The alternative is hunt-and-peck, aka "look down at the keyboard, find the key you want, and poke it with your index finger." I started programming at age 7 and wasn't taught to touch-type until 11 or so; you definitely don't need formal QWERTY training to input text at a pretty rapid rate. It's still not as fast as touch-typing, though, and being able to type without looking at the keyboard is a huge advantage.