By "touch type", do you mean "without taking your hands off the home-row" or "without looking down?"

I can't do the former, but I can absolutely do the latter. I can change the volume and brightness without looking down, and do so all the time.

Maybe I'm unusual, but I don't think I am—it's not that hard to learn by feel which keys are towards the opposite ends of the top row.

What I can't do without looking is access the middle keys, namely F4–F9. If Apple wanted to put a touch-bar there, I'd find that perfectly acceptable—I wouldn't consider it a downgrade, at least. The bar would be pretty small by that point though.

Desktop keyboards often have the function keys in groups of 4, making touch typing all of them easy.

The latter. Maybe it's not that hard to learn but I suppose I've never really felt inclined to try and touch type since hitting the wrong function key can have a higher "cost" than just typing a wrong letter. Bringing up a help dialog, going full screen, developer console, etc.

fwiw, this isn't something I've consciously "learned", just something I've discovered I can do over time.

Big difference: I can rest my finger on a fn key while looking at the screen, and not need to look down before pressing it. Not possible with the current implementation of touch screens / bars.

The biggest thing I miss about tactile keyboards (on a phone, anyway) is the no-look interaction without necessitating input. Maybe tactile navigation is the term. RIP HTC Tilt2.

On keyboards that divide them into groups of 4 (Esc, F1-4, F5-8) I absolutely do. My work laptop has that.

That's a good point. But I suppose this post is mostly about laptops and laptop keyboards don't typically have those groupings.

I can do it. Show desktop, brightness, media keys, debugging keys. My fingers know them.

I went with a 13" Air this time around. I still have physical function keys, and the fingerprint reader which I like.

Unfortunately, I'm still subject to the quality problems. I'm four months post-purchase, two weeks out of my first keyboard repair(!), and my caps lock and Q keys are already starting to go. :(

Outside of Apple world of "aesthetics over usability", Function keys are grouped spacing so you can easily find the one you need by touch. Ironically, Apple's TouchBar is less touch-friendly than a traditional keyboard.

https://www.google.com/search?q=keyboard&tbm=isch

To be fair, everyone who took computer typing should have the entire keyboard memorized. I know I can touch type a full keyboard and even use shift+keys as touch typing. You are projecting your own lack of keyboard knowledge.

I touch type everything but the function keys, including using shift, alt, and control.

I'm sure the lack of a touchbar is very annoying to people who have taken such a class but I'm skeptical that most people, or even a significant portion of developers, have taken computer typing.

Been developing for 35+ years, they didn’t teach touch typing back then so I never learned. Just some anecdata.

If you've been developing for 35+ years and you still have to look at the keyboard.... you teach yourself touch typing. Unless touch typing means something other than "not looking at the keyboard before you press the keys"?