicate with text chat.
If I’m going to be real, just you’re naturally talented and coordinated with your hands. That’s why most people can’t relate. We should form a group where we do finger things. /s
Anecdotally, I don't know anybody who types w/ a personalized style who has wrist RSI.
I absolutely adore doing "improvisational piano" terminal sessions w/ people watching, particularly when I'm operating a GUI or CLI that I know really well. I slow myself down by narrating and, if it's an in-person gig, gesturing. Doing stuff in front of people in realtime feels a lot like jamming on a musical instrument for me.
On a typing test where they provide me with what to type I can consistently get 60+ WPM, but when I'm typing something from my head I'm pretty sure I get 100 to 120.
It's cool to see somebody else out there who types like I do.
fwiw, you might be avoiding the ulnar nerve usage. Perhaps that makes things easier for your brain/cerebellum and spine, which then only have to coordinate movement in one nerve pathway.
Hey, me too: https://vxtwitter.com/LoganDark/status/1919146616763617342
(I usually type with more than two pointers, that post was just to prove a point that you don't need more than two fingers to type quickly. You probably don't even necessarily need two, though I couldn't go nearly that fast with only one.)
If you never have to type something you're reading, I'm sure unique typing styles are just fine.
This is me too. I've been a "high speed hunt and peck" typist since I starting using computers in 1985. I highly recommend it.
Being able to type fast does make computers vastly more enjoyable to use. Using computers every day was all the practice I needed to make me type faster. IRC and AIM in the 90s/00s were the big drivers for fast typing. In my teens and twenties I topped 120 WPM with reasonable accuracy.
I've slowed down in my "old age", and my accuracy has gotten pretty bad. Then again, I think keyboards have gotten worse, too. I use mostly non-contoured chicklet key shitty laptop keyboards today. It might be interesting to wire up an AT-to-PS/2-to-USB franken-dongle, connect one of the keyboards from my youth, and see how it feels. I don't think I'd be willing to sacrifice the desk space, though, to daily-drive that kind of setup.
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Aside: I was the last class in my high school to have typing class on electric typewriters. I struck a tenuous bargain with the teacher whereby I'd do the work without complaint and he'd avert his eyes from my "improper" technique. The "home row" exercises were excruciating time sucks, but once we got into actually typing real English text it was fine. The tactile response and feel of an electric typewriter is pretty cool.
> IRC and AIM in the 90s/00s were the big drivers for fast typing.
Those are how I developed my touch typing; the incentive was to see everything happening in the chatroom full of friends without missing anything, and being able to react quickly.
> The tactile response and feel of an electric typewriter is pretty cool.
Granddad was a retired IBM employee, and had a Selectric typewriter (either II or III, not sure). That thing felt (and sounded) awesome. The whir of the flywheel, the amazing feedback of the "thunk" of the ball hitting the ribbon. I used to type random crap that didn't need to be typed just to use that thing for a few minutes.
I am a big fan.
Used monkeytype for a while but then recently launched my own site: typequicker.com and been using it since
Would you consider giving it a go? Any feedback is appreciated
Not a fan, however, of the desire to disparage the "right" way of doing things that's done in this blog. I type the "proper" way, home row and all, and can reach 150+wpm with high accuracy. So, based on this evidence, you're wrong and would be better off having learned the proper technique...
is an argument which I could make, and the evidence would be true, but it doesn't sound extremely convincing, does it?
I used to find it difficult to a lot of things, until I practiced enough to be able to do them, which is usually what that predicate implies. It's like people that say they have to use one foot for the brake pedal and the other for the accelerator because they find it difficult to use one for both.
Easier said than done.
my understanding of the homerow style is that you have a sort of assigned finger for each key. while I type, there is plenty of overlap between fingers and it's constantly adapting based on where my hands are currently vs resetting to one position
And, yeah, 120-150wpm. I wonder if "kids these days" don't type as fast because they didn't grow up with IRC and AIM and so on. Of course, they're way faster with their thumbs than I am. My phone typing started bad and gets worse every year (somehow).
So it's not too far from home row but definitely something more influenced by my gamer days than any formal typing lessons. Just tried a web based wpm test and got 90WPM at 95% accuracy. Used to be around 120WPM in my college days where I typed more essays, but these days typing speed isn't close to the bottleneck so not much need for faster typing and I guess it's atrophied some.
I thought I invented it, but I've since seen occupational health and safety websites recommend alternating.
Here's a link to an Australian gov PDF: https://www.comcare.gov.au/about/forms-pubs/docs/pubs/safety...
I've seen it in NZ too. I think they suggested swapping the mouse buttons but I prefer to just leave them and do my left clicking with both fingers when using my left hand.
Instead of the endless search for the perfect static posture, just keep moving the various joints now and then. Adjust your elbow or wrist or the desk or the chair every now and then. This can make you look "unprofessionally" seated if you take it far enough so hopefully your workplace doesn't mind that.
Even if you are moving between multiple so-called "bad" postures, you'll be much better off compared to just being static in a "good" posture for 4 hours.
I found a regular mouse instead, but a decidedly asymmetrical one. This way my hand can stay in a less pronated position while still controlling the mouse the way I am used to.
I did the pricey split keyboard thing. One advantage there is that my vertical mouse sits between the keyboard halves which means I don't have to "reach around" to grip it which has saved a whole bunch of muscle movement.
I lowkey judge any developer who is noticable slow at typing as I can't imagine they're using a computer effectively at such a pace given how much keyboard hitting needs to occur during regular use alone.
Not that it's a high bar but I'm surprised more companies don't test wpm when hiring over rote crap like LC.
Yes, developing complex systems is about thinking, not typing. But human head only fits so much, and once you pick up a tool to externalize your thinking, be it pen and paper, or text editor, or a whiteboard, you're limited by I/O. Reading is by far the fastest part, but if you're typing (or sketching) slower than you think, your entire thought process is now I/O bound.
There are many ways to improve this - with editors, you can use shortcuts, compose complex commands, use autocomplete, etc. - but the nice thing is, most of these improvements are purely additive. So it really doesn't hurt to learn to type faster than you think, and it'll definitely help some.
At some point I realized that linear writing (typing or writing on lined paper) does not have the flexibility to express the thought processes that I want to commit to writing.
Now I write on blank paper (or an iPad if the thinking needs to be active for a long period of time).
I might be I/O bound but at least this way I don't need Serializable thoughts.
When effective comments, appropriate variable names, and the like can flow effortlessly from your fingertips, you're more likely to use them. Plus you're not expending your precious mental energy on the mechanics of typing out your ideas.
despite industry motion to the contrary, the truth is that we really can build anything we want. if we just weren't such cowards about it
Also, if I leave WASD for home row I quickly feel pain. Seriously, place the middle finger on W (alao used for S), ring on A, and indicator on D. It's so much more ergonomic it's insane.
I try to avoid the mouse, but I usually queue (mentally) a lot of keypresses at max speed, while the only bottleneck is the loading speed of the computer.
For example: alt tab (change window to browser), fn+F5 (refresh website , Ctrl Shift (change brower tab), fn+f5, ctrl shift tab (back to original tab), alt tab (back to editor or command line), etc...
Unpopular opinion nowadays: This bottleneck is what makes needlessly verbose programming languages annoying. Having to wait for your fingers (or eyes) to catch up with your toughts tends to kill the flow.
That was a rare very good decision for kid me back then, and it's paid off ever since.
What really turned me into a touch-typist was all the arguing I did over dial-up internet the next summer.
With the amazing amount of client-side scripting the game supported, people made their own variations on the communications system, even carefully playing audio clips over one-another to get new speech.
I measured myself the other day and I can do about 110-115 WPM, which I think is pretty impressive for a 50 year old who last took typing classes at 15.
She was right.
I probably had enough cachet with the teachers that I could have weaseled my way into taking it until I passed, but I did pass it, so problem solved.
The desire to type faster is a strong signal indicating that you need better macros.
Typing speed is not a limiting factor for writing good software. And I say that as someone who can type faster than most of my peers
You are not considering all of the indirect effects. I.E.
Someone who types twice as fast is more likely to be comfortable to throw in that extra line of docs/comments that explains that whacky line of code.
Someone who has taken the time to improve the speed of the thing they are supposed to do for most of the working day, is a little more likely to be someone who cares about their job.
I ended up with a technique that had my whole hand shifted to be over WASD like when gaming with pinky only used for modifiers. It was even worse for my right hand as only recently I actually monitored how I typed, and I highly underuse my ring and pinky fingers on that hand. Worst part is I never use my thumbs for spacebar, I found out I literally shift my entire right hand to use my index finger every time I hit spacebar.
Despite all of this I regularly typed ~120wpm. I think when it comes to speed almost everybody adopts at least some peculiar techniques.
I only say typed past tense because I recently got into split ergonomic keyboards with keywells and columnar layouts and my old typing technique literally just does not work. I had to learn how to "correctly" type from scratch, but relatively quickly got to the similar speeds. Now I can easily swap between the two techniques depending on whether I'm using my laptop keyboard or not and type almost the same speed, I'm still a tad bit slower using "correct" technique. But I will say it is a hell of a lot less movement and tension in my hands typing correctly.
I suppose for emitting boilerplate or other ceremonial code LLMs serve as an augmented "copy/paste from stackoverflow" and increase your KLOC/time, but this is not really an interesting metric and production of source code was never the rate-limiting step in creating software.
Taking into account that the file may not exist or error half way?
Taking care that your buffer doesn’t overflow or simply eat all your available ram?
Do you only work with trusted inputs?
Also- in my experience so far, LLMs do a far better job of accounting for things like this than I do.
For example I had claude 4 write something to recursive search the whole filesystem on a windows 11 machine and included a few checks for windows 11 file system specific things I wasnt aware of
Edit: note if you are a typist and transcribe a lot of text for long periods of time without break, typing speed is important. But that’s mostly not any of us. But hey maybe I don’t write enough documentation and comments..
Try typing words like "number", "bus", "zany", "excretion", etc. and you'll soon learn why sticking with the "proper" fingering is absolutely idiotic if you want speed and comfort. You can waste time and effort moving the "right" finger all the way from the bottom to the top of the keyboard, or just hit the key with the perfectly usable one sitting there idle.
To elaborate, when typing "number" I use the index and middle finger to chord "nu", then "mb" is the next chord with the left index and right middle, which naturally pulls down my left hand enough that "er" is easily done as a final chord with the left ring and middle fingers.
Saving typing was never a value add for intelligent tab completion, it is mostly used for discovery and recall (what members does the type of this expression have?), not to accelerate your WPM. After around 20-30 wpm, typing speed is not a bottleneck in programming, but size of the API and how much you can fit into your head most definitely is.
Problem is, you run out of new simple code to write pretty fast and then you have to start thinking and typing speed becomes irellevant.
The contrapositive of this is that, if you don't type at 100+ wpm, intelligent tab completion and LLMs add a lot of value you wouldn't otherwise get. Most of us don't, so this ends up being a vote in favor of the AI.
I don't think I could Mimik a LLM. But I'm prompting fast so that helps
I used it daily like the author for about 6 months to improve from 80wpm to about 120wpm.
- how many minutes per day?
- after each test, did you redo wrong/slow words?
My current typing speed, as measured by Monkeytype, is 80wpm (after a deduction for errors).
I'm at 140, gaining ~1wpm per hour spent on it. Sometimes I feel like I'm only getting better at re-entering words on a screen
I used it for a while but plateaued after some time. Using https://www.typequicker.com/practice now - has more detailed stats and a daily typing test with a leaderboard to motivate me to do at least a little each day Lol
I feel like it will always be relevant. Both typing fast and vim.
I always bet on vim / neovim.
Even as tools like Cursor and Windsurf grow, Neovim will always catch up and beat them. Developer attitude of “I can do it better” or “I can build that” will always compete with leading tech products. Tools like aider are already gaining large adoption
Always bet on vim
Learn to touch type (with the home row!) and learn Vim which appears to have been designed with touch typists in mind.
When there is almost zero friction getting thoughts into code it's very easy to enter a flow state.
Couldn’t have said better myself - I learned touch typing and vim in parallel early in my early days and doing any text work is a bliss
I literally wrote about this a couple days ago: https://www.typequicker.com/blog/how-to-type-faster
Have had a recent challenge I ran out of steam on and the suggestion of focusing on correctness not speed to achieve speed really helps.
Beat Saber, I am back!
(I am actually serious. It’s my quick upper-body-emphasis cardio, and running out of motivation due to a wall impacts my health! I play it with additional constraints, which I relaxed to get through maxed out challenges. But then hit a wall anyway. Realize I need to stay strict, and take the fails upfront!
The simple things we know, but somehow need reminding of at every level.)
Another thing is efficient use of screen real estate. Then you don't need to press any buttons at all, you just move your eyes.
I did learn the "right" way to type through all this, and my speedhas stabilized at around 100 wpm. This is more than enough for pretty much any activity I do on the computer.
More importantly, however, my wrists no longer hurt from typing continously for 30 minutes. The small sacrifice in speed is definitely worth it in my opinion.
I recommend either the Kinesis Advantage 360 pro or the glove 80 to anybody who uses a keyboard a lot for a living. I tried both and frequently switch between them.
Another thing I recommend to people with problems is to get literally the lightest keycaps you can, and while it may slow you down a bit try to bottom out less/type a bit lighter in general.
I second recommendations for the Kinesis advantage layout and low-force keys.
Aside from direct ergonomic benefit, both the layout and low-force ends up training one to much better habits.
I go ~50% faster and 2X longer on Kinesis Advantage with low force.
Don't wait for inflamed nerves to reduce the ergonomic friction in your life. It makes work much easier.
Give typequicker.com/practice a try -(we’ve got a few text topics to choose from and capitals, numbers, etc) - just hit configure
I use a split ergo keyboard, blank key caps, and correct fingers for every key. I highly recommend all three.
A couple of recommendations on my end.
1- Go slower. (Then you can speed it up) 2- Try playing an instrument, or to a lesser extent, dancing.
Typing fast is a way to unlock the brain. Anything past 90, you start to focus on exactly what is needed to type accurately with speed.
I average around 106-130 (depending on recent races) for the past 15 years, and it's still one of the best ways to "get into dev mode" really quickly.
Cannot emphasize this enough. I literally built my own typing app for this reason - plateaued on monkeytype and wanted better detailed stats so I build typequicker.com
Coincidentally, I actually wrote about this recently as well:
I am skilled as a typist - just pulled off an easy 150wpm with 100% accuracy on this keybr site - and I learned typing and piano starting at a young age. Seems like a bit of hubris to disregard tradition just because you can beat up on internet randoms on keybr.com
nor does being a decent typist support any such claim.
Look at the scoreboards on typing sites like Typeracer and Monkeytype. There, 150 is decent, but nowhere near the top, with plenty of people averaging 200+, and a select few even manage to break 300wpm. Those near the top definitely do not use the standard fingering pattern.
Here's a demo/explainer at 200 WPM for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jVXrX5TDk4
I reached 130wpm in german once and I can’t fathom how much better it made my life. Coding is not awkward at all. This along with the thinkpad nipple makes a really smooth life at the computer. Maybe sometimes even a bit too much.
I totally can confirm that trying to go faster is not helping. I remember that even during Fortnite grind sessions, where you did edit parcours. Your best bet to go faster is to go perfect. You’ll almost not notice how you get faster. It is actually the same for the piano or for tennis a lot of coordination is best learnt by not making mistakes.
I would warn against overoptimizing for rote copying though. It's like making benchmarks and optimizing a language for a Hello World or echo test program.
I found an option that starts prompting whole books, which might be a fun way to read a book or at least add some additional cognitive load.
I originally though the article would be about literally writing. Waking up and writing 5 minutes before going on the day? Writing and downloading your brain into paper instead of scrolling to cleanse your brain? Sounds amazing!
Yeah, "partners"...
I'd rather not let you profile my typing, thank you very much.
Prefer monkeytype or typequicker
I knew to place my two fingers on the f and j keys when I started, so I sort-of have proper typing skills (things like g, h, t, and y are usually tapped by whichever finger is closest, but otherwise I type correctly). One of my friends in school also played that game, and he has the same typing skills (and that exact bad habit). I did not know him when I first started playing. I find that to be a mighty coincidence, so I expected to encounter more people that learned that way, and I'm a little disappointed I haven't seen anyone else who learned that way yet.
I guess playing Hanon and scales also counts as meditation (and are useful). After all, they are both called keyboard.
There’s special pain involved in watching someone type slowly. Even worse when there’s repeated mistakes.
Oh yeah - it’s rough. I’ve gone fully down the rabbit hole lol.
Typed on various sites, then built my own (typequicker.com if you want to give it a shot), then discovered vim, then QMK, then built my own keyboard and completely modded, etc, etc. Got really comfortable navigating with shortcuts, etc
Having to screen share and someone who is sharing then struggles for a while looking for the pipe character when they’re typing out a shell command I told them…it’s rough.
I feel folks though - typing correctly and typing fast is never taught. There are no standardized systems in place that emphasize this. (Which is another reason I built the app lol )
But I can’t actually “think” that fast while coding. Sure a quick edit or command line is hammered out instantly. But I can’t sustain writing a whole function start to finish that way.
Probably more useful for debugging and FPS games instead.
Theres no tolerance for typos on code and way more special characters than MonkeyType.
120 on monkeytype can be 50 on wpm
Layouts with nicely placed special characters are all very non-standard. Building a custom keyboard nowadays is quite easy, but it takes some courage to train something that is seriously less standard than Dvorak ever was.
I’ve found typingclub helped me a lot when I was starting and then monkeytype and now using typequicker - their practice mode has the detailed stats showing your weak points.
I made good progress on it after plateauing on monkeytype
Exactly this. I share this sentiment. Great post - I actually wrote about this same thing recently: https://www.typequicker.com/blog/learn-touch-typing
I myself took my type from ~65 wpm to 124 average wpm[1] in about 6 months as opposed to 1 year by OP by moving to zsa moonlander. If anyone wants I can share the journey in a post. But can definitely recommend improving your typing speed for all the reasons already outlined!
When I started learning Colemak-DH, my QWERTY WPM was about 45. QWERTY was never a well-designed layout, but I wonder how much of it came down to actually relearning how to type with the right fingers. Within a couple months, my Colemak was 95 WPM, while my QWERTY is now <15 WPM.
Writing four nuanced paragraphs because it takes you a few seconds is much less desirable than short notes.
gunalx•1d ago
johng•1d ago
nluken•1d ago
The key is simply sticking with it over the long term. A general rule I find rings true is that people tend to overestimate their improvement over a month, but underestimate improvement over a year.
lechatonnoir•1d ago
People I've asked, including on the MonkeyType discord, don't seem to have very uniform opinions about it. Lots of fast typists have highly idiosyncratic strategies, as we see in this thread, but trying to get faster than ~150wpm (tested, which translates to more like ~100 in regular settings) feels to me to be limited by hand tension.
absoluteunit1•1d ago
You might like typequicker.com - I added a daily typing test for this reason (has a daily leaderboard as well)
My friends now all ask each other “have you done the dsily?” lol
Give it a shot :)