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Comment by illuminated | Hacker News Reader

I'd add two more:

- estimates: ability to balance between showing off when estimating the skills and technologies you know well and then underestimating the process ahead and overestimating the unfamiliar territories.

- fast typing: I could never relate to developers as senior, no matter the years of experience, if I see them shooting the keyboard with two or four fingers. Despite my subjective position on this, fast typing "releases" your brain to think only about the problem you're solving or achieving the goal you have without dialing 911 to "find that letter".

EDIT: I've used a wrong phrase in my second point. I meant "touch typing" instead of "fast typing".

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> "fast typing: I could never relate to developers as senior, no matter the years of experience, if I see them shooting the keyboard with two or four fingers"

One of my very good friends and one of the best programmers I know types slowly and using only four fingers and a thumb. He's paralyzed in one arm.

He's still been an absolutely prolific open source contributor and 2x YC startup CTO. Typing speed probably isn't as important as you might think.

Early in my career, I also thought fast typing was important. Then I worked with a severely disabled engineer, who could manage to type at probably 3 words per minute. Even at this snail’s pace, he could produce as much as anyone else on the team, and his work was of a higher quality.

Are you sure he produced as much in the same amount of time and didn’t work longer outside of office hours?

No judgement, I also have a disability that only allows me to type with one hand.

> Are you sure he produced as much in the same amount of time and didn’t work longer outside of office hours?

I wonder if due to reduced typing speed the developer in question had a higher ratio of kept code to deleted code.

Someone only able to type 3 words per minute may have developed patterns of thought and deliberation that maximize those 3 words rather than follow development habits of faster typists that might be prone to generate code which never sees the light of day.

I type quickly and have no qualms about deleting entire stanzas of code and rewriting them when things don't work out. If I could only type 3 words per minute, my approach to writing code would radically change, perhaps for the better.

I have seen this in practice multiple times.

A ‘prolific’ codewriter, writing a ton of code, most of which is thrown away.

Would we assume a novelist that types faster writes better stories?

Back then, we didn’t have remote access. Had desktops instead of laptops, and I saw him arrive every morning and leave every night. I’m not saying the rest of the team was immensely productive, but he kept up.

I had a 70 years old team member whose typing wasn't fast at all, due to various age related issues, but was one of the most valued team members. Case like that, or people with disabilities are obviously out of any judgement.

Great, if I don't have an approved impairment that meets your standards I'd better type 200 WPM.

(I type around 110 WPM, but I have no frame of reference for whether this is "good". Who cares?)

Not sure if you've seen my edit in the original comment: "fast typing" was a wrong choice of words. I meant "touch typing".

Why type when you can copy and paste?

I always type everything out the first time I’m introducing something into a code base even if I’m taking something straight from the docs or Stack Overflow that solves an issue I’m dealing with.

It helps me understand how the data is flowing through whatever it is I’m doing, the structure of the code, and ensures I don’t leave in extraneous unnecessary flags and options.

And I’ve always done this, I much prefer engineers who work slowly and methodically, understanding what they’re doing.

It more than makes up for the “lost time” when you need to debug a complex system that’s on fire and people don’t even understand what the options and flags they’ve pasted in actually do.

If you saw many seniors with slow typing speed, wouldn't that be a sign that typing speeds doesn't mater that much?

Not many, but when I did, I've considered it as something I'd try to find out - why. The benefits are obvious, learning process is rather easy so reluctance to do it would at least intrigue me.

I have to disagree with the fast typist - depending on your definition of fast. Without any formal training, I touch type with one hand (not by choice) and I am decently fast and accurate. But I spend much more time thinking than I do typing.

But on the other hand, I can’t imagine having two good hands, be a professiomal software developer and not learning how to touch type. It just would seem to be a level of laziness.

I thought I explained it in the original comment... I have no issue with the speed of someone's typing. But constant checking of the key positions on the keyboard just affects your focus on the problem you're working on. And it's really fairly easy to learn to type without looking, to type without having to think about it.

“Touch typing” just kind of happened organically with me. I’ve been programming since the mid 80s in middle school. After awhile, your fingers just kind of know what to do.

I wrote the wrong phrase in my original comment. I was thinking of "touch typing", not "fast typing". Thanks for helping me clarify that - not a native English speaker here.

Btw, I've learned it almost the same way, but while playing the typing games with my kids later in life, I've upgraded the skill a bit.

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