Some time back I opined that a good command of the English language helps you be a better developer. Tonight Steve Yegge did a great, if someone lengthy, companion piece suggesting that typing skills are also related to being an effective developer.
I think Steve’s autobiographical narrative of his high school typing class is deliriously funny but here’s the short, bullet point version for the time-challenged:
- Developers type all day long, even when they’re designing.
- Poor typing skills subtract from design and coding time.
- Poor typing skills inhibit your online interactions in crippling ways.
- A poor typist’s code tends to be under-commented and poorly formatted.
- Refactoring tools are no substitute for good typing skills.
Steve actually makes an excellent secondary point: the industry’s other dirty secret is that an astounding number of developers can’t even read. But that’s a rant for another day.
Typing is not rocket science. If you haven’t become proficient at it (which I personally define as being able to type the limited and specialized vocabulary of a programming language at 60 wpm or better, and general content at a bare minimum of 40 accurate words per minute) then there is really only one reason.
You’re lazy.
There, I said it.
Get one of those fun typing tutors and dedicate a 20 minutes a day for a few weeks and see if it doesn’t make a huge contribution to your development chops.
