Fast Typing: Part 1

This week, we’re starting a new journey on code faster: Fast Typing. If you’re a programmer, I don’t need to explain to you that you’re typing 8+ hours a day, 5+ days a week for your entire career. I don’t need to explain to you how often you’ll perform a grueling refactor where you mindlessly perform the same keystrokes again. And again. And again. I don’t need to remind you of how much time you spend scrolling through code, fixing “style nits”. You already know this. If you’re aspiring to code faster, this is fundamental in your pursuit. Now that you’re thinking about typing faster, you might be thinking about some of these questions:

Am I typing efficiently? Is my keyboard layout efficient? Is my keyboard efficient? Am I using an efficient general purpose text editor? Am I using it efficiently? Am I using efficient text editing conventions across tools? Am I automating typing (the fastest human typist types 18 characters/second, whereas a run of the mill computer can easily type 18 …