Learning touch typing
I now understand why I’ve always had a hard time getting into Vim. I’ve tried it on and off for years, and of everything I’ve read about it, I have not seen ‘knowing to type properly’ as a prerequisite.1 I think it is. ‘Keeping your fingers on the home row’ is a big thing with it, but this doesn’t help if you’re not usually typing with your fingers on the home row in the first place.
Anyway, Vim aside, I’ve decided to learn how to type properly. I can type pretty fast, but I only ever use my index and middle fingers. I also have to look at the keys when typing. I think this really limits my speed. And not just my typing speed - the speed of all my work in general. The fact that I have to look down to type, then up to confirm that what I’ve written is correct means I’m using twice the time to write - and I do this a lot in the course of a normal working day.
Something else that really bugs me is when I’ve typed a whole sentence only to look up and realize the window/textbox I was supposed to be typing on is no longer in focus, and all my typing wasn’t doing anything, or worse, was triggering random shortcuts in a different window.
keybr has been awesome for practicing. I also try to practice opportunistically while working, which has made me very slow, but I think it’s a worthwhile investment.
I still see people who spend half their day behind a VDU looking up at their screen, then down at two fingers, then up at the screen, etc. - and then wonder why they get so tired… Type with ten fingers! It’s not just faster, it also is much less tiresome. Using a computer program for one hour each day, it only takes a couple of weeks to learn to touch-type.
I finally found this as a recommendation years later while reading ‘Practical Vim’ by Drew Neil. From the Read Me section, page xvi: Learn to Touch Type, Then Learn Vim If you have to look down to find the keys on the keyboard, the benefits of learning Vim won’t come fast. Learning to touch type is imperative. ↩︎