Pinkies and touch typing

[bcredbottle]

I'm learning touch typing. On the one hand, using pinkies (for P and Q) keeps your fingers on the home row. On the other, it's a huge reach, and it is way less work to just use the ring finger for those keys. Does anyone here touch type without pinkies?

[Air tree]

Pinkies all day everyday. You have to spread the keyboard love throughout all the fingers. 

[nmur]

I think it's pretty common to do that, even more so if you're placing your wrists on a wrist pad.

A while ago, I forced myself to hover my hands as I type rather than letting them sit on a rest. As part of that, I started using my pinkies. I've found that I don't need to angle my wrist as much as I used to when I would use my ring finger.

[tp4tissue]

Yes it is commonly taught to use the pinky for those keys HOWEVER

those guys are n00bers,, and they're WRONG..

use   RING -finger for  -Q-  and  -P- 

It is faster, and it does not get in the way of common wrist rolls..

[mstechfreak]

I use pinkies as well. :-) I learned to touch type in http://www.typingstudy.com . I think it was very very useful.

[bcredbottle]

I think the pinkies feel like such a reach because I have DSA caps...

[tp4tissue]

Pinky is good for  -a- -z- -:-  -.-   l-r-shift,  enter, /

Ring is good for   -q- -p- backspace -\-

[Oobly]

Pinky is good for  -a- -z- -:-  -.-   l-r-shift,  enter, /

Ring is good for   -q- -p- backspace -\-

I tend to use mine only for Shift, \, Enter and Ctrl. But I never learnt "proper" touch-typing technique, so... Not an expert on touch typing

I think the pinkies feel like such a reach because I have DSA caps...

ohmagerd... change 'em. Cherry profile (for steeply angled boards) and sculptured SA profile (for closer to flat boards) are awesome. I don't mind the "flat" aspect of DSA (in fact I really enjoy typing on my Penumbra set with all Row 3 alphas), but somehow the small tops combined with the flatness trips me up.