Well, that's your choice. But I suggest that writing code without any support is harmful.

A programmer should automate things as much as possible if the automation cost does not outweigh the cost of doing it manually. One really easy way to do this is by using a good editor that automates many menial and tedious tasks. For example, one of the things that annoy me is using the command cd to change into a deep directory path like this:

/path/to/a/very/long/long/long/long/long/long/..../directory/

In Emacs, if you have a directory under a version control system, you can immediately jump to any file quickly, even if it is buried 20 levels deep (as demonstrated at the beginning).

Another example is quickly commenting out multiple lines of code in a programming language that only supports single line comments. In many editors you would have to tediously comment them out line by line. But in Emacs you can simply highlight the lines and press a shortcut to comment them out.

Many people think that writing programs manually makes them much cooler than "amateurs" that use a fancy Integrated Development Environment . I also used to think like that because working in a Linux environment requires understanding of the underlying processes, such as building software using a Makefile in C/C++, automating with a shell script, installing software by compiling… And this is already considered "user friendly" in the Linux world, as opposed to "click the nice little play button" in a typical IDE. However, I was wrong. While working with such tools allows me to understand what's going on, I do not need to type in code manually to understand it. If you get what a for loop does, typing it character by character is only tedious and interrupts your thinking.

Writing code manually won't make you smarter, because you did the thinking before you started to type. Typing is just a mere reflection of your thoughts into the editor. You need to finish typing as fast as possible, because the quicker you finish, the quicker you can get back to your thinking. Only thoughts matter, and there's no value in manually typing the same things thousands of times. I must say, Cut , Copy and Paste are really great ideas and great automation tools because of their simplicity.

If your job may require you to use an esoteric in-house programming language and if you don't like it, having an editor to help you finish the tasks as soon as possible is a way to make yourself happier.

Typing too much can also lead to RSI. Manually typing too much code is harmful to your fingers. At least if you use a handsaw instead of a circular saw, you do some physical exercise in the process.

In Sum:

Manually typing does not make you smarter. Not in any form.

Manually typing does not make you a better programmer.

Manually typing or other tedious tasks (navigating the file system, remembering changes you made to your files…) are a waste of time if automating is possible. Automate as much as you can.

Good editors help you automate boring tasks.

Typing too much potentially leads to RSI.

Instead of wasting your time and memory on tedious tasks, you could save it for more interesting things.