Comment by lawn
1 year ago
I think typing speed is important during bursts. If you can type out a function name really quickly (autocomplete also helps of course) then you can continue your thought process with less interruption than if you were slower.
> 90% of software development happens in the mind. The small amount of time spent actually writing it out seems kinda silly to optimize for.
So you're saying that 10% is spent typing, which doesn't seem a silly amount to optimize for?
Yes, quite so, but it probably has almost nothing to do with absolute typing speed.
There’s a marginal difference between an editor where you can type quickly and one where you can only type fast.
We’re not talking about the difference between 300 wpm and 10 wpm.
I bet if you measured, you would see, at best, a marginal difference between the speed of input between editors.
Ie. The point is that, that marginal difference probably has no meaningful difference in your productivity.
What makes the difference is probably how it affects, for example; flow.
If your flow is interrupted by the editor hanging or waiting for some bs lang server lag, or having to update a vim plugin, you are being interrupted.
…and studies show that interruptions do have a meaningful impact on productivity.
This is why editors that let you type fast do not improve productivity for everyone. Some people get flow in other ways.
Fast typing is not a universal metric for productivity, and it’s absolutely a diminishing returns thing to optimise for.
It’s probably fair to say that if you have a moderately fast editor, going to a super fast editor makes no difference to most people.
…but going from an editor that freezes or forces you to spend your time upgrading plugins, probably does; because interruptions like that are probably universal flow destroyers.