For the guts of this post of why I’m fired up this morning, skip this next paragraph.
For those of you waiting for Day 3…yeah that’s not really coming if you couldn’t already tell. Why? Well, (1) I’m lazy, (2) I’ve lost the momentum of GEOINT, and (3) nothing too exciting happened on Day 3 to be honest. I’ll give you one thing though: I did almost get robbed at a club. Day 3 was on a Thursday. Last day of the symposium, many had already begun to fly back home. Figured, ok let’s do it up on our last night and go downtown. Surprisingly, Nashville was DEAD on a Thursday night. After dinner, we attempted a dueling piano bar, Coyote Ugly, and to our disappointment, the bar that was recommended to us was closed. FAIL, FAIL, FAIL. So we actually succumbed to going into an 18+ college bar/club — the ONLY poppin’ place that night. Quite a mixture of honky-tonkness and freshmen trying to sneak some drinks here and there. The night got interesting (and scary) when a drunkard somehow got into the place. He preyed around us begging for drinks with his eyes and slurred gibberish. You could just tell he was out to get something to sell to make a buck or two for a drink. That something was our jackets. I had seen him eying my purse, but I was quick to run off to the bathroom with it. Came back and our jackets were stashed under his. He tried to deny it and pretended to look around for them, all innocent-like. Smooth buddy, smooth. My co-worker yanked them and we got the f* out of there. Nashville had been an awesome experience up until that. Needless to say, it hasn’t tarnished my view of this awesome live-music city.
On to the fiery part…scrolling through my unread Hacker News feeds in Google Reader, this one caught my eye: We Are Typists first, Programmers Second. I’m curious to see what you guys think, specifically my fellow programmers out there.
I pasted my comment below:
87 wpm and my one mistake was putting a period at the end of that paragraph (apparently that typing test doesn’t value proper grammar).
I’ve been typing pretty much since instant messengers came out, which was primarily how I learned to type quickly. I definitely do not program as fast as I can type. What is the need? Programming takes thought and often pseudo-coding in my head before I can even begin to put code down in an editor. If you’re going to lose a thought, write the main points down (pencil and paper is still effective!), or type the solution in plain English as a comment. Whoa, comments…who comments anymore right? 😉
I used to judge a programmer’s skills by the way he/she typed, but our trade isn’t to type fast. Perhaps if you were a secretary (which I’ve been one) or a note-taker, it would be more valuable, but good programming goes far beyond keystrokes.
Syp Vandy on November 18, 2008 08:59 AM
\"Hello, Syposphere\" 
87wpm – wowzers