Does Typing Speed Really Matter For Programmers? 545
theodp writes "I can't take slow typists seriously as programmers,' wrote Coding Horror's Jeff Atwood last fall. 'When was the last time you saw a hunt-and-peck pianist?' Atwood's rant prompted John Cook to investigate just how important it is to be able to type quickly. 'Learning to type well is a good investment for those who are physically able to do so,' concludes Cook, 'but it's not that important. Once you reach moderate proficiency, improving your speed will not improve your productivity much. If a novelist writing 1000 words per day were able to type infinitely fast, he or she could save maybe an hour per day.' At 150 WPM, notes Cook, the world's fastest typist was still only 10x faster than Stephen Hawking."
I don't type very fast when I'm coding (Score:4, Informative)
I find that I don't type very fast at all when I'm writing code; after all, the limiting factor there is how quickly I can think through what I want to do, not how quickly I can twiddle my fingers. I suppose if you're working from a very detailed design document you would need to be able to type quickly, but if it's that detailed why isn't it already a program?
On the other hand, I do find that I only rarely have to go back and re-write large sections of code; usually the worst that happens is that I need to run a regular expression over it.