It’s exactly because of having more valuable things to do that you should have typing just be a subconscious act instead of having to take your eyes off the monitor all the time.

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chuckadams a day ago | parent | next [-]

I'm pretty sure most devs who can't touch-type aren't hunting and pecking either. I never learned the "proper" home-row technique, and type with four fingers most of the time, but neither am I looking down unless I'm making enough typos that I need to realign my fingers. No one gives me crap about that because well, the people I hang around with just aren't that damaged.

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mbeex a day ago | parent | next [-]

Did this for 30 years. Two years ago I finally took the time to acquire the whole thing.

There is no way back. Relaxed posture, no UI elements stealing my focus unnoticed, parallelism (partially): continually "big-picturing" text; speaking with people while typing. The rhythm of this motoric skill and his quite specific form of memory alone, strangely decoupled from and coupled to the other mental processes at the same time, the interplay is simply marvelous.

	▲	chuckadams a day ago \| parent [-]
		I grew up on all those "typing tutor" programs, and hated every moment of them, even the extra-game-ified ones. But at least they weren't high school typing classes like my gf took, those seemed like some proper sweatshop training. Would love to learn piano too, another thing I couldn't focus enough to make happen, but I guess I'm more comfortable now knowing my limits, and there's worse things to regret ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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kstrauser a day ago | parent | prev [-]

If you’re not looking at your hands, you’re touch typing.

I move my hands around as I type, too. I learned piano before typing, and it’s weird to me to try and keep them in one place. I type as fast as I’d ever want or need to, though, so I couldn’t care less if it’s not “proper”. I’d still say you and I both touch type.

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skydhash a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes! It's quite nice not to have to think about typing. Just like you don't monitor the way you're handling a pen when you write. It's not related to being a good developer, but when you type as much as you do, having it done quickly and with the help of muscle memory helps with cognitive load.

In other words, the only thing I think about is what to write, not how I do it.

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moron4hire a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Exactly. Because of this, I tend to think that there are no useless skills, or skills not worth refining as far as possible. Sure, there is contention for which skill you refine now, but asking yourself "should I get better at X?" in isolation should almost always get answered "yes". The more things you're really good at (typing, mental math, sharpening a knife, fixing your computer, navigating and merging git commits, cooking food, cleaning house, etc), the less time you'll spend on each thing, giving you more time to do other things.

Plus, writing code is not the only kind of typing that I expect a developer to do. Even if I could accept that typing speed is not important for writing code, it's certainly important for writing documentation, good commit messages, communication with team mates and stakeholders, etc.