The Right Tools

[andrewducker]

Spent an hour this morning sorting out the bit of "garden" front of the flat with some thin garden gloves and some awful cheap shears.

Then went to B&Q, got a decent pruner and some thick gloves, and got the rest done twice as fast, and with a much better result.

Note To Self: you don't buy cheap computer components, don't buy cheap DIY stuff.

I then read this article about how important fast-typing speed is as a coder, went here and tried out their typing-speed test. Which was a bastard, as it's full of non-standard spellings. but I got 62WPM and only one mistake (on word 4), so I feel quite good about that.

Comments

[rahaeli.livejournal.com]

Goodness, that article was .. strident.

I touch-type test between 105 and 120wpm, depending on the source text and how badly they penalize you for errors (ie, whether or not I actually care enough to backspace and correct them). (I cannot, *cannot* make myself double-space after a period, and most online typing tests still try to enforce that; many will call everything after that miss an off-by-one error.) I've also had months where I was reduced to typing one-handed (or, in one particularly fun instance, two-fingers-on-one-handed), at which I am, oh, about 30 wpm. The difference is annoying, but I wouldn't call it crippling. If programming is anything like writing, you spend a lot of time staring at the wall and thinking anyway. What he's talking about with the whole "non-touch-typing programmers don't work enough!!" is not non-touch-typing programmers, I bet, it's lazy programmers; someone who really wanted to would find their own workarounds....

http://www.typingtest.com has a better speed-test, including letting you pick the text you want to use.

[andrewducker]

Finally got around to trying that one (and being delighted it had a FB app) - and got 62WPM - would have been 65 if I'd been allowed to backspace and fix a couple of punctuation mistakes!