Hi!
I would like to know if there are any Wormers who touch type. As I know there are some programmers here, including Statik and MonkeyIsland, and I'd like to know whether most programmers use touch typing or not. My guess is yes. Do programmers essentially need to learn how to touch type to be productive? It helps for sure. Also, I've seen, for example, Komito's and KRD's long posts, so I'd like to know if they touch type.
Touch typing is about using your fingers' muscle memory to write by touch, without looking at the keyboard.
I just recently started practicing this using
TypingWeb, a free online typing tutor and so far I'm doing quite well.
I have a programming course starting this January in University of Applied Sciences (I study Information and Communications Technology), so I thought that learning to touch type would be good to me.
I like it because it makes me type faster and it feels nice as well when you're able to type faster than before using all your fingers without looking at the keyboard. ^^ So it's even helpful in low light conditions and stuff. I remember reading TheWalrus throwing a deluxe keyboard away a while ago because he couldn't see the inscriptions on the keys and it was hard to type for him. Again, I'd encourage you all to learn touch typing. It can be fun! ^^
I'd also like to know how much better mechanical keyboards (as I would probably by one one day) are for touch typing, compared to standard (membrane, dome-switch) keyboards and laptop scissor-switch keyboards, but that could be discussed in a Keyboard-related thread anyway, I guess.
(P.S. About programming tutorials, I found that
Codecademy is a good place to start with! ^^)