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Is Typing a Necessary Skill?
cloudwilliam asks: "The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting article on how many schools have stopped teaching touch-typing as a necessary office skill and are now often saying that basic computer skills are more important. I'd agree with the latter, but what about typing? I learned to type on an IBM Selectric II (and still own one, as a matter of fact) in the mid-1980s, and the last time I was tested, touch-typed at around 60 wpm. Is this an obsolete skill? With handwriting and voice recognition technologies, is using a QWERTY keyboard with nine out of ten fingers something worth knowing anymore?"
I dont thiunk typiong is a necasary skil ath all!
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
Typing one-handed, though, there's a skill...
I thnik that it still inportant to be able to touch type quickli and acuraetly.
Whye shood we lern tiping wen most of us cant even spel?
><));>
No. I typed this with body parts that you don't want to know about.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Yes, it's important.
:(
If I typed faster, I might have gotten first post!
It's a pity one of those keys isn't "shift" every once in a while.
And only typing 3 letter words.
Darn.. typed too slow.
I took a one semester typing class in 6th grade.... I think the old BBSes at 2400 baud helped my typing the most.
For some reason, I keep thinking of a scene in Star Trek IV where Scotty is seated at a circa-1980's computer trying to get it to operate.
Scotty: "Computer!"
Man in room (handing him a mouse): "Maybe you use this."
Scotty (speaking into the mouse like it was a microphone): "COMPUTER!"
Man in Room: "Maybe you should just use the keyboard"
Scotty: "A keyboard? How quaint!"
Enough Said.
(disclaimer: I have NO idea if that is right. Don't speak 1ee7)
"why don't you just slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"
What always gets me about that scene is that he hasn't typed once in the last five years that we've seen but can still type faster than most people I know.
/. discussion. :)
And they still use Qwerty - or at least that shop happened to be using the same layout Scotty was familiar with!
There are other problems with that scene, too, such as the fact that he was so familiar with the software running on that Mac that he didn't even need to see it, but that's a topic for another
--RJ
Should have added that I use about 7 fingers not 10 :)
I am a designer/developer/programmer
Read: Unemployed
Picture little Scotty, 10 years old at school, whining, "But Mrs. Crabapple, when are we going to use a keyboard?"
"Quiet, Mr. Scott, and just do the assignment!"
Turns out she was right. If Scotty had skipped class that day, the earth might not have been saved.
Same goes for the day when Mrs. Crabapple taught the class how to use 300-year-old MacPaint as a chemical engineering program. You just never know when the little trivia you learn, may be useful.
Kirk probably couldn't have done that, because when he was in school, he hacked the computer to let him run a real chemical engineering program, instead of MacPaint.
"Stupid Mrs. Crabapple. I bet she never rotated the display of a Aluminum alloy structure in 3D, by using the airbrush tool. Well, I'll show her!"
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
how could you post to slashdot without knowing how to type?
;-)
Many people post to slashdot apparently without having the ability to read
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
words per minute? you insensitive americans. i believe the SI measumerunt is l/s (letters per second).
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
As bash.org says in one of the best quotes:
Capitalization is the difference between "Helping your uncle Jack off a horse" and "helping your uncle jack off a horse".
--
Shameless Karmawhoring for Charity
Capital letters are the difference between;
I helped my uncle jack off a horse.
and
I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse
"Comedy's a dead art form. Now tragedy, that's funny."
Well, when your sentences consist of
How r u? y? a/s/l?
maybe it's not such a stretch....
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
That's because the Mac UI is so unbelievably perfect, that it hasn't changed in the period between a Mac SE and the NCC1701. Hadn't you noticed the portrait of Steve Jobs hanging in the back of the engine room, all these years?
Flame suit on!
So, the Mac UI is a bunch of unlabeled switches and random blinking lights? ;)
--RJ
I was a fast enough typist that when some joker hit the 'bold' key on my typewriter and it had to double-strike everything, I'd have a whole line in the buffer by the end of a timed test. The teacher would call 'stop' and all the noise in the room would stop, except for one single typewriter - mine - going clickety-click, clickety-clik all by itself.
Then there was the blonde next to me who always used 'bold' because it sounded like she was typing faster...
CTRL+L is cool too, of course you can accidently hit CTRL+K, bringing you to the search field. If that happens, I go down to the computerstore and buy what is commonly known as a 'mouse' (just say 'a mouse' - they won't laugh at you). I plug in the mouse, and after a reboot I forget what page I wanted to go to.
Check out my PHP Url Validator
Seek and ye shall find ...
And only one button.
With handwriting and voice recognition technologies, is using a QWERTY keyboard with nine out of ten fingers something worth knowing anymore?"
I only have 9 fingers you insensitive clod!
Weird, so do I. For the record, I have all 10.
I always figured it was because he'd heard of/used keyboards, but that they were some old oddity in his time. (which he was obviously still familiar with)
;-)
You know... like uh... the Unix command line
Hm. Your I/O routines are faster than central processing? I think there may be something wrong. Spray some canned air on yourself in case it's just overheating.
Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
BTW, the schools here are having that debate and it appears that they are going to move touch typing down to third grade where it belongs. Then they won't have to waste time on cursive.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
"The only class that I ever learned anything from, and still use the skills from, is my high school typing class."
Sex-ed obviously was a bust.
In high school we had a keyboarding class that I greatly accelled in
And we all bet you excelled in your English class as well!
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