I’m starting to learn to touch type correctly on a keyboard, but typing something like :q with the pinky finger always feels so awkward to me. Is it worth using it?

  • Yes, i do and yes, it’s worth it.
    Also, practice the number row, too! That’s my weakest area by far. I can touch-type everything else but i always have to check the number row.

  • I do…mostly. I hit Q and P with my ring fingers instead of pinkies. For AZ;/ and shift and enter I do use my pinky fingers always, except (as I’ve just noticed) when I’m typing a capital A or Z. I seem to almost always hit the left shift instead of the right, so I end up using my left ring finger to hit the A or Z in that case.

  • Yes, I decided i wanted to learn touch typing a while ago, I switched to a different layout from QWERTY called Coleman, it’s fairly similar but puts the most common letters on the home row or near your first and second fingers, while keeping the position of common shortcut keys like Z, X, C.

    I also switched my keyboard to an Ortholinear style which i found helped with my accuracy as i was learning.

    • Similarly I learned to properly type (which means using your pinkies) with Dvorak back in 2007. I stuck with it since anything is a gain beyond QWERTY & _ on the home row helps with programming & config.

      If you haven’t learned to touch type, you may as well use a layout that is gonna strain you less in the long run.

  • I switched to a somewhat custom keyboard and only use my pinkies for 1 key each during normal typing. It’s probably not an issue for most people, but for me the pinkies were the most affected by repetitive strain before i switched.

  • As I was thinking about this, I thought that I don’t use my pinky’s nearly as much as I’m finding that I do after a brief evaluation. Yes, go all in on learning to touch type with proper form. I also don’t use my pinkies for :q, however. Well, I used the pinky on my left for the shift key but the ring finger on my right to type the colon.