Typing? I'm a programmer not a secretary.

This last week has seen a few posts on the necessity, or lack thereof, for good touch typing skills.

We Are Typists First, Programmers Second - Jeff Atwood

Is Typing A Necessity For Programming? - Abhijit Nadgouda

I originally was going to say something along the lines of "I think it depends on how you view programming."  I was then going to differentiate between whether you just view programming as a job (where you are looking to scrape by with minimum investment), or a skill/craft/art to be cultivated.

But in the process of assembling my ideas, I thought back to how I learned to touch type.  I wanted a job that at the time seemed to pay pretty decent.  However, the job required a minimum typing speed of 40WPM.  I was a 2 finger typist up till that point, which wasn't going to cut it.  Since I wanted the job I put forth some effort.  In about 1 month, using some free typing tutor programs, I learned to touch type sufficiently to pass the test and get the job.  Once on the job further increases in speed and accuracy came.  

The glorious job that prompted this investment of effort was data entry.  It was boring as could be.  Really.  If you have never done data entry yourself it would be hard to imagine the level of boredom involved.  There was no craft or art to it, just glossy eyes and sore wrists.

Now programming is not "just typing".  It's not just entering characters into a buffer.  Believe me, I speak from experience, it is not just data entry.  So a 10x improvement in your typing speed will not equate to a 10x increase in your productivity.  Hopefully between all that typing, programming requires you to stop and think.

Nevertheless, whether you use some auto-complete super-fancy intellisensical snippet-fu brain scanning IDE or a bare bones text editor, you most likely use a keyboard as your central physical tool to transfer your thoughts from your brain into the computer.  If that is the case, even if programming is just your "job", you owe it to yourself to put forth a little bit of effort and learn to touch type. 

It really is worth the effort, and the initial awkwardness.  If you don't know how to touch type you won't understand until you do.  There is something, well, just "cool" about being able to see words appear on the screen as you think them without giving any conscious thought to directing the individual fingers and keystrokes.  

If you are going to use a tool on a daily basis, I can't imagine any reasonable argument against taking the time to learn to use it well.

Knowing Your Languages

You may only speak one language, but how well do you know your tools?  There are likely many similarities between learning a language and learning the tools you use daily.

Today I was thinking about the difference between someone who is just learning a spoken language and someone who knows it well, and how this may at times be seen by their knowledge of it's vocabulary.  For example, imagine someone explaining "I need a tool that you use to hit those little metal things that connect two pieces of wood together.  It has a wooden handle about 12" long and has a metal part on top.  You know?  The tool that people who build houses use."

Do you know what tool they are talking about?  Probably.  When I was learning Spanish, this is the sort of description I would find myself having to use at times. (To all the patient people who put up with me, Thank you.)

Of course, a person who knew the language well could have conveyed the same thought more concisely and clearly: "I need a hammer."

This same idea goes beyond spoken language.  

I use VIM on a daily basis.  Until recently my VIM vocabulary consisted of :wq, dd, i, /, :%s and esc.  Not a vary wide vocabulary at all for such a powerful tool.  I could get most anything done, but it was more like that first long-winded description of a hammer.  I am continuing to work on expanding my VIM vocabulary, and in doing so finding that what previously took many keystrokes can now be done nearly instantly with a single command.

However, the real value of a rich vocabulary is much more than simply the ability to be concise.  A rich vocabulary allows you multiple options to express your thoughts depending on the intended goal.

Instead of simply stating that it was "humid", a story-teller may choose to describe the air as "thick with moisture, soaking one's clothes and sapping one's strength."  Not as concise, but perhaps adding important details.

The same is true with our programming language vocabulary.  The goal of a rich vocabulary in Ruby, Erlang, or (insert your favorite language here)  is not always to write the least lines of code.  Our goal may be to increase maintainability, expose intentions, improve performance, etc.  By improving our vocabulary and grasp of the language, we are able to express our thoughts both efficiently and in the way that best fits the specific situation at hand.

How is your vocabulary with the tools that you use?  What are you doing to improve?