[SansGuidon]

I'm not inclined to encourage multitasking just by rushing throwing more code while also driving while also writing a message to the kids while also eating. It's also charitable to take the time to focus. And maybe think about how this code is not worth it or not urgent anyway. And doing less can be good

[tmtvl]

At some point you do need to write at least some code. Can't really go to a hospital and say 'oh, the code that drives the MRI scanner isn't really necessary, you can always try other methods to figure out what's wrong with the patient'. And if some code HAS to be written it's important that you're able to type fast so you can take your time and think about what to write.

Imagine if you type very slowly. You first take your time to consider what to write and when you're finally certain what to do you start typing. But when you've finished only the type declaration your alarm clock rings because you have to go pick up the kids.

So you go pick up the kids and when you're back home you have dinner and then you help the kids with their homework and by the time you can get back to what you were doing you have forgotten where you were. You could try to recollect what you had decided on, but that would be pointless because it'd be time to call it a night when you're back where you were.

So then you have to punt it to the next day, and then you get back to it and finish the task. But because you type so slowly there isn't enough time to properly document it and write test cases. So you have to do that the following day.

Whereas if you can type fast you could have finished writing the code before you have to go pick up the kids. So then you could write the documentation and test cases after helping them with the homework. And most of the time you gained was not gained because you write sloppy code or did half a million things at the same time. It was gained because you didn't have to spend half a day trying to figure out what you had decided to do in the first place.

It's better to spend 7 hours carefully planning the code and 1 hour writing the code than spending 4 hours planning the code and 4 hours writing it. Typing slow is bad because you have less time to think. Typing fast is good because you have more time to think.

[SansGuidon]

Typing fast is good but not so important as typing the right thing. Less is more and that's one of the key messages. There are degrees between typing fast and slow. I have the impression people are only able to see either extreme. The more we urge ourselves to eat fast, walk fast, do everything fast, the more anxiety we throw ourselves into, the more nervous we become when others are not fast enough, the less patience we develop, the more we tempt and bias ourselves to think more and fast is needed. There is no problem writing 1000 words per minute if we can so why would we think our text is repetitive ? After all we are good at typing, let's type while everyone is struggling to keep up with our rythme. Let's create more code to maintain, more code to debug, let's make big fonctions, long pull requests, let's be tempted to spam the chat and answer everything we can because we type fast enough. Let's skip the lunch because we will quickly answer them. Let's engage in more social networks because we have the bandwidth with our typing speed.

That's also a fact that the easiest an activity becomes the more we can become addicted to do it without thinking. The less we look for alternatives.

Why doing a meeting of 30min when 3000 lines of code can do it. Who cares who will maintain our code as long as we become the hero of the team by typing 10.000 loc overnight.

We are the faster. We win every discussion by typing more and faster. We impress. We throw more jira issues in backlog than everyone else. We dont see the need to slow down or refuse a task because our typing speed gives us more privilege and power.

So one key thing is becoming constrained also makes us more creative at problem solving. Maybe working more is not the key, maybe coding more is not the key goal. Maybe one line of code or a product can solve our problem. Maybe some llm, maybe our of our 100 ideas per minute, only one is relevant and maybe it won't be useful by next week. Good ideas are not always the newest ones.

I also consider on average programmers read more code than they write. I've often helped very busy people whose time was focused on reinventing the wheel and frameworks because they were proud of their coding skills and avoided looking elsewhere for existing solutions. I also haven't been the fastest programmer but always the one able to read code and find bugs better than peers. I'm not proud of typing more unnecessary and buggy code which will then slow us down through debugging and maintenance.

Observability, and quality is important, more than quantity and speed. And as for most things, speed also amplify some negativity, chaos and noise, in my experiences.