Touch Typing

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I've been programming for a while. I type quite fast with okay accuracy, but, I'm not quite sure what defines touch typing. I obviously don't finger peck. I don't have to look at the keyboard. I get around 54 WPM with a few mistakes. What exactly is touch typing?

It's where you type without looking at the keyboard to type, and instead look at the words you're typing.

Touch typing is well worth learning. It doesn't take long - a few days practice maybe. I've been programming for a very very long time, but find touch typing comes in most useful for documentation... and forums of course

Each finger has a pre-designated set of keys it is responsible for. You may find it a little clumsy at first especially using your little fingers, but you soon get used to using all your fingers and not even thinking about the keyboard, the words just appear on the screen like magic - and faster than is possible with two finger typing.

I just tried an online touch typing speedtest and I got 79wpm. That's way faster than I thought I was. I can't touch type in the traditional sense, but I learnt to pseudo-touchtype during my years of playing online games like Counter-strike and WoW, where typing needed to be fast lest the player died.

My left hand sits with its fingers on the WASD keys and I can legitimately touch type with that hand. My right hand isn't as good, since during the games it would normally be on the mouse, and I'd need to move it across to the keyboard to type with it. I tend to just use the first two fingers of that hand, and pick out the keys with it. I automatically know where every key is situated on the keyboard, but sometimes if I'm not too careful my right hand can miss a key or two because of the inaccuracy of its method.

The F and J keys should have a little dimple on them so you can automatically feel your fingers are in the "home position". On the most recent laptops I've bought these dimples have been too tiny to easily feel, so I put a tiny blob of Araldite epoxy resin on top of each dimple to make it more obvious to touch. Works well for me anyway.

Touch typing in the traditional sense means your hands don't even move, only your fingers, while the heel of your hand remains resting all the time. This means there is less stress and strain on your fingers and since the movements are much smaller you can type faster.