the corner office : tech blog

An old Steve Yegge post I'd never read before: Programming's Dirtiest Little Secret

Illtyperacy is the bastard incest child hiding in the industry's basement

I learned to touch-type when I was doing my articles. KPMG had this thing where they would give you a stiffy disk with a typing tutor program (Mac) on it and the deal was that if you learned to type at a certain WPM then you'd not have to pay for the software. I was young and skint (and naive enough) to think (and worry) that they'd actually follow up on the software fees, so I did the lessons and learned how to touch-type, long before I started writing software for a living.

And I don't think they ever remembered to charge anyone for the software. A minor and early lesson in organisational dynamics, that was.

The one thing I never did, though, was persist with the number row, and that remains my one weakish spot. After reading Yegge's article, I'm inspired to go back and sort that out.