Chit Chat

Programming and the typist

by Chere February 4, 2020

I’m a programmer.

I write code. I edit code. I look at code. I like code.

I have discovered a fatal flaw that I am working at remediating.

I am a really BAD typist.

I Love NotePad++! Check it out!

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am actually a great typist. Not that I am super speedy with the key tapping – but I do have good accuracy and very few errors per line.

The problem is – I depend on my editor (in most cases NotePad++) and some other IDEs for their red-lining of my mistakes. Everyone does! That’s why we use tools like those. They help us be accurate and efficient thereby increasing effectiveness of effort!

BUT — In CMD – there is no red-line!

Yesterday I was writing some SQL to generate a report from an Oracle database. I was using putty.  It’s pretty standard stuff – grab a couple of columns input some parameters and whallah! REPORT! Except it didn’t WHALLAH. Oracle was so nonplussed with my error it did not even bother to return an error! It took me five minutes to find the spelling error (I had to go to NotePad++ and retype the whole thing from scratch.)

What’s pretty funny was that had the error been a missing comma or semi-colon or concatenator I probably would have seen it right away. I am used to scanning for those. But spelling errors sometimes fly right by me – especially when some knuckle headed programmer names his columns functimnames.

Seriously.

So I am practicing my typing skills. And practicing and practicing.

Perfect practice makes PERFECT!   ←  Words to live by.

Did you know that the sentences that use every letter of a given alphabet is called a PANGRAM? No?! Me either. But typing ‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’ gets old. So I asked the interwebs for alternatives and Wikipedia delivered seven

      • “Jived fox nymph grabs quick waltz.”
      • “Glib jocks quiz nymph to vex dwarf.”
      • “Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.”
      • “How vexingly quick daft zebras jump!”
      • “The five boxing wizards jump quickly.”
      • “Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz.”
      • “Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.”

The take away to all my ramblings –

Never stop improving…. yeah that sounds good. Lets run with it!

Cheers!