On Monday, September 1, 2014 10:42:46 AM UTC+5:30, Chris Angelico wrote: > On Mon, Sep 1, 2014 at 2:55 PM, Larry Hudson wrote: > > While this is definitely OT, I strongly suggest you take the time to learn > > to touch-type. (Actually, I would recommend it for everyone.) It's true > > that it will take time, effort, practice and diligence, especially time and > > practice, but if you do make the effort you'll never regret it. > > Eventually you'll find that you think (or read) a word, your fingers will > > wiggle a little bit and that word suddenly appears on screen. It's an > > _*EXTREMELY*_ useful ability -- well worth the time and effort.
> Indeed. And once you have that skill, you basically spend most of your > coding time thinking, rather than typing - and the exact keystroke > costs stop mattering much. (It makes little difference whether you > type at 100wpm or 300wpm if you don't have 100 words to type each > minute.) > As an added bonus, you'll be able to work blind with barely more > difficulty than when you have a screen in front of you. That's not > hugely beneficial, but when the time comes, you'll be glad of it. > Earlier this year I was typing up a bug report in a program that > somehow managed to be so flawed that it could take only two keystrokes > per second - so I typed way WAY ahead, then went off and made myself a > hot chocolate while it painstakingly processed everything I'd typed. > Same goes if, for whatever reason, you can't see your fingers - maybe > the lights in your office have gone out, the screen wasn't on UPS, and > you need to key in an orderly shutdown command while you're unable to > see *anything*. (Which is what the little F and J pips are for. You > can align your fingers on the keyboard in the dark.) Right. And the next logical conclusion is to use emacs :-) Or vi. ie editors whose default mode of use is mouseless. | Using the mouse is almost always the worst possible violation of | economy of motion, because you have to pick your hand up and fumble | around with it. The mouse is a clumsy instrument, and Emacs gurus | consider it a cache miss when they have to resort to using it. Steve Yegge at https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/effective-emacs Note: (In case its not quite clear) I am being part-facetious. In the emacs (and vi?) worlds this is carried to ridiculous cult-extremes. Yet there's some truth there, for those who are so inclined. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
