As a developer, is is worth mastering touch typing?

Yes. It's an awesome skill to have! I just need to find the dots or however you call them on the f and j keys and I'm good :)

You probably already can touch type to a certain extent, you maybe just don’t know it yet.

Personally I find I’m a fast enough typist but don’t use strict touch typing. I’ve never found speed of getting code onto a page to be an issue. Saying that, I mostly write algorithmic code so there’s less boiler plate to do, and also I use ReSharper in Visual Studio so I’m mostly just hitting Tab.

Yes of course! At least with a blank keyboard as I have one 😉

https://devrant.com/rants/909795/...

Main advantage is that you can focus on the screen text, spot error earlier and then begin to type real fast with enough practise.

I thought typing was almost a universal skill

Of course, but I say that despite being terrible at it. I can do it, but my error rate is much higher when I'm not looking at the keyboard.

Opinions on keyboard layouts? I’ve been considering dvorak because I feel like it would be easier to teach myself to type correctly if I’m starting fresh than trying to retrain my QWERTY muscle memory

Can't recommend it enough