@simontatham And then there’s the fact some of us have moved away from Qwerty, meaning our wrong-finger or missed-key typos and even hands-out-of-sync typos are at first glance utterly strange. So even focussing on English users, the #KeyboardLayout would be a confounding factor.
@pjacock @simontatham I can't think of an example, but I would expect the purpose of one's typing would probably also play a role in the types of error one produces.
I never really learned to touch-type, and though I can type without looking at the keyboard, I think the pattern of my hand movements is not the same as a trained typist would use.
A significant reason for that is that most of my keyboard work has been programming, which is heavily weighted towards single words and symbols, rather than sentences, and short bursts of editing rather than just typing out contiguous 'tracts'.
@GerardThornley @pjacock yes, I've always thought formal touch-typing training is better suited to people typing English text than to programming.
I was never formally trained at all. I just typed, mostly on my own time, since an early age, and my motor cortex gradually optimised my actions without me really paying attention, until I could hit >100wpm on a good day. But it's noticeable that the style I evolved is not the usual touch-typing style with a fixed posture on the home keys. It's far more flexible – I can adapt to having a few fingers out of action (e.g. holding a pen or a snack) almost without having to think about it, just using whatever fingers I have for whatever they need to do. And I never use Caps Lock, because I find it easier to hold down Shift with one finger and just use the other 9 however seems sensible. And often I find my left hand covers _more_ than half of the letter keys, while my right hand is free to go for punctuation symbols and the arrow keys (or all the way over to the mouse or trackball), since – as you say – programming is much more heavily weighted towards both weird characters and editing your existing code.
Another noticeable thing about my posture is that my wrists don't bend outwards in the way they'd have to to settle my fingers on the home keys. My hands land on the keyboard at an angle, and just deal with it. Perhaps this is good for getting less RSI!
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@simontatham @GerardThornley @pjacock also never formally learned to touch-type, and I think the biggest artifact of that that I notice is I will never use right shift under any circumstance. It might as well not exist.
@simontatham @GerardThornley @pjacock
I was taught touch typing - twice even, first on an electric typewriter, then on a terminal. I use a Wacom digitizer rather than a mouse, and I often catch myself typing with the pen between my fingers. Though I never paid attention to whether different fingers take over or I've found a way to hold it that allows me to use all ten fingers.
The wrist bending thing I never understood. Fingers have different lengths, with the pinky being the shortest, so to hit the keys optimally, the hands need to be at an inwards angle. For that reason I've never liked Microsoft Natural Keyboards, I need to push my elbows way out to get my hands at the optimal angle.
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@simontatham @pjacock yes, I too use my hands much more flexibly in terms of what finger I use for a given key, sometimes letting either hand cross over to "the other side" if that works best.
It's possible this flexibility increases the chance of 'mis-strikes' as my sense of my hand position drifts over time, but if ever lose a finger I ought to still be okay for typing.
I do use both shift keys, but still often use the same side shift as the other key I'm pressing. That's one habit I've actively tried to stop because I'm sure the way I use the side of my little finger to hold shift can't be good for it.
@leeloo @GerardThornley @pjacock yes, I can't use split keyboards at all, because I'm too used to being able to change my mind about which hand is for which keys. Not even the kind that duplicates one of the letter keys (B, I think?) on both sides because it's the one people are most often indecisive about.
@GandalfDG @GerardThornley @pjacock me too, although in my case that could easily be early influence from the ZX Spectrum, on which the two shift keys were semantically different!