How early did you learn to type? As an American born in 1980, I learned in first grade, and I don't remember it being a struggle. So maybe it's really important to learn early.

FWIW, I'm visually impaired, so looking at the keyboard wasn't a practical option.

Yeah, but my typing class was only 10 days, one hour a day. It was a marvelous return on investment.

Also, it was on mechanical typewriters. You had to physically hammer the keys to make it work, making for a very positive impression on muscle memory.

It’s possible that a relatively arbitrary keyboard layout would have worked for you too simply by forcing you to relearn how to type, then.

Mine did (Europe). Junior high. Around the age of 13, I think. It's been a while. But only as part of a particular course, which I didn't take - I had picked another one. I don't remember which one included the touch typing, but apparently it was one which a lot of students attended.

I learned touch typing at home when I was 14 or 15, my mother changed careers and had to learn touch typing, so she borrowed a Scheidegger typewriter (those with the coloured keys) and a course book, and I thought "Why not?" and did about 15 minutes every day. I tried to be consistent and do it "right", and after three weeks I had it pat down (I should add that those who followed the school course were for the most part a bit sloppy, and most didn't really learn it even though they had the course for the whole semester).

Then when I did my mandatory military service we had to go through a touch type course as well. It wasn't even half as good as the Scheidegger course, but in any case I could touch type already so I didn't care.

For me it helped greatly to be able to touch type when I started working in programming - my mind would fly and I could keep up with my typing. I cringed when I watched over the shoulder of (equally young) colleagues who constantly had to break their concentration to hunt for keys to press, one at the time (of course as years went by those people got much faster, with the same method, and those particular problems disappeared for them).

And in my job I've always had to write a lot of documents, and of course touch typing helps greatly there.

Typewriters, proper, pre-existed alongside punchcards for many decades before being incorporated into computer interfaces as keyboards. The fact that they did pre-exist computer keyboards may have led to them becoming the default so fast. While keyboards are amazing, they certainly weren't beyond imagination.

I guess you can say that QR codes, projectors, and cameras predate this Folk computer idea as well. But they are also far less intuitive. Using a typewriter well requires knowing basic literacy and a few new functions (carriage return, line feed, shift, etcetera). Graduating from a typewriter to a keyboard requires learning some additional functionality.

What current devices are teaching the basic functionality needed to jumpstart adaptation to this Folk computer interface?

It's good they offered the class, but two full semesters of it sounds like terribly inefficient teaching.

What's funny is I don't know what many of the commands are for my text editor. But my fingers know. Sometimes I'll just watch my fingers to see what the command is, but I have to be careful - when I think too much about "what is the command" my fingers forget it.

That's kind of sad. The most productive 2 week class I ever took was a touch typing class in 8th grade. We learned on mechanical typewriters where you really had to hammer the keys. This has paid off for me enormously.

> quite slow by coder standards

I spend very little time typing code in, that's not where my typing time is spent. For example, I am typing this while looking at the screen, not the keyboard. I catch and fix mistaeks much faster. When I'm transcribing text, touch typing doubles the speed because I read the original while typing.

I also try and optimize my code for readability, not minimal keystrokes.

In my experience, I did look more than intended to, and more than I thought I did. What really drove this home was not a blank keyboard but a mislabeled one (created, at the time, by popping key caps off and rearranging, being sure to preserve F and J).

Yes.

> how do you _learn_ the layout then?

Using an image of the new layout, and by doing drills. If you care about touch typing, you're training to type without looking at the keyboard anyway.

This is how I learned to touch type on Dvorak years ago. I had never learned to touch type on QWERTY before, and I still can't. But then again, I typically don't type on other people's computers and when I do, I look at the keys.

I think you are learning it wrong. It's not hard at all to learn QWERTY with the proper training technique.

I took touch typing in High School, back in the 1980's. Even back then I knew I was going to be doing a lot of work with computers so it made sense to take it. It turned out to be the most useful class I ever took in school by a wide margin since I've used that skill all day every day for 35 years.

It was a loooong time ago but I remember it started with lots of simple repetition. We were all using IBM selectrics and the instructor would call out "J-J-J Space, K-K-K Space, L-L-L space, sem sem sem space" etc. in a pattern around the keyboard while and we were told to avoid looking at the keyboard at all times. Eventually we would start copying simple and then longer, more complicated text, again without ever looking at the keyboard.

This is interesting!. I learn typing in a VERY old mechanical typewriter, then in an electronic one, then in a computer keyboard.

You need to hammer the keys in the old typewriter, like hitting with all the force in the world. But in the electronic it was so soft! Then the computers come and was like in the middle.

I made my own mechanical keyboard, and looking at it, I bottom up around the "middle", not going full force. Also, I HEAR if I hitting it too hard, so I can "lower" the sound mid-tipyng! Cool to have feedback!

I used to do something like this. Developed some real bad RSI that was only partially alleviated when I got a split keyboard (which forced me to learn to touch-type). Now that I’m used to that I’m finally starting to touch-type on a normal keyboard, which also helps quite a bit.

YMMV of course, but in retrospect I really wish I learned to touch-type to begin with; I think I ignored it during typing lessons as a kid as my typing speed was honestly pretty good, but now I regret that.

In my opinion, no. It always amuses me when somebody wants to learn to touch-type just to learn touch-type. If one really needs it (i.e. writes a lot on a keyboard), they'll learn it soon enough just from the practice.

That said, you may grow with time using more of your fingers. It may even be because you decided to try using those fingers that otherwise were idle (maybe one at a time; that was my case). But forcing yourself to learn? I would say it's not worth the hassle.

What actually matters to me is how fast I type and how accurate it is. You may want to check your results in some on-line test. If you have typing speed average or better, don't bother with specifically learning more.

Are touch typists rare these days? I feel like people these days forego even learning to type properly. I dont understand why they refuse to just learn it, it is such an essential skill to have.

The same reason stoplights are red: inertia.

In the 5th grade, we had typing class, and we got to use both qwerty and dvorak. This was some time ago, but even then, we were told that qwerty was the present and the future, and dvorak was rare and on the way out. Basically, at a young age we are told what to use, and trained to use it - the rest is history.

I wouldn't be surprised if the last time they were on a keyboard, it was a teletype keyboard or a keyboard that punched cards!

Although, actually, were they just typed using the control key from the start?

This. Typing fast doesn't require you to beat the keys into submission.

> ...

> Honestly best advice is just get a keyboard you're comfortable with.

Exactly that. My typing improved extremely by typing a lot, although I'm not sure if it's necessary to know every single keyboard character by heart. And of course the keyboard must be comfortable. I think everybody has different preferences though. Personally I used to like ergonomic keyboards but at the moment I'm really comfortable with the Apple butterfly keyboard ;-)

Anecdata, but: I got ~160 WPM without learning touch typing. I was a regular computer user from the age of 12.