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Is Caps Lock Dead?
An anonymous reader asks "Recently I have noticed that I haven't used caps lock other for any purpose other than hitting it by accident. Once upon a time, COBOL was written in all caps, and other languages like BASIC and Fortran were not case sensitive. Capitals were the way to go for writing code. Does the caps lock key serve any purpose any more, and if not, should it be removed, moved, or replaced?"
escape and caps lock key switch.s cclock.ht m
http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~beyert/articles/e
-Grump
bet you tim!
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
They still haven't even bothered to get rid of the Scroll Lock button yet... What makes you think Caps Lock is going away any time soon?
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
Legal docs have quite a few all-caps sections, I believe.
That's about all I notice when I skim over a license agreement, anyway.
But the reason we have both swapped esc and caps lock is because caps lock is so rarely used, while esc is used alot in VI(changing modes) and chat boxes (close window)
i feel ctrl is fine the way it is (ctrl+x,c,v)
But i'll give caps/ctrl a try.
thanks
-Grump
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
If you still want a caps-lock for some reason, you can swap them with this binary value:
It's the first thing I do when installing Windows on new systems. If a client gives me a computer for use during a project (even a short one), I make the same change and put it back before I leave on the last day.
However, I'm considering dropping the caps-lock key altogether and making both into control keys. When I swap them, most people have a lot of trouble using my keyboard -- which is either a problem or a feature, depending on your point of view.
95.84% of all engineering drawings (for bridges, airplanes, refineries, etc.) use all caps. Even though we textually shout at the fabricators/contruction guys, every now and then someone installs a checkvalve backwards or forgets to grout some 10,000# machinery.
I figure the original forced use of caps on these drawings is (was) to force the draftsmen to raise the writing instrument for each letter, so as to avoid the sloppy penmanship that usually accompanies cursive.
Someone said that COBOL was the only real language to use the lock, and that's almost true. But hey we can all forget FORTRAN, ADA, and even ASM or asembler was first written all in caps.
My univeristy still teaches a course in COBOL, its the first data processing course and it really was useful. Mainly because most major corperations that have mainframes still use COBOL for their data warehouses.
COBOL ain't dead... well... it may be. but it's still warm.
and where would we be without the all caps flame wars of the fark forums and irc??
while(1) { fork(); };
"Ok sir, your password is not working? Ok then, have you tried turning off your caps lock? Yes sir, the caps lock key. That's a key on the left side of the middle of your keyboard. Try pressing it once and then typing in your password again. Working now? Very good sir, have a good day."
Productivity in the US may increase by 10% if we got rid of the stupid thing. If you *need* to type in all caps, pick a menu-option in your word processor or other application.
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
I actually include the capslock key in my touch typing. It's kinda hard juggling left and right shift when typing strings of capital letters.
- IP
I find it humorous that in showing how to not have a caps lock key, you made a post that could have used the caps lock key.
And I suppose I'm not supposed to even slightly glance down at the keyboard at any time either? I got enough of this fascism in grade-school, further propagation via /. won't be necessary. Somehow, believe it or not, some of us have managed swimmingly.
I think typing-nazi's belong in the same group with instructors at finishing schools and clerks at the DMV, which would also be the first group, coincidentally, against the wall...
+ G to tha Izzo, A to tha Tizee, Talking Giz-oat, Ya'll Bettah Feel Me... +
I use caps lock all the time in Photoshop and Illustrator. It toggles between brush size or standard, and precise for the cursor. Precise cursors are more usable than standard (cross hair, vs. bucket or eyedropper for example), and also for the path tool in Illustrator (instead of a pen). Yes, you can set the preference, but there are times when you want to show the tool, or brush size, and caps lock is an easy way to toggle between them.
MOV AX, BX
ADD CX, DX
XOR DX, 0x64
mov ax, bx
add cx, dx
xor dx, 0x64
Maybe I just like shouting at the CPU :)
I also like doing my HTML tags in caps.
I've discovered a remarkable proof, but this margin is too small to contain it...
I use the hell out of caps lock; it's my "prone" key in FPS shooters. Others use it for radio, etc. Aside from games though, I don't use it overmuch.
I've never understood the 'need' people have to capitalize SQL. It's not case sensitive. If one has a decent syntax highlighting editor, then the capital's don't help at all! I think having so many cap's in my code is fugly too. I've been doing SQL for 5 years or so, and I've gotten into many arguments with DBA's over this...
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
You guys are forgetting that the caps lock key is older than your silly programming languages. There was and still are uses for all caps sequences in many facets of typing. Caps are more easily readable on envelopes, some database and spreadsheet entries, titles of chapters, and many more writing applications. Sheesh. Newbies.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
There are a few really big flaws in the kinesis layout though, one is the damn Caps Lock next to the A, the other is a tiny chicklet Escape key way up in left field. But the Kinesis layout is easy to re-program, so I tried a few different re-arrangements and evenutally settled on making the key next to A another Escape, just like mister Vim-User recommends.
The (conspiracy) theory I've heard is that both Gates and Jobs were trying to kill off all the old DOS wordprocessors that used control keys extensively in the late 80s, particularly WordStar. So hardly any control keys were used in early Windows apps (mostly ALTs if anything), and Gates "encouraged" keyboard manufacturers to follow his layout that made Control less convenient. After the DOS apps were well and truly dead he allowed control keys to be used more. Perosonally I have CAPSLOCK and CONTROL swapped.
Here's an interesting article excerpt:
...the latching shift-lock that some early-80s home computers had? If you pressed it, it literally latched down until you pressed it again, and it behaved exactly like a held shift key. Now that would be infinitely more useful, both for the ability to physically feel it latch down (and thus avoid accidental pressing) and for the fact it affects more than just cap letters, it affects anything shifted.