Steve Yegge talks about touch typing in today’s rant. I’m linking to it only because it reminds me that I love to tell people that typing is the most valuable class I took at any level of education. I took one semester of typing in high school, and it was the best thing I ever did.
If you know what ALPS mechanical keyswitches are, you’re probably a touch typist.
I’ll echo many of the comments on Steve’s site and say, “They still make people who can’t touch type?!”
I don’t know if I agree. I don’t touch-type but I don’t hunt and peck either. It’s some weird hybrid of both. Clearly, I don’t type as fast as a touch-typists but I don’t find that the slower speed of typing affects me much.
Likewise, the year long (I think…) typing class I took in junior high school was the single most useful course I have ever taken (including college).
Yes, typing was the most valuable class. I’m so relieved that I’m not alone on that.
Any residual remorse about not taking shop classes? …Every time I call a plumber.
well, it was useful, but then again, it took sitting at a computer keyboard to really ingrain it in my head, so that I can think with my fingers. typing something from a sheet of paper (letting it pass through my mind without digestion) was really the original skill, and I’m still not great at that — can’t type from the number row without looking, for example…
I think I mostly evolved into a touch typist. But obviously the key to writing overlong (but still interesting) blog posts is getting your rate up to 120 wpm. I’m only 2/3 – 3/4 of that, but I can pound out emails while carrying on conversations with co-workers that drop by my desk. At least until they get that scared look in their eye and I have to give them my full attention.
Does anyone recommend any good programs to make a good typist better?
I type 70-80, but 120 sounds like way more fun.
Brownback: Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing is one of the best commercial programs. If you’d rather go free, I recommend KTouch.
© rc3.org. Powered by WordPress using the DePo Skinny Theme.
9 Comments