Slashdot Mirror
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?"
Better to understand how the computer works, and learn to type as you use it. I don't think that voice and other technologies are going replace the KeyBwa anytime soon though.
Last time I was tested, I was at around 105 wpm with 99% accuracy. That's just a byproduct of using computers day in and day out for years though, and not a result of any typing class. I gradually developed my own touch typing system, I guess.
I dont thiunk typiong is a necasary skil ath all!
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
Too many people I know don't know how to type correctly and use the hunt-and-peck method. They're amazed when I'm able to type up a 100-word paragraph in a few minutes, when it takes them up to half an hour. (I'd also classify them as AOLers, i.e. people that say "wut r u doing 2nite?" on IM services.)
I thnik that it still inportant to be able to touch type quickli and acuraetly.
absolutely necessary.
:)
how could you post to slashdot without knowing how to type?
incidentally, how many of you out there are traditional touch-typists?
i took a typing class waay back, but can't force myself to touch-type. but i still get around 80wpm using whichever finger happens to be around the key that i need to hit
I had typing in the 8th grade, and it was the single most practical class I ever had in school, period. You can type so much faster when you learn properly. There's a closer connection between your thoughts and getting them down in the computer. If anything, the prevalence of computers is making typing skills MORE crucial, not less. Before e-mail and word processors, bosses had clerical staff to type. Now the boss himself has to be able to type, too. So everybody needs basic keyboarding skills.
Whye shood we lern tiping wen most of us cant even spel?
><));>
When I was in high school, I tested at 96 wpm using a manual typewriter. If we continue to use keyboards instead of other HIDs (such as voice recognition, optical, etc.), then other muscles would be more important than fingers.
Perhaps having a background as an auctioneer would finally be useful for something.
*resists teptation to correct typos*
I think taking tpyeing wuold have helpeed me now, since I'm rather poor at it today. No wonder the backspage key on my keyboars is worn out.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
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.
I think ideally both should be taught. Maybe have an intro course where the first half of the class is working on typing skills, and the second part of the class is on general computer skills. Most younger people I see (junior high or high schoolers) can type, but not properly. Bad technique will never yield high speed and accuracy.
If you had nuts on your chin, would they be chin nuts?
Ask adults who use compuers a lot and can't touch type if they wish they could. I hear a lot of, "Yes, I wish I could type."
60 WPM isn't necessary. 25 would be better than hunt-and-peck.
Last I checked, it was the QWERTY keyboard.
Knowing how to type means knowing how to input computer information faster: whether it is programming, word processing, or slashdotting.
For at least the next decade or so, touch-typing will be a critical skill for all information workers. That's just common sense, right?
it's boring and frustrating to watch someone type slowly, especially if you are helping them.
Give life
I still think typing is much faster than handwriting recognition. With whatever I use (Taablet PC, PDA, etc.) you have to pause and let it enter becauseit won't fit on the screen. Typing is the easiest and fastest way to go right now and should be taught in some level of school for at least a few days a week for a semester.
And I still don't type. I use like 3 fingers and hunt and peck the keyboard still. Everyone is shocked at how fast I can do it. I'm no 60wpm guy but I can hunt and peck as fast as I can speak and/or think with very good accuracy. I spend a little to much time looking at the keys but find that even without looking at them I'm accurate maybe 99% of the time. I just never saw the point in learning to type. My dad started me on computers years ago and since he's missing a couple fingers due to a table saw accident I just sorta followed his lead. It hasn't crippled me in any major way, although I am now an english major and hopeful writer so someday I might actually regret it. So maybe I'll learn, maybe I wont. If someone has a good reason for me to learn I'm all ears.
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?
Uhh... Last I checked, it's the year 2004 and we haven't stopped using keyboards. How could typing, in the furthest stretch of the imagination, be an "obsolete skill?" Let's ask this question again in a decade from now when people might actually stop using keyboards. Unless I'm horribly misinformed, voice recognition is nowhere near popular and just about 99% of the population is still using the QWERTY layout.
What kind of basic computer skills are they referring to? Using a mouse? Ok, so you can click. Can you really create anything substantial by just clicking?
:-) Which is technically true if you do it all with Mathematica, I guess.
I can't think of many skills more basic than touch typing, especially since people communicate more via email and instant messaging and less in person and on the phone. I don't think voice recognition is there yet.
Next they'll be saying that you don't need to know how to add in order to do calculus!
I call shenanigans. I don't see how using two fingers on a standard keyboard could ever be faster and more accurate than using ten. Your 80wpm...is there any kind of accuracy metric to provide along with that?
There is no gravity...the earth just sucks.
This is written in true disbelief: when did touch typing not become a basic computer skill?
I grew up taking typing courses. I can't imagine using a computer without knowing how to touch type.
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.
I type pretty damn fast, I'd say. I haven't had it checked in a good, long time, but I'd say 50-60 wpm sounds about right. However, I haven't actually ever taken a complete touch typing class. In fact, I use the so called "hunt and hit" method. Well, I should say, that's how I STARTED typing. However, I know where all the keys are by now. I don't have to even think about it. I use two fingers to type but there is very little time between any key stroke, and the only thing that is slowing me down is my thinking speed.
Thus, while I don't type the "normal" way, I'd say I type almost as good as most typists, anyway. So, while I do believe it helps to know how to type in some way, shape, or form, I don't think it has to be with the standard model. Whatever way works for you.
Also, just because I type this way doesn't mean that I use poor grammar on IMs, despite the stereotype. I'm a grammar nazi at times and my whole body cringes anytime I hear "words" like "lol" "ic" or "omfgrolflmao!!!!11111111"
Good typing means wrists raised in order to get the most strength and endurance, needed with the old manual typewriters. This also means better blood flow, which prevents RSI, at least to some degree.
It also means less time waiting for your hands to catch up with your mind, and so gets out of the way of the creative process.
All the technology in the world won't hide your lack of vision, talent, or understanding.
I work for a company that does IT and Heathcare training, as well as IT consulting. Certainly with the jobs that are IT related we expect someone who can type. Even on the Healthcare and non-IT-jobs, computers are so involved in our buisiness that most employees could not do their job effectively without them.
That said, during the hiring process, the question "do you type" is probably not asked very often. It is such a key skill that it has moved beyond being a nice thing to know, to being expected if you are to ever work in any type of office setting.
Learning to type properly is a very useful skill. Using a keyboard is a very efficient way to write out your thoughts.
The subtle benefit of knowing how to type properly is that you can actually type in complete sentences, and not come accross as being retarded in an e-mail or instant message conversation. You will still make typos and spelling mistakes (as I am sure I have in this post), but the post is in recognizable english.
when u dont use sentences nd use lots of abbreviations but not punctuation it tends to b noticd
END COMMUNICATION
Paint your keyboard so you can't see the keys. Worked for me!!
I took a class last year called Applied Information Technologies that taught basic skills (spreadsheets, word processing, webdesign) as well as making us pass a touch typing test. Though he didn't really teach us typing (we were expected to learn outside the class), the ability to do it was a fundemental part of the course. So I guess it is possible to incorporate both in one course.
That said, I found the class incredibly boring as I've been around computers for as long as I can remember (there was one in the house before I was born), so I didn't really get taught anything new. I guess that's why I was able to skip the class fairly often and still get a 97..
CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
I have nothing to say to this, but it's a keyboard related topic and I must thus write something about Dvorak keyboards, in which I type and which are so much superior to Qwerty.
Can someone tie Dvorak into the subject a bit better?
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!"
Having the ability to type accurately at a high rate is absolutely necessary. First of all, I don't know of any employer that has computers for secretaries or other "general typing" positions that have speech recognition. Traditional typewritter courses may be obsolete, but typing on computers is not.
Think of jobs like programming where high computer skills are obviously required. Good programming requires you to be able to input code at fast speeds and accurately so that the code runs without error. Unless you work for Slashdot, producing buggy code that took you all day to input won't get you far in the business world.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
"I call shenanigans."
Why? Just because you can't do it?
I use to be a 2 finger typist for the longest time as well and could easily outpace anyone in my 8th grade typing class (cripes thats like 2 lifetimes ago).
Yeah, lots of typos, but thats where you learn the 3 finger method -- your index finger takes over and knows to instinctively find the backspace.
If it weren't for things such as painful arthritis in my right wrist and the fact that I got sick of not being able to type in the dark -- because this style of typing requires you to look at the keyboard quite a bit -- I would still be using this method myself. Luckily, now I can type in the dark, not worry so much about my hands because I'm using proper keyboarding methods and I can stare directy at my boss pretending to listen to him while finishing up posts like this one.
80WPM ain't nothing...it use to mean something on standard typewritters where technique and making certain that you had a specific flow to ensure that keys didn't get jammed (well, before the uniball)...2 fingers can easily do that if you are use to it....
That's not 'pretty damn fast,' that's 'good.' I type around 100-110wpm raw, which goes down to around 90-95 after errors. IBM Model M keyboards rule. :)
I learned on an IBM Selectric (original model), with no letters on the keys. Ugh. Worked, though.
I don't have anything against formal instruction, and I know that typing "right" will result in increased performance. But I'm sceptical that the amount of increase will matter much. The practical difference between 5 wpm and 40 wpm, is far greater than the practical difference between 40 wpm and 80 wpm. IMHO there are better things to spend time developing. [Agenda mode on] Teach 'em Python instead.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I was speaking to a colleague who was running interviews for a post in his organization when he told me that part of the interview he made them do a typing test.
:)
His reasoning was anyone that has spent a decent amount of time in front of a computer will be a good typist - it was a good way to see who was just talking the talk without the know how.
Pretty clever I thought
I think it's implied that students would still learn typing through basic computer use. I learned to type long before I was ever forced to take a typing class, and I learned simply by using a computer. If students are immersed in computers, they will learn the methods needed to communicate with those computers--one of those methods being typing. It's like walking. Most people don't actually take a class on walking, it's simply something you learn as a necessity.
And of course, this is all on top of the fact that students still have to write papers and the like, which are generally typed. Again, more learning through necessity. We don't always have to *officially* teach things. Sometimes, they're learned because they must be.
-G
Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
Even for the most basic of computer jobs, the call-centre operator, touch-typing is absolutely essential. I could never understand why managers of such companies were complaining about the lack of "office skills" of interview candidates until I realised they meant touch-typing and basic computer technology. Anyone with those skills could find higher paying jobs working as help-desk operators, technicians, admins, receptionists and database operators.
It makes me grateful to think that because my first home computer had a full qwerty keyboard, I learned touch-typing automatically. I could never understand what the big deal when so many IT teachers/ trainers made a big fuss over the fact that I could touch type (this was the first new skill that most new staff had to learn; followed by ergonomics; how to adjust the brightness of the monitor and the height of the chair).
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
I had avoided fluffy classes in high school such as driver's ed, basket weaving and, yes, typing.
Then, as I started university I discovered that typing away on a terminal would really be more efficient if I had some QWERTY skills.
So I specifically enrolled in a typing class just long enough to get up to about 35 wpm before stopping (and technically failing the course).
But I got what I wanted. I needed to learn how to do keyboarding so that computer programming and creating documents on the computer was tolerable. I've hardly ever touched the IBM Selectric since the class.
Fortunately, I've never had quite the frequent need arise to learn how to 10-key, but I've been impressed by the people who do know this skill.
At some point I might try to become proficient with the Handi-Key chorded input; it seems like a great way for one-handed input, especially for small devices, in meetings, riding in cars, etc.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Yes - it should be taught....with
The Typing of the Dead!
As stupid as it sounds - this game is SO cool. And it showed my how badly I really can't type.
Heck yeah, typing is essential. I would argue that it is especially essential to any programmer or network administrator. The faster and more proficient you are at typing the faster you can get your ideas into production or solve problems. Not only typing out words, but also keyboard shortcuts in programs you use everyday will make you a better programmer/network admin. The less you reach for a mouse the faster you go and the less breaks in thought a worker will have. Also, when working with other people it is a great help. For example, if I ask a coworker to help me debug some code, typing proficiency makes the process so much easier. If you can navigate as fast as you or your fellow coworker can think there is no hindrance to your work (navigating with a keyboard is much faster than with a mouse in most cases). Bad typing skills, just slows everything down. This is costly when your work environment demands results ASAP.
Nuttles
(although I do type incorrectly, I can hit over 80 WPM)
This comment made me realize that I had no idea how fast I could type (never took a course). So, after a quick search here are some free on-line typing tests:
TypingPal.com
TypingTest.com
Turns out that I'm in the 2nd decile with a respectable 58 wpm (mean is approx. 40, and anyone who claims >100 is either in the 99.8%-ile or is full of BS). A thorough analysis of typing speeds can be found here.
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
There's a limited amount of time to teach students how to do anything in school and even students who want to go into technical careers need to learn the other things. I'd certainly rather hire a developer who is proficient at mathematics than one who can type using all his fingers, let alone the two superfluous nubs we call pinkies.
/.ers and people who make money from computers, shouldn't we do all we can to keep people away from them to keep our wages up?
Lets say students have 2 hours a week of mandatory computing classes, It would be better spent teaching them how to learn to use a computer on their own, or how to research things, how to figure stuff out, how to have fun and otherwise get the most out of a computer so they'll want to learn more, rather than forcing them to pound on keys.
If high speed typing is so damn important the school boards should switch to Dvorak and we all know it.
Besides most jobs really require very little computer use, even good jobs and seldom do they require touch typing. Only typists, dictators and secretaries would truly benefit from spending hours learning that over say learning how a computer works.
And as
If you're talking about clerical work, typing is absolutely still a necessary skill. Whoever said that employers no longer specify WPM or that 30 WPM is sufficient for most clerical jobs was simply wrong. Read the want ads. I got a typing test at each of the three temp agencies I've worked for and over the last 5 years been administered several typing tests applying for jobs.
It is not a substitute for computer skills. You need both in any modern office job with an emphasis on writing. I don't think typing should be required (I never took it in school, I taught myself to touch type, it ain't rocket science). But it should be offered.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
That's a problem. It brings accents into the typing realm. British people AOLspeak very differently from Americans. Australians tend to just type relatively well, which is odd, but they do have their own short forms.
The various slangs are based on whatever shorter way there is to spell the way the typist pronounces a word. Unlike the original online abbreviations such as LOL and ROFL, these new ones are not based on the typographic version of the word.
Accents online is something we don't need. The beauty of someone typing properly is that anyone can read that text and understand it, short of something like "lift" vs. "elevator". I couldn't walk into Manchester's poorer districts and converse reliably. I now find the same is true of typing with Manchester residents.
With Brit AOLSpeak, the first phrase you have to learn is "soz wot" which I think means "sorry, I don't follow." The second phrase is "i fink u spk 2 mingin posh u bastard" meaning "I am angry that you don't type the way I do." I'm not making that up, though I profess no great mastery of the form.
Even within the single local group, the AOL speak tends to vary based on what kind of half-assed typing is being used. People who use three fingers on each hand choose different short forms than those who use only the indexes.
Just as we need other web standards, we need a standard way of writing. It's not unprecedented... consider italic and cursive.
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.
youcantotallyunderstandmeifijusttypewhatiwanttosay right?
Thedifferencehereisthatinspeech stresshelpstodelimitthemorphemes.
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
There's nothing that can humble you more quickly than playing trivia on an IRC channel. Knowledge is often only about 50% of what's required. Speedy and accurate typing is just as important.
Unfortunately capitalization is not required in these games, which is why you're probably seeing a bunch of people bragging about their 110 wpm typing skills with a complete inability to capitalize a sentence properly.
Shawnmchorse and all you other typing speed demons, you're fast becasue you're already plugged into the computing world; you have to type fast to keep up. The article is more about kids who are being shut out of computing because they don't have the KB skills to get in the door yet.
I touch-type in two different systems; my SO hunts and pecks at amazing speed. Both of us are the product of using computers for over 20 years (and, probably more importantly, MUDs and IM for over 10).
Should young kids start being introduced to basic keyboard skills in school? Absolutely! We don't need to mass-produce 60-WPM touch-typists, but we owe it to the kids to teach the skills they need to effectively use computers.
I use Dvorak for all my day-to-day typing. I wish schools would teach that since I'm in the mid hundreds now with decent acuracy. It's liberating to be able to type just as fast as I can think without having to worry about thinking slower and thereby losing potential thoughts. Starting in the schools and working outward to employers etc would surely make my life easier and typists everywhere who feel limited by QWERTY's reign.
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
I learned to touch type back in 5th grade, but have never been able to keep myself from using only two or three fingers on each hand. I actually type faster than with all my fingers as is traditionally taught.
Anyone notice that no MS ergonomic keyboard is suitable for "home keys" typing? You are supposed to hit the "6" key with your RIGHT index finger. But the geniuses at Microsoft decided to put it on the LEFT side. And even more diappointing is that now almost all keyboard manufacturers blindly follow what MS is doing. Therefore, there are very few ergonomic keyboards suitable for "home keys" typing these days. I took quite a few typing classes when I was in school. And I'll be sure to teach my son how to type properly. Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people can beat me by touch typing. But the utter lack of proper puncuation, spelling, capitalization, and even grammar from touch typing like a maniac is extremely annoying to me, and makes me doubt the intelligence or maturity level of the person typing out the gibberish. And the most valuable benefit of learning how to type correctly is that you can "feel" mistakes instead of having to shift your eyes from keyboard to keys to paper, etc. I'm not sure how valuable as a work-skill being a fast and accurate typist is now, but I was able to score some great paying gigs when I was a kid. Unfortunately, the cancelled the computer literacy class at my school, so typing was the only other "vocational" class that I could take. It's a great skill that everyone should try to learn.
BOTH. Teach kids how to type in 6th grade with a 1 semester course. They won't be great at it but most of them will do it correctly and they will learn from then on with experience. Once they know how to use 10 fingers (I'm including alt and stuff, so that would include using your left thumb for the left alt) they will be able to learn and develop faster speeds and accuracy without a class, but just with experience.
Thif remarkable Curiofity moft regrettably went out of Fafhion at the End of the Eighteenth Century. It does lend a certain dramatic Flair to any written Text, as does the lamentably difufed Cuftom of ufing an overfized Letter 'S' in the Middle or at the Beginning of Words, with the Effect that it refembles the Letter 'F'.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
I agree. But if it really came down to it, touch typing does require learning in a disciplined environment such as in a school. What passes for "Computer Skills" do not. I think most people pick up more "Computer Skills" on their own then ever do in a class. And for the money spent on computer labs in our local schools, the contents of those labs seem horribly irrelevant. IMHO, real computer skills revolve around tool making, not tool using.
"I went on a diet, swore off drinking and heavy eating. And in fourteen days, I had lost exactly two weeks. Joe E. Lewis
Of course, I use backspace a lot, so my accuracy probably isn't at 99% or anything, but I'm pretty quick with the backspace too. :)
-Erf C.
Cthulu always calls collect...
Seek and ye shall find ...
So really, it wasn't the Dvorak keyboard that helps you type faster. I think your typing skills increased when you learned not to look at the keyboard, and the layout of the keys is irrelevant? Was there something special with the Dvorak keyboard, or was it just the keyboard that you happened to be using when you learned not to look at the keys?
Touch typing has been an extremely useful skill in my career as a nerd, but I have also had more than my share of tendinitis in my wrists because I learned typing the old-fashioned "right way". In my extremely unscientific survey of my colleagues, those who learned on their own seem to have much healthier wrists than those of us who learned the "right way".
My physical therapist taught me some tricks that have helped a lot:
Unfortunately they still teach the old contorted wrist, contorted fingers "right way", at least in my kids' middle school. Because of computers, typing is much more a part of life now than it was when I was a kid. We still need to teach typing, but we need to bring typing instruction in line with what is known about ergonomics or else many of today's kids will be crippled in a few decades.
What's special about the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard is its more efficient key placement. QWERTY was purely intended to reduce typewriter jams (though not necessarily make typing slower), with no regard given to letter frequency in the english language (Why is "e" not on the home row?) nor the difficulty of reaching different rows. Upon viewing the layout it should be quite apparent to the layperson how much simpler it is than QWERTY. The Dvorak layout not only allows for faster typing, but also a lower occurrence of repetitive stress injury.
Either because of bad genetics, bad form or plain bad luck, I am unable to type for more than one or two hours a day without developing wrist problems. These days, I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking for much of my computer work. You cannot do full-blown programming with it, but it works great for all the extra things such as surfing the Web, reading e-mail, answering e-mail, and writing to Slashdot.
An unexpected side effect of the software is that you stop saying things such as "like" and "um" because when the software transcribes it, you look like an idiot. Because you end up pronouncing things much more clearly, after a while you also start sounding like a radio announcer. That might not be what you want, but it works for me.
Ktouch is part of KDE. Quite good actually, but I don't know gtypist so I can't say if it is better.
I still can't touch type. The problem is that in the beginning when learning touch typing, I type much slower than my homebrew hunt-and-peck system. I don't seem to have the discipline (yet) to continue to use my touch typing skills until I can reach an acceptable speed.
Still, give Ktouch a try. No matter what, you will become a faster typist, even if you don't bother to master touch typing.
Thankfully my mother "forced" me to suffer a summer of typing classes between the 8th and 9th grades - all on manual Royal typewriters. It's always made using computers so much easier. It also helped my finger strength when I started piano lessons in my 30s. I believe (w/o evidence) that good typing skills can immunize you from carpal-tunnel.
There's enormous advantage to being able to type. For me programming languages and shell commands and their standard themes pretty much "chunk" like words. This makes Unix-based OSes incredibly efficient compared to mousing everything (like Windows Sys Admin - blech!). Using Unix/Shell well goes hand-in-hand with typing.
Being able to touch type (like I am now) is even better (BTW "touch typing" means typing without looking at the keys - and some go further and define it as not looking at your typed output either but only looking at some original source you may be copying/expositioning from - all the while hitting >30-40 wpm with high accuracy). The delay between thought and action becomes nearly non-existent as typing becomes muscle memory.
And then there's being able to compose programs in a minute or so (e.g. in perl or C) by touch type using just 'cat > myprogram.pl' and having them compile/run the first time. You're truly getting hardcore when you get to that point! :-) That's generally the point when I feel I've truly mastered a language. I'm working on OCaml now.
JG
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!
I never took a typing course and my fingers do not rest on the standard keys as taught in said courses, however when I was tested for typing skills for a recent job, I scored slightly over 90 WPM with about 93% accuracy. All that is from using computers since I was old enough to read.
I wouldn't say typing is no longer a useful skill to have, but use a computer enough and you will develop your own typing style that is good enough for most jobs. (A good friend of mine uses the 'hunt and peck' method with his two index fingers, but after playing a text based MUD for about 5 years he can now hit over 50 WPM using only those two fingers)
telnet://zombiemud.org:3000
I don't care if they get taught how to type, provided they get taught how to spell and the correct use of grammar.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
Oh absolutely...my Typing class was the very best course I ever took in High School. I learned my way around a typewriter (and nowadays a keyboard) better and faster than anybody I work with. They're continually amazed at how quickly and accurately I can type Unix commands, enter data, etc. Typing is something that a person just must take if they want to stand out, IMO.
Steve
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
What an myth...
The qwerty keyboard was designed not to slow down typists, but to space common letter combinations apart vertically so that the mechanical mechanism that drove the keys wouldn't clash. This spead up typists so much, in fact it won many typing competions held at the time, it became the default typewriter layout.
Later, Dvorak created his keyboard when the mechanical need for qwerty was no longer needed and conducted numberous studies to show how superior it was. Howerver, those studies, of course, weren't independant since they were funded by dvorak himself, who had considerable money to gain. As well, they compared different groups of people as to their learning abilities ie, gifted students from a U of Chicago Lab school, under the supervision of dvorak himself vrs statistics from students from the general public highschool population.
However, when the US government analyzed his layout in 1954 (Strong Study), they found no benifit in retraining exprienced typists to the Dvorak layout. In that test, expirenced qwerty typists were retrained to Dvorak to the point they could recreate their old scores. This took on average 100 hours of training.
Then a new group of qwerty typists was gathered and both groups now got equal amounts of new training. It was found that the team of qwerty typists actually outpaced the dvorak retrained typists and ended up typing faster.
Thus, the government was advised that instead of retraining typists and refitting typewriters, they should just give their typists more qwerty training.
Ever read a teenie's MSN chatter? Good christ, what a frightful and discouraging lack of writing skills. Spelling? Abysmal. Grammar? None. Coherent thoughts? As if!
Typing quickly is the least of their problems.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
A myth? Hardly. The linkage jamming argument is often used in a misleading fashion. Yes, it's true that key placement was selected to avoid jamming...jamming that happened more often at higher speeds. Even if you don't count that as being 'to slow down typists' (which is arguable) it's still the net effect.
The study you refer to was considered suspicious by other researchers. When attempts were made to look at the raw data it turned out it had been destroyed (details). A single study with no access to the raw data isn't very convincing.
The usual study people mention as proof of qwerty's superiority was written by economists. Also not terribly convincing. Here's a refutation.
Either way, it's clear that the main design decision with qwerty was to in response to an engineering problem.
The best way to find out is to try it. I used to quote the same studies and had the same opinions until I tried it myself. It took about a weekend to get started and three weeks to exceed my previous level of proficiency.
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
I say it time and time again...
The only class that I ever learned anything from, and still use the skills from, is my high school typing class.
100% Insightful
I also forgot to say that the standard touch-typing posture can easily lead to carpal tunnel or repetitive stress disorder because of the angle of your hands on a standard keyboard. This is one reason so-called "ergonomic" keyboards exist. But the way I've taught myself to type, my hands are naturally angled even on a straight keyboard, so I can type for extremely long periods without any fatigue and I've been typing hours per day for 20 years now with no problems at all. Something I think is really important to think about given how much some of us have to type - you can always buy an ergonomic keyboard for yourself if you're a touch-typist but you may not have that luxury at work, or in internet cafes, or wherever else you use a PC. So I think in some ways it's actually better to learn alternate ways of typing; whatever's most comfortable for you.
After many years of working on DOS systems using Brief as my editor, I still could not touch type.
Then I got into UNIX and one day realised that I had typed some ridiculously long "find pipe to this pipe to awk pipe to ed" command without looking at the keyboard.
I have not looked at a keyboard since. (Even worse, I have it set to US ASCII on every machine, even though I'm a Brit.)
Death to the non typists; when did you last pen-write anything?
I used to hunt and peck type... and a peer used to scream at me and sometimes eject me from my seat and assume the typing responsibility, even though he was the manager, and I was the coder! I used to deeply resent his brusque behavior, but realized (I highly respected this man) I was slowing HIM down.
If you don't touch type, and you work in a group, or on a team, your slow typing does more than slow you down. It slows your entire team down! This is a skill so easy to learn it is almost disrespectful to those with whom you work to not learn it.
Touch typing is one of the most valuable skills I recommend to people. Heck, it doesn't have to be anything formal, just suck it up for a week, and refuse to enter ANYTHING on the keyboard without doing it by touch. (For the record, this is how I learned..., and I drove people around me absolutely mad for that week..., but to this day, I get compliments on my typing speed. (Especially handy for editors like "vi"))
I'm willing to bet it took you longer to consider that post, AND longer to think of how to put it so succinctly, than it ever took you to type it.
That is my point. Unless you are transcribing or taking dictation, typing is only a small part of composition time. It is not so important a skill that you must master 100wpm simply to survive.
And as for my "measured" speed, I imagine it's higher than that, but the last time I could be bothered to test myself (years ago), it was around 40-50 wpm.
If you want some measure of my speed, this entire post took me about a minute to type. Zero errors.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
the point is that you can read a doc and type at the same time: i.e. you can find the keys on the keyboard by feel without having to look at them. if you're typing up what's in your head, this isn't particularly necessary, but if you're transcribing or commenting a doc, it's very useful indeed; the cognitive overhead from looking down at the keys, and looking up at another screen/piece of paper with all attendant refocussing etc is quite high.
Even with meaningful texts, the WPM rate can differ strongly on the text.
First, you'll be faster typing "I do not know too much about this." than "My knowledge of this subject is completely nonexistant.", despite of both sentences having 8 words each. (Of course, in German you can make much more biased tests: "Der Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän verzweifelte an seinem Einkommensteuerformular." vs. "Der Hund lag in seiner Hütte." - 6 words each)
Second, your typing speed will depend very much on your knowledge of the text/words. Unless you're a physicist, you'll probably take more time typing "Using the stationary phase approximation, the Greens function can be written as follows" than "Using the next highway exit, your destination can be reached as follows" (I mean, in addition to the different length).
BTW, is there anywhere a programmer's typing test (i.e. typing in some code, say a C function, instead of English text)? After all, I can imagine that touch typing is much less an advantage if a lot of the characters you type aren't letters.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I am surprised that no one has mentioned the existence of the wonderful ktouch program, which is part of the kedu suite.
If you want to learn to type or improve your typing, give it a go. I am using it at a community center and have had great success with it.
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
For me, typing will always be the preferred input method, no matter what advances in handwriting and voice recognition come about. I can type much faster than I can handwrite or speak. I can think faster than I can write or speak. Typing lets me input text at a rate much closer to the rate at which my thoughts are actually occuring in my head. This means that I don't have to modulate my thoughts with the expression of those thoughts.
Maybe I just have atrophied/undeveloped writing skills, but when writing out a lot of thoughts, my brain has to wait for my hand to catch up sometimes before it can move on to more ideas.
Some have commented that 60+ wpm typing speeds are not beneficial to a typist over the long run because one does not type constantly. Possibly the interuptions needed for thinking and other activities mitigate productivity gains due to fast typing. For me though, being able to "flush my output buffer" sooner rather than later lets me think more fluidly and effectively. Naturally I assume that other people's mental pattern differences result in different typing benefits.
In terms of interface design, comparison of stylus input to keyboard input bears little fruit because they are generally used in different situations. For voice recogniton, assuming a high quality natural language interpreter, I would still rather type than speak my commands. For me it is faster, and I wouldn't have to sound like an idiot. Speaking "delete last word" is a lot slower than hitting ctrl-shift, <- , backspace. If instead there was a verbal shorthand, that could be fast, but that would be another skill to learn and could sound moronic. Imagine a computer lab full of people uttering strange sequences of syllables to their computers.
Ultimately, for those who use computers often enough and have the right brain for it, almost all input can be done with the keyboard. If you can memorize all the hotkeys, they are much more efficient than button hunting with the mouse. Most people, I gather, dot not make good hotkey sponges. The keyboards potential, though, guarantees that it will never go extinct. At least, not until a long time from now when the world's computing environment evolves beyond recognition.
For people who don't need the computer that much, perhaps it's true that the time would be better spent learning concepts rather than typing skills. On the other hand, the easier it is to use the computer, the more you will use it. The more you use it, the more you pick up and internalize the concepts employed in its design. So I would say that time should be devoted to both typing and understanding. To really determine the best balance to the mixture though, you'd need to do a lot of trials and see how average students do.
"Humanity lives and dies by its capabilities of communication, or lack thereof."
Unsolicited advertising aside, when I first learned to type (back as a little kid, probably somewhere around 1st grade), I remember learning the keyboard as a series of word-pictures. I knew that "print" involved kind of a lasso picture on the keyboard as you hit the keys. Ditto with things like "goto" or "input." (Yes, I made my start with BASIC. Please, look away from my shame...) Anyone else find themselves learning this way? You know, seeing the words as chunks to type rather than parsing it as letters initially?
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
If you TOUCH a computer in your job, then it's 98% likely that you have to type. I don't know too many jobs that only require a person to point and click. Not only is it important in word processing, but also in accounting, creating presentations, database entry, programming and using e-mail. Voice recognition has a long way to go to match normal speech speed, whereas a good typist can type as fast as most people speak and be more accurate.
Personally, I think the typing should be learned as early as possible. A child should be exposed to a computer and learn the basic workings of it, but once they learn to type it opens the door to endless possibilities since the limitation of clicking is taken away. My children starting using a computer when they were 2 1/2 to 3 years old. They're quite proficient with the mouse now. As my elder child enters first grade this year, I'm certain it's time to introduce her to the keyboard.
As for me, I learned to touch type in 9th grade on an IBM selectric. I only attended half a year due to a "health class" requirement, but I reached 80-85wpm with 100%. Just took one of the free online tests (thanks for that), and it puts me at 72wpm with 98% accuracy. I type constantly all day: e-mails, documentation, purchase orders, cmd line. I don't even use UNIX that often. Ask a UNIX person how important typing is.
Still an important skill IMO.
I never took a proper typing class but I can exceed 90 WPM with my own personal typing style. Much like having accented speech or walking with an unusual gait, I have a particular typing style. It isn't touch typing so much as "knowing where the keys are" and "knowing where my fingers are" ... it can be problematic on ergonomic keyboards, but otherwise all is well.
I picked up on typing in chatrooms.
Find a chatroom on a topic you enjoy so you're forced to engage in conversation. When typing is the only way to get the satisfaction you're after, you'll find yourself a far better typist as time goes on.
The point is: typing is something you can learn as you go, while basic computer knowledge (the ON button, the difference between a Macintosh and a PC, etc) provides a much better foundation for computer usage. The computer is just a tool--do you want to know how it works so that you can adapt it to your needs, or do you want to only know how to do certain specific things with it so that it is otherwise completely useless? I think that if there were a stronger base of computer users who had this general knowledge, people would be less apprehensive with regard to technology, because more people would have a brother or a cousin or an uncle who had the basic know-how and could make those that lacked even the basics feel comfortable.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
Not viable technologies yet. Few people can handwrite faster than they can type and even if they did, recognition software is far from perfect. Don't get me started on voice recognition, probably the single most useless technology I've used in the last 10 years and it keeps appearing!
typing won't be obsolete any time now. I learned as a hunt-and-pecker, due to 20 years of practice I pretty much can touch-type now and I'm quite slow let me tell you, at 40 wpm. But it gets me by faster than any handwriter or voice recognizer.
I can't find it anymore, but Adams used to include a bit in his bio about how typing was the most useful thing he learned in his entire education. If I remember right, he took typing his senior year of HS, while his contender for valedictorian took something like AP organic chemistry. He concluded with a taunt about how he ended up as valedictorian for acing typing, that he enjoys typing every day, and he never would have used organic chemistry.