#ProgrammingTips #EfficientTyping #CodingHacks #FingerPositioning
Do you find yourself struggling with typing efficiently when coding? The homerow method, which is commonly used for regular typing, may not be the most effective way to position your fingers when coding. In programming, you often have to type various symbols like brackets, curly braces, semi-colons, etc., which can slow you down if you stick to the traditional homerow method.
## The Problem with the Homerow Method
The homerow method is great for regular typing but since in programming you often have to type other symbols like brackets, curly braces, semi-colons, etc. is there a more effective way to position your hands to make it easier?
How do you position your hands when programming vs regular typing?
When using the homerow method, you may find yourself constantly shifting your hands to reach for symbols or special characters, leading to a decrease in typing speed and productivity. This can be frustrating, especially when you’re in the flow of coding and need to quickly type out lines of code.
## Solutions for Efficient Finger Positioning when Coding
To overcome the limitations of the homerow method and improve your typing efficiency when coding, consider the following alternative finger positioning techniques:
### 1. The Programmer’s Keyboard Layout
Try using a programmer’s keyboard layout like the Colemak or Dvorak layout, which are optimized for coding and can help reduce strain on your fingers. These layouts rearrange the keys to prioritize commonly used programming symbols, making them easier to reach.
### 2. Customizing Your Keyboard Shortcuts
Customize your keyboard shortcuts to assign frequently used symbols to easily accessible keys, reducing the need for constant hand movements. This can speed up your coding process and improve your overall efficiency.
### 3. Adopting the Vim or Emacs Editing Style
Consider adopting the Vim or Emacs editing style, which allows you to navigate and edit code without having to move your hands away from the central keys. These editing styles utilize key combinations and commands that can help streamline your coding workflow.
### 4. Practicing Touch Typing with Symbols
Practice touch typing with symbols and special characters to improve your familiarity with their positions on the keyboard. This can help you type out code more quickly and accurately, without the need for constant visual checks.
By implementing these alternative finger positioning techniques, you can enhance your typing speed and efficiency when coding, ultimately improving your overall productivity and workflow. Experiment with different methods to find the one that works best for you, and watch your coding skills soar to new heights! 💻🚀
I personally just type ad-hoc. As both a computer gamer and also a pianist, the idea that there are more ways to type than just the standard home row system feels pretty natural to me.
That said, I’d die if I had to work with one of those keyboards split down the middle.
I type almost entirely with my index and middle fingers. On my left hand, the only keys that I hit with my ring finger are A, Z, and Tab. On my right hand, the only characters that I hit with my ring finger are the backslash and Enter. I only use my pinky for control characters like Shift, Alt, and Ctrl.
My resting position is usually with my left index finger somewhere around the letter T and my right index finger somewhere around the letter M.
I get about 95 WPM with this method according to a test that I just took, which is more than fast enough for me to write code at the speed of my thoughts.
If you are looking to optimize your typing, check out other keyboard layouts like Colemak and Dvorak.
Home row is possible while programming if you use Vim key bindings and modify your keyboard layout. Besides setting sticky keys, that has saved me from chronic hand pain, so this is coming from a serious place.
I do a lot of both regular typing and coding, and find that the “home row” method more or less does the trick. Now that I’m consciously looking, I notice that my right hand sits one or two keys further right than is “correct”, which gives it faster access to the symbols there, but the principle is the same.
Really I don’t think that obsessing over “correct” positioning is important. The home keys are a good default position while you’re building up familiarity and so-called “muscle memory” of the keyboard. Once you have that it doesn’t really matter where your hands sit, because they’ll just go where they need to for any particular key. The whole point of touch typing is that it becomes subconscious, which just takes practice and patience.
Early on in programming I did find that reaching the symbols and other unusual keys slowed me down a bit, and bumped me from subconscious back to conscious mode when typing code. But that’s not because they’re inherently different or somehow special, it was just because when I was writing essays and whatnot back in high school I never had to use them, so the “muscle memory” for those keys didn’t develop until later, when I’d had practice typing code. I *still* don’t have muscle memory for a numpad, because I barely ever use one and don’t see that changing any time soon. (Maybe my next keyboard should be a TKL version… though this one is still strong after a decade off heavy use, so that won’t be any time soon!)
How fast do you need to type while coding?
I’ve used a compact keyboard on a desktop for the past 10 years. Since its compact, I don’t experience any strain reaching all the keys from home row. I specifically use the Lenovo compact keyboard with a track point. And while I have a mouse, I’ll only use it if I’m building diagrams. Otherwise the track point is usable for the few things that require a mouse.
If you ever find yourself wondering how you could write code faster, take a step back and rethink. I’ve been doing this for a long time. Most days, I’ll write three of four lines of code. The total time spent typing is minutes at most. Being an efficient typist is the last skill that will help you on your path to being a great programmer.
I honestly don’t use home row anymore. For coding I’ve developed a natural placement of where I most frequently type so my right-hand hovers closer to the semicolon and bracket keys than it does for home row. This doesn’t mean that I’m pecking keys at all either, as I’ve gotten used to the more common ones that I need for writing code. I find thinking of a solution to a problem and determining the steps need to solve it more useful than how fast I write the code anyways.
And if anyone is judging a developer based on their usage of “home row” then they really need to get a life.
eMacs and other editors have the concepts of “chords,” or shortcuts you can type by pressing multiple keys. Meh. If I’m typing too slow I just grab more coffee. Looking around at people I see who use computers for their jobs but are not programmers, I’m pretty sure I type faster than all of them.
>Is there a more effective way of positioning your fingers for typing when coding that isn’t the homerow method?
I’m sure there is for some people, especially if they never learned to type with fingers on home keys. But unless you’re an extremely slow hunt-and-peck typist, increasing your keystrokes per minute should probably not be a goal. Consider:
* The majority of characters in a page of code usually belong to identifiers — variable names, function names, class names, named constants, etc. Any half-decent IDE will offer to complete those for you.
* Most IDEs will also add matching braces, brackets, and parentheses.
* On a standard US keyboard, if you can type numbers from the home row, you can also type most of the operator symbols you’re likely to need.
* If you really want to speed up code entry, spend your time using the macros or “snippets” built into your IDE, and define your own. If you can type `for` to insert a whole for loop, and then just hit tab to fill in the blanks, that’s much faster than changing your hand position will ever be.
* Less code is more. Every line you write is a line that someone will have to maintain. Being thoughtful about the code when you write it is always time well spent, and you usually end up producing fewer lines of better code. Thinking speed, not typing speed, is the limiting factor.
Someone concerned about typing code fast is probably going to type it bad
While I understand the comments that typing speed isn’t priority, for me it helps a lot with my thinking. Especially not making mistakes and having to correct those.
I use the homerow method, keybr.com is a great tool if you want to get in the rhythm.
For me my thinking speed is the bottleneck, so for the most parts a slower typing speed doesn’t even bother me.
I mean most symbol are on the right so kl;’ is technically closer.
The problem is that most symbol are on the same spots.
If you really wanted to you can replace the symbol on 1-0 smbol to actually something that you often user, there are lots of layout that are more optimize for programmer if you want to learn.