Advocating for learning to touch type well and an evaluation of keyboard layout options.
Types of typing
Being able to touch type has been a hugely beneficial skill to acquire. Being able to type consistently at a speed that doesn't interrupt thought makes writing anything so much more fluid and removes a barrier that would otherwise be there in that process. It is also a fun skill to learn and use.
Broadly there are three categories of typist: hunt and peck, hybrid and touch typists.
Those hunting and pecking are generally not very familiar with the layout of the keyboard and have to look to find the right key to use. They almost invariably type with just one finger or one from each hand.
Hybrid typists are familiar with where the letters are but are self taught and use a variety of techniques and may need to look at the keyboard to different degrees.
Touch typists don't look at the keyboard at all and share a very similar technique of which finger they use for each key starting from a position of all fingers on the middle, or "home" row.
Until comparitively recently I was a hybrid typist. Most of my typing was for writing code and I had learned to do that quickly and had doubts that learning proper touch typing would improve that experience.
Having some time available I decided to learn to touch type as a project for its own sake.
By far the best resource that I found for that was TypingClub (not sponsored, I just think they have a really good product). You don't even need to create an account. Just be strict about never looking at the keyboard and follow the finger positioning.
Learning to touch type properly has helped with coding a lot more than I expected it to and typing to write emails or documents is a far better experience.
QWERTY doesn't really make sense
When I learned to touch type I chose the QWERTY layout - the standard layout where the top row starts with the letters 'QWERTY'. It was what I was familiar with already and made the most sense too as it is by far the most prevalent.
There are alternatives though, including those for various languages. The QWERTY layout was created a long time ago and much of the reasoning for the position of the letters no longer applies and there aren't the mechanical restrictions there were either.
QWERTY is particularly strange to me in that the most common letter, which is 'e', requires the movement of a finger of the left hand. Whereas 'j', the least common letter by many measures, is under the index finger of the right hand in the starting position.
With QWERTY you have one finger that doesn't even rest on a letter at all but is allocated the semicolon ';' of all things.
The modern layout that most appealed is Colemak whose top row begins with the letters 'qwfpgj'.
With Colemak the 'e' key is now under the middle finger of the right hand, all fingers in the resting position are on letters and they are the most common ones.
TypingClub also offers a complete course to learn Colemak too, so I followed that to see what I would make of it.
Results
Learning another keyboard layout revealed some interesting observations about the learning process, the differences between the layouts and the state of keyboard layouts in general.
Learning two layouts and trying to retain both can be a strange experience. The longer I would use one without the other would make it harder to switch back. The process of switching back seemed to be all or nothing. My typing speed would be down to almost nothing but something would click and it would suddenly come back.
Here is a video of me switching between layouts on the fly. My speed was compromised because of the switching but also being keen not to make any mistakes. It does show quite clearly the difference in finger movement between the layouts though.
Here are some of my personal observations about the differences between layouts. QWERTY is very loaded towards the left hand and requires significant finger movement. Colemak is more even but somewhat loaded to the right hand with much less finger movement. QWERTY can be more taxing but Colemak can feel a bit cramped. All else being equal I think I felt Colemak was more comfortable.
Even though on balance I would have probably stuck with Colemak I find myself still using QWERTY. There is just so much expectation of QWERTY being used, whether that is on someone else's machine or some software that has ergonomic defaults based on QWERTY, that the cost of switching hasn't felt like it is worth the benefit.
There are ways around these problems of course but they are just enough to impede the desire to switch.
It's good to be aware of alternatives though and to have had some experience to know what may work in the future if I had any more significant reason to change.
Either way I highly recommend learning to touch type properly. It's both a fun and valuable skill to have.