Slashdot Mirror
Weak Typing — the Lost Art of the Keyboard
mikejuk writes "How do you type? Hunt and peck? Two thumbs? Touch type? Two thumbs touch type? For the first time since the computer was invented, the standard QWERTY keyboard is challenged by new ways of inputing text. And yet even the iPad virtual keyboard has two useless dimples on the F and J keys. Perhaps it isn't time to give up on the home keys just yet."
that's how I fucking type, BITCH
Is it just me, or is there nothing to the posted article?
A summary seems to be, "Over a hundred years ago, people learned to touch type. This is the best method! Or is it? Yes, it is, you should learn it. Oh, but it doesn't work on phone keyboards. The two thumb method is better for that. You should learn that one too. Yeah, it sucks that you need to learn two ways to type, but whatcha gonna do? Go get some training software and learn to touch type!"
Thanks for letting us know that typing is a useful skill, I guess.
There is a change in the way we interact with computers and it is mostly due to the use of touch screens. You simply cannot touch type on a mobile phone's virtual keyboard. When presented with such a thing your only option is to use one or at most two fingers. Given the way that the unit is held you also can't use the full keyboard style for a two finger peck. It seems that the best you can do is use two thumbs. This is perhaps the biggest change to typing since the introduction of touch typing. There are even apps and websites that will teach you how to two-thumb touch type. This is a big change because before the touch screen smartphone we only had one major text input device - the full size keyboard - now we also have the virtual keyboard to deal with.
They basically argue that we should teach kids how to thumb type faster than how to touch type. I guess they are supposed to start texting their research papers to their teachers in school to? Oh, and it still somehow manages to avoid a conclusion.
I can type between 70 and 80 wpm on a standard keyboard. But on this here HTC thunderbolt, I feel that my two thumb hunt and peck is getting me little more than thirty wpm at best. particularly painful is Tue autocorrect when the word or acronym that I want is jot in its database.
No single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood.
When I was in high school I learned to type on big manual Underwood typewriters in typing class. I also learned some other skills in that class that seem to be going the way of a lost art, such as how to properly fold a letter to fit into an envelope.
In my opinion, typing class was the most useful class that I took in high school. I learned skills that I use literally every day.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Easily the most useful manual skill I chose to learn. So much faster, fewer typos, less stressful. How anyone who types professionally can forfeit the advantages of touch typing is beyond me.
http://www.theonion.com/video/apple-introduces-revolutionary-new-laptop-with-no,14299/
I touch-type with one hand, just because I can. It's not particularly fast or accurate compared to the other styles, but I can lay down or hold a drink while typing that way.
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
I can type without looking on both a normal keyboard, and on my Blackberry. Honestly, I always thought this was pretty common, especially since I picked it up simply by virtue of how much time I spend on the computer. I had typing classes in school, yes, but I looked right at the keyboard during them. :P
Also, a bit of a slow news day here, huh?
Reading Slashdot for the vulnerability announcements is like buying Playboy for the articles --A.C.
This sort of sensationalism never would have been allowed back when Taco was running things.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
The term weak typing means something very specific in computer science, namely a property attributed to the type systems of some programming languages that have either implicit type conversion, ad-hoc polymorphism or both. Using it as the title of this story that has absolutely nothing to do with type systems whatsoever, together with putting it in the "developers" section and tagging it with "programming", is highly misleading as it make us all anticipate a story worth reading which it certainly is not. I can only sympathise with all of the fellow Slashdotters expressing their disappointment. It would be nice if the stories where better titled next time. Thank you.
Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
I never learned touch correctly, but I do type pretty fast without looking by using a weird combination of fingers. I rest my hands in a sort of home-position, but then I use fewer fingers to type. It's what have worked best for me. To describe how I use my fingers would be very weird, but one could say for most of my typing I use 3 fingers on each hand, in addition to right thumb for space and right pinky for enter/return.
When I write code I usually spend more time thinking than typing, so speed haven't really been an issue. I score 60+ WPM and allthough that is a far cry from the 120WPM mentioned in the article it really is fast enough for me.
Harald
I actually paid attention in keyboarding class, so I type like a normal person.
I RTFA. Besides the fact that the author seems capable of writing a 1000 page essay in an attempt to convince the reader that 'grass is green', the article also does not take into account that typewriters have staggered heights rows of keys.
Staggered keys are more suitable for touch typing - the P key is at a higher row than the L key, and this is good, because your little finger can be lifted up high easily to reach the P key. On many modern keyboards though, keys are flat - especially on the chiclet style keyboards most laptops have. This means you have to stretch your fingers far in order to reach some keys while adhering to the touch type system. No matter much you stretch, your pinkie is not going to reach the Backspace key for example, without some odd contortions of your hand. This is just inefficient and awkward.
Of course, the hunt and peck method is slow. The obvious easiest system to work with is what we do intuitively after some time on computers - use all your fingers and whichever finger is closest to hit the required key.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
I suspect that whether typing the "right way" is faster depends on the individual more than is normally acknowledged. If one's little fingers are too weak or too poorly coordinated, one might well do better to type with, say two or three fingers of each hand plus thumbs.
I can type at around 84-100wpm on QWERTY. I did 100wpm a couple of years ago on an online test; I just got 84wpm on an online test with no mistakes (other than ones I corrected as part of the 84wpm), but I thought it was kind of a vicious test since it was a passage from Shakespeare, and I had to make more corrections than I normally would. But I don't use my little fingers for anything but shift keys and enter--I just don't have the dexterity for hitting letter keys with the little fingers. I think I also rarely use my right ring finger--it's not well-coordinated. (To be honest, I don't know exactly what exactly my fingers are doing. My index fingers are centered on F and J and the other fingers do weird stuff that does the job fast--I don't usually pay attention to the fingers.)
For a couple of years, the computer I used at home had a Dvorak keyboard (I even spent the time to write a driver for it, then stuck key labels on and used a typing tutor program to learn it properly). I typed properly, by-the-book, with all ten fingers on the Dvorak keyboard, while typing in my usual messy five or six finger plus thumbs way on QWERTY on other computers. I didn't benchmark it, but it was my impression that (a) I wasn't any faster at typing "correctly" on Dvorak with ten fingers than typing "incorrectly" on QWERTY, and (b) I found the effort of typing with ten fingers unpleasant. So I abandoned the Dvorak keyboard. I suspect that if I typed on QWERTY with all ten fingers, it would be even worse than typing ten-fingered on Dvorak.
Personally I've altered my own keyboard layout after reading about the subject. There are a lot of 'alternatives' out there, but I've settled upon moving UIO to the centre row, putting Q where Y used to be (the hardest letter key to reach I find) and rearranging some of the punctuation so that it better suits my needs when PHPing and HTMLing.
JWERTQKYLP
ASDFGHUIO
ZXCVBNM
I've never been a touch typer, but using my computer extensively i gave it a shot and started practicing. After a week i had to give up because of the intense strain it puts on the hand and its tendons. I wouldn't be surprised if this style of typing is a considerable contributor to the typing-related diseases office workers deal with.
I went back to the novice way of 1-2 finger pointing style typing. It employs larger joints and muscle groups that seem to be able to handle the necessary movement much easier. I realized this is not an option for certain jobs, but my experiences helped me make up my mind.
My 2 c.
I use a very mouse-oriented keyboard style that helps much in games with text-chat and mouse control.
I use my left hand like normal touch typing. But for me right hand, everything is done with the index finger. I have no idea what my WPM is. My buddy is a very proficient touch-typist, and I'm not as fast as him, but I am faster than most people I know. I'm never wanting for more speed. I can type about as fast as I can think of what to type.
The purpose here being that I can quickly take my hand off the mouse and not have to worry about repositioning my right hand, I just fling it over and get going.
However, as nice as that is for games and message boards, it limits my effectiveness when using word processors or coding. I can type using the traditional home rows, but I have to explicitly restrain my index finger, and as a result type very slowly =\
Typing fast may not be the concern; programmers need to spend more time thinking than producing typed output. Using all fingers helps reduce the risk of muscle damage compared to using only two or three fingers (like carpal tunnel syndrome). Also keeping head straight looking at the screen rather than looking down and up can reduce stress on the neck muscles. I would say the benefit to our physical health outweighs more than any other efficiency in support of touch typing.
I primarily use the middle finger and pointer finger of both hands and the right thumb (space) and left pinky (shift). I can also very accurately type about 75 wpm without looking at my fingers or screen and recognize and correct errors without looking at the screen. I've been programming, writing papers, etc for 20 years now. There's a lot of muscle sense built up.
I only do short texts so speed doesn't matter. Most of the time typing is spent thinking about what you're writing. The only time I hit 75 wpm is when I'm doing a typing test. So the only thing that really matters is comfort, not speed. I use the fingers I use because I don't have to contort my hand in uncomfortable positions to type. So type however is comfortable for you. That's going to be the fastest way for you.
Work Safe Porn
Qwerty is just like the English measurement system. It's horrible, but too deeply set (at least in the US) into society to change easily. I learned the Dvorak layout a while back, and like it waaayyy better than Qwerty. There's not nearly as much strain, and practically everything you type is on the home row. Because most computers are still configured to use Qwerty, I do maintain that layout; it's pretty easy to go from one to the other after some practice. Rarely have I encountered compatibility problems: even Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+S are a habbit now.
Dvorak FTW!
P.S. vim is better on non-qwerty layouts than emacs ;)
How about a slashdot poll?
About Touch Typing:
A Never head of it.
B Heard of it, but don't care.
C Heard of it and want to learn.
D I am learning.
E I have learned.
>> even the iPad virtual keyboard has two useless dimples on the F and J keys
As if ipad is torchbearer in keyboards - it does not even have a real keyboard.
Fanboi fail.
On many modern keyboards though, keys are flat - especially on the chiclet style keyboards most laptops have.
No wonder I hate those fucking things!
Chiclet keyboards ... like the Apple ones? God I hate those! Now, I know why.
I shout at the damn thing until it does as it's told.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
The thing that really allowed me to get some typing speed was a blank keyboard. A few years back I painted my keyboard black and got used to not having any labels to look at.
Later I bought the Das Keyboard ultimate, which improved my speed even more.
My typing is not 100% correct, but is quite fast. To answer the question in TFA, should you learn it? Probably yes, since everything is done on a computer these days, and you might as well do it efficiently.
But the backspace key on a typewriter is (was) also unreachable by pinkie. And if you closely examine your keyboard you may notice that the keys on that are also slightly elevated. Not to the same level as a typewriter but still enough to make touch typing on a kb more efficient than whatever system you're advocating.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
I RTFA. I still don't know what it was that I saw. Maybe if the author knew how to type he'd be able to get a coherent thought down before rambling on like a vagrant on amphetamines.
Where are they gonna arrange the numeric and calculator) keypad like the phones'?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I didn't even notice those dimples on the F/J keys until reading the summary. I've gone through life without noticing them on keyboards for some reason (or I either noticed them once but forgot about them). I'd still argue I'm a pretty good typing though. Shows how useless they are I guess.
In my day, we typed up-hill both ways in the snow! And our little fingers froze to the keys! And we liked it, by-gum!
Sort of like QWERTY touch typing, but without any sort of structure
It's more like my fingers learned it over 25 years.
Proof http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?dvorak
I am an old geezer geek so I have had to type on everything from a Model 33 TTY and an 026 keypuch machine on up (that was after I was able to give up using the toggle switches to communicate my wishes in Octal. Even the Hex Keypad was an improvement there. It was not uncommon for many of us OLD TIMERS to be using half a dozen or more different keyboard layouts as recently as the early 1980's! Not only were a LOT of the keys in different places they all had a very different "feel" and with a TTY (which was usually punching paper tape -- NOT directly connected to a computer) or the two different model keypunch machines I often used it was much more important NOT to make a typo than it is now! Ever try to backspace over or erase a hole?
I never was formally taught touch typing, but a very smart grandmother of mine bought me the touch typing book that was in use in high schools at the time and I did follow the lessons and pretty much taught myself to use the home keys and not look at the keyboard. The one thing I NEVER learned to do well was TRANSCRIBE from another document. That was not the reason I wanted to learn to type. I needed to type in order to be able to WRITE papers for my college classes. I can compose just fine, and that is the skill I needed.
When my employer bought their first PC for use as a word processor back in 1984, I spent each afternoon (and a good bit of the evening) learning both the PC itself and Word Star and then holding a class each morning with the executive secretaries to teach them both the use of the PC and Word Star. However, it was not long before they were not transcribing from hand written pages either. In a very few short years their bosses were doing the writing on their PC's and the secretaries were functioning more as editors to clean up and format what their bosses had written.
Being able to compose and type reasonably fast and accurately without looking at the keyboard is an important skill now. Being able to transcribe text from one document to another at a high rate of speed may be useful in some occupations (court reporter?) but it is not necessary for programming or other more technical trades.
When the conversation does turn to technology, Microsoft and Apple are bashed with information that is often years old and often not relevant to the topic. It seems there's been a flood items posted recently (coincidence with Taco gone?) and I'm struggling to find "News for Nerds and Stuff that Matters". But I am still bitter from a post I recently made with an excerpt from a published article with the citation requested by the authors that was yanked and the misinformation/guessing continued unabated. Apparently number of posts is more important than accuracy. As an old fart I come hear to hear and learn about the technologies I don't use and look at the folks with high IDs to be the fresh youngsters doing cutting edge stuff. Instead there are mostly foks defending criminal technological behavior and a generally emotional lack of respect for the issues surrounding the responsibilities of IT.
Oh,well. To get back on topic: I type with my hands (more specifically, my fingers and thumbs). No. No. Yes. No.
Fascinating.
Anyway, here's the link to a list of sites that are dead or dying, Slashdot included.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/24/gawker-7-other-formerly-popular-sites-dead-or-dying/
Who the hell types with thumbs, the only key your thumb is good for is the space bar.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
I have been programming since 1972. Wrote a lot of useful code. Have a solid reputation as a master programmer. Made employers happy enough to pay me well.
But, I can't touch type. I tried to learn, but there is something about my brain that just can't get it. (I also tried and failed to learn how to play the piano.)
I don't view this as a handicap. I spend more time thinking than typing, so my overall productivity isn't affected. Besides..I can type fairly fast with 2-4 fingers.
Can we pretend that airplanes are like shooting stars? 'cause I could really use a wish right now.. wish right now..
make a wish: http://www.real-wishes.com
wish
It was a lot harder with 6 rows of keys.
Damned keyboard had 90 keys and prepared hot metal type to then do the printing.
In the days of old, when type was hot
And papers indeed were pressed
Slugs were laid in a metal slot
And papers came out of press
When I started doing SWYPE on my Android device, I realized the keyboards days where numbered.
Can I type on my phone faster than my computer? No. But what about an enhanced system based on SWYPE on a keypad that is the size of a standard keyboard? Oh, and if you hit a button in the corner, the 100 most common English letter words appear (which are one fourth the words you type). And instead of laying it out like a QWERTY, you lay it out with the five vowels large, and the constants surrounding them. You would barely ever type three letters without the correct word guess appearing for you to tap.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
The typing classes I took in high school really didn't help that much, considering we were using typewriters that were so old the ink was faded out even when we changed in a fresh ribbon - the actual keys had been worn down over time and just didn't strike as crisply as they did 50 years previously when they were installed! It wasn't until around 1996 when my parents signed up for Compuserve and I started hanging around in the Teen Spirit chat room that I learned to touch type and to type fast. Very fast. I also have the valuable skill of being able to read something from paper and type it blindly onto the screen without making too many mistakes, which is true touch typing and definitely a dying art. Unfortunately, chat rooms have been replaced with Facebook, where replying fast and furious is no longer necessary. Kids today are missing out.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Keyboard? How quaint.
D and K keys. They are where you place your longest fingers in the home row. Only a moron would put them over F and J (but then that explains the layout of Qwerty). If you don't believe me, go into a pitch black room and try to feel out the home row. First using your index fingers, then using your middle fingers. Once you find the home row with your pointer fingers, it is a lot harder to seat your other fingers because you have to twist your hands to make them touch first.
The only time the dimples on the D and K keys makes sense is when you are staring at the keyboard. But that isn't touch typing now, is it? /end inflammatory dialog
The thought of hanging myself at my student loan organization doesn't bug me as much when I think it might make a differ
I've still got my IBM Model M (P/N 52G9658), well-known to be the Best Keyboard Ever. You can have it when you pry it from my cold dead hands. Which will be tough, because it can double as a weapon.
Only problem is hooking it up to a cell phone. Haven't found a way to do that yet. Some might also claim it's too big and bulky to use with a cell phone, but I don't think they have their priorities right.
Model M Forever!
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I took typing classes in high school.
Now I find though that I only type "properly" (all fingers) with my left hand. I only use one or two fingers on my right hand. I think the reason for this may be that I'm generally having to move my right hand around to grab the mouse, and so my R.H. strays away too often from the home position. (Even hitting "return" tends to move my hand out of position as well.)
(Maybe some people may have got a different idea on this from the subject...)
In her rehashing of keyboard history, she seems to neglect the fact that the QWERTY pattern was specifically designed to slow down the typist. Other key patterns allowed typists to achieve quite high typing speeds, but the mechanical typewriters of the mid-1870s could not physically handle that kind of speed. They all had lots of levers and bars, and they tended to get tangled up because the type bars could not return to their parked positions quickly enough for subsequent keypresses. Christopher Sholes' original patent claimed it would increase overall typing speed, but it did so by slowing down individual keypresses so that they would not jam the typewriter and cause wasted time due to unjamming the type bars.
I've used the home keys for as long as I can remember (legacy from learning to type on an old manual keyboard in the 1980's and using vi pretty much daily for the past 20 years)
The one thing that has changed my habits recently though, was the Apple Magic Trackpad. I've always hated the mouse, and despise programs that make me take my hands away from the keyboard to navigate or access menu functions (hence my love of vi).
These days, though, I have my mouse on the right hand side and my trackpad on the left. I find that I actually use them interchangeably depending which hand is the most convenient to leave the keyboard. I find I spend a lot less time cursing GUIs with this configuration.
I do have a few typing quirks though - I only ever use the right shift key and I travel slightly away from the standard "touch typing" key-to-finger assignments, but it works for me.
Philosopher (n) - a wise person who is calm and rational; someone who lives a life of reason with equanimity
Instead of posting such a pointless article could there should simple be a "let's discuss typing" headline.
We could discuss typing skills or show off our wpm scores (mine is over 10) without wasting our time.
Contra TFA, back in the day many kids were encouraged to take typing because it was assumed they'd be typing a lot of term papers in college. Hopefully we've seen the last of the old school manager who c/wouldn't type. Also as earlier posts noted, many schools subsequently offered keyboarding classes but that seems to be going by the wayside as kids seem to pick it up on their own - or was that just a blip on the way to texting?
While typing copy has become obsolete it's still more efficient not to look at the keyboard.
Dvorak-RH.
In my work as a {groan} Help Desk staffer, I still encounter users who don't have basic keyboard skills. Either they are relatively young, and their experience with virtual keyboards apparently leads them to think that CapsLock is the way to enter uppercase letters, even on physical keyboards.... or they are {sigh} my age, and don't grasp how to use keys like Ctrl and Alt. ("Hold down the 'Alt' key, and then press 'Tab' ("where's that?").)
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
"Once it was the rule that lots of people were taught to type at school - but most of them were girls and most ended up in low-skilled jobs. As a result typing is seen as a manual worker's skill not worthy of anyone with a brain and a prospect of working smart."
Wtf?!?!?
Also, typing, as with all skills, is improved by having interest in improvement (called humility) and the result of expressing said interest (called practice/study).
This article is worthless; people lacking skills won't care because in truth they lack the humility or interest in realizing growth.
Don't you dare call my typing weak. I'm using an original IBM Model M. My typing is so hard, if I did the same on your head I would probably crack your skull and cause lethal injuries. Mining companies call me in when their drill breaks, I type the rock into small chunks while they repair the drill. If I type in the air, it actually causes small shock waves capable of knocking down objects and pushing people back. I nail nails with my nails. I think you get the picture - the picture of a magnificent IBM Model M keyboard, that is.
Didn't the New York mayor campaign against Graffiti?
As mentioned in other posts, the article was a waste of time.
First off, typing is essential for writing papers, end of story. High school & college students without this skill will hunt & peck & spend more time on their writing instead of other tasks.
Secondly, Dvorak keyboards are faster but good luck switching between computers and I cannot give up common keyboard shortcuts and have no tolerance for switching all of my computers over.
Touchscreeen-only phones are an abomination. On a proper phone keyboard, I can type about 30-40 wpm without looking at the keyboard, and the valuable screen real estate is fully utilized. Any virtual keyboard will take up half the (already tiny) screen and you will never be able to type on it without looking at it. I will NEVER buy into this touchscreen-only bullshit. There are enough idiots in the world that are content with crippled input capability, and manufacturers are more than happy to produce cheaper phones. It's getting harder to find decent Android phones these days but they do exist (Samsung Epic on Sprint, Droid 2 on Verizon, HTC G2 / Desire on Tmobile, and in Europe). As long as people like us refuse to compromise on this, then there will be options in the future.
I believe the problem is that the computer input process doesn't suport efficient, fast input anymore. There is some type of computer psychosis that works against getting any work done. The whole, "type-a-little, stop, use-the-mouse, type-a-little" cycle is, IMO, detrimental to the whole thinking/producing process. The most productive programmers I know are the ones that use emacs or vi the most efficiently and have good typing skills. You can almost see the color changes in their faces when their skills are frustrated by some klutzy IDE. I suspect that the mental skills required to use things like Visual Studio and Eclipse are much different from the skills needed to think through and communicate thoughtful programming.
And that, to me, is the difference. Programming, for example, is a creative process using a high degree of problem-solving. The process of communicating this creativity to the system should not get in the way of purposeful thinking.
As for smartphones and tablets, etc., I have developed a rudimentary Morse code tab for my Windows 7 Tablet (Fujitsu convertible) that allows me to enter text at about 40 wpm through 4 "hot spots" on my touch screen. I just hate the gesture/ thumbpad interface provided by some systems. When it is done it should convert to a Windows 7 smartphone. I can teach Morse code to most people in less than 30 minutes.
FYI:
I learned to type in the early 60's on manual typewriters. My highest speed was around 90+ wpm achieved on an IBM Selectric that the Army had in our data center in Alaska. (Anybody remember that the input device on the IBM System 360 was a Selectric?) I had keypunching skills, teletype skills and tape-punching skills which were all relevant to computer programming and administration over the years. Commercial and military Morse code was transmitted by tape transport at a steady 60 wpm and if the printer was down I could listen and copy on the typewriter.
My skills have dropped drastically due, in the most part, to lack of drill. (I also have a little chronic numbness in my pinky and ring fingers on my left hand.
Also, I started turning off the screen when I was writing articles and stories to discourage my tendency to interrupt the flow of writing by immediately editing my typos and grammar. (I went from producing less than 1000 words per hour to producing about 4000 words per hour on first drafts.) Unfortunately, I developed a bad habit of looking at the keyboard which further deteriorated my touch-typing skills. Six months ago I was typing at an effective rate of 25wpm on my desktop, and less on lmy laptop. Through practice, I'm back up to about 70+wpm.
The keyboard seems to make a difference: I switched back to an IBM PC AT keyboard. It is heavier than hell, has spring-loaded keys and makes quite a bit of noise, but it feels like the old selectric keyboard and immediately increased my typing speed. I'm about to replace it with a Unicomp version that has the extra 2 function keys http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/customizer.html . I've also heard good things about the Cherry keyboards.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
You insensitive clod!
It just had to happen. You made a typo. "tstate"?
These modern newfangled computer type things come with a built in spell checker.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Is there a WII edition for that game? I'd love to learn that with the wii-motion.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
"The one thing I NEVER learned to do well was TRANSCRIBE from another document."
Ditto from this old fart here. I was always amazed at our female typists from hell, who could do that at warp speed and chat with each other the same time 40 years ago. Their typing went just from their eyes to their fingertips without ever needing (wanting) to understand what they actually wrote. They transcribed security reports which had to be typed 'as is', uncorrected, with all the typos, from Siemens Hellschreiber paper strips, which had to stay intact so that there could be no tampering.
http://www.nonstopsystems.com/radio/hellschreiber-modes-GL.htm
Yes, you young whippersnappers, and if you wanted 5 copies, you had to finger-force your type through 9 sheets of paper.:-)
on this planet. Maybe for /. readers it is, but for of almost 7 billion people on this planet, the most common languages are Portuguese, Spanish, and most probably Hindi, Mandarin and Arab will be the language they use the most. Even tho these languages require extra effort to use a keyboard for input, I doubt SWYPE will be any better. With the world economy and politics giving China, India and South America one of the fastest rates of growth in wealth, you'd have to account for their language and input methods if you want to successfully sell hardware worldwide.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
75 word per minute world record for thumb typing
An experienced typist on a conventional keyboard might be good for 75-90., the world record is 200+. Few of us will ever remotely approach these speeds, this indicates what's physically possible for humans operating human hands. 10 fingers is faster than 8 fingers and two thumbs.
Which is why serious document production is going to be done on conventional keyboards, not virtual or thumb for the foreseeable future. If I have to type a 66 page document (that was a few months ago) I'm using all my fingers on a physical full-size or close to it keyboard.
Tech Public Policy stuff
The great thing about having popular hardware made by one manufacture is you get a lot more third party options.
That thickens up the iPhone quite a bit, but then at least you have a real keyboard.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
For the first time since the computer was invented, the standard QWERTY keyboard is challenged
This article fails the "news for nerds" test: no mention of Dvorak
Dang, slashdot, how useless can you get?!!
I find it funny for a commentary on typing skills when there is an em dash in the Subject line. Typewriters never had em dashes. What keyboard convolution had to be done to put it there? Alt+I+S? ? mouse on a pull down menu? Oh, typewriters never had Alt keys or mice either.
And why isn't there a script to convert the ever so popular em dashes to regular dashes (or if they insist, convert them to double dashes) for the plain text email feed? Doesn't anyone get how annoying it is to see "—" interspersed in a plain text feed just because some author likes the long em dashes?
And that goes for the blob like character used for the reverse double quote mark. Why can't anyone use the plain old ASCII double quote mark anymore?
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
I always find it kind of suspicious that we are using keyboards to program computers... The keyboard was invented roughly 170 years ago or so and the actual layout designed to avoid fast typing. I think the concept of the keyboard is so dominant and omnipresent that it really keeps us from thinking outside the box, and to come up with a better concept. I mean should there not be a better concept to instruct modern computers than a interface concept invented a century ago for slowly writing human language ?
The article questions the value of children learning to type in school. I always imagined that teaching an alternative method of text input that used t9 predictive text (or similar) but didn't allow manual text entry would be a great; as they would have to spell words right in order to enter anything into a computer. Suddenly essays (as well as facebook / twitter) become a more pleasant reading (i.e. no horrendous spelling mistakes or internet 'shortcut' words). Of course, this wouldn't fix grammar and punctuation.
"The LiquidKeyboard is a virtual keyboard for touch screens and surfaces that adapts to the user’s natural finger positions and allows users to touch-type on smooth surfaces. We are currently working on this research project at the University of Technology, Sydney (managed by UniQuest) on our second iPad prototype."
While I could touch type on a Sholes keyboard, I only utilized 4-6 fingers and had a nasty habit of looking at the keys even if I didn't need to (scrambled/blank keys helped against that). Went cold turkey and learned to touch type with 10 fingers on Dvorak and never looked back. I use Sholes on my phones physical keyboard, but it's all thumbs anyway.
Dvorak and other optimized layouts only buy you around a 10% increase in speed.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
The necessity of the skill of touch-typing is overrated.
I am a software engineer, been working with computers 10-12 hours a day for the past 20 years, and I have never learned to touch type. I type using my own self-learned method, where use my index finger, pointing, finger, and thumb on each hand. I can type about 50 wpm when I measure myself. It's never held me back in any way whatsoever in my career, in fact I would say I can type just as fast as near anyone else I know.
back around 1980 I spent a semester and maybe got up to 10 words per minute. Fortunately shortly thereafter my father brought home a computer and I had to (gasp) program it by copying BASIC programs from books and magazines into so I could play games. Without even consciously doing it, I went from hunt-and-peck to touch-typing.
I use languages that support STRONG TYPING, you insensitive clod!
Typing on a QWERTY keyboard is anything but efficient -- it was designed to slow people down, because the mechanical strikers would get jammed if people typed too fast. I think it has outlived its usefulness, and is only around due to inertia, and maybe the failure of wide spread Dvorak training in high school. I learned QWERTY as a freshman in high school, and then the Dvorak as a senior in college. I much prefer the Dvorak. I could never break 750 kpm on a QWERTY, but I regularly do over 1100 kpm on a Dvorak. And the Dvorak seems to be easier on my hands -- I don't get cramped up nearly as much as I used to on a QWERTY.
On android phones, there are alternative keyboards you can use that are optimized for use on a capacitive touchscreen. A qwerty-keyboard with small keys on a small screen is annoying, as it requires modifier-keys or slow long-presses to switch between text, numbers and symbols. Yes, you can use auto-suggest to speed plain old text typing (such as swype), but that only works for regular text. The alternatives presents a keyboard with large keys that can have all of those at a single, speedy gesture.
My favorite is messagease. It makes optimum use of touchscreen capabilities. E.g. on a single key you can do a single tap, a swipe in 8 different directions (and back for even more options like capitalization), and things like drawing a circle clock-wise or anti-clockwise. Using a single (large) key you can input many different characters this way. Especially power users will love this. Similar to using powerful editors like vim, there's a learning curve. But once you master it, you will love every second of it. Since this is that you use very often, it is worth investing some time to learn it. And honestly, this one is not hard or frustrating to learn; there's a simple game included that will get you up to speed in a matter of weeks.
I use this keyboard to fix things on the go without being frustrated by how horrible a normal keyboard layout is when using a terminal emulator. It's even better than a physical keyboard on a smartphone. No, I do not make money off of this keyboard, it's just one of the greatest tools I've used since I mastered vim ages ago.
Of course any device takes some practice to master, that includes touch screens too. With sufficient practice, you can type with them faster than most do their sorry hunting and pecking on physical keyboards.
Here's an example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNcTE5WJGdw
TFA seems to say that programmers can't touch-type. I'm sure many would disagree. I learnt touch-typing using ten fingers myself when I was typing down VIC-20 programs from magazines and generally from programming in the early 1980ies. The key is to always look at the screen, then you'll learn it automatically.
In Perl the typing is context dependent. So it is very fast in the easy parts but then you have to slow down for the hard parts.
Will
I just checked a book out of the library and practiced. It was boring as all hell but I did learn to type. It was well worth the time since I've been using that skill daily for the past 40 years.
Lame.. I thought this was an article about scripting languages.
Apparently the skill of "typing" is going the way of the skill of "spelling" - it's "inpuTTing", not "inpuTing" - spelling it with one "t" like that means the previous "u" should be pronounced long instead of short - as in "in-pewt-ing". Sheesh.
I think touch typing would be more popular, and more useful, if the keys' location did not keep changing with each new computer model out there. Every time I buy a new computer I have to re-learn the exact location of each key, especially as it relates to special keys on the left and right of the keyboard (with the space bar getting shorter and shorter).
FIRST thing I look for when getting a laptop, home computer keyboard is the dimple for the home keys. I was taught to touch type in the mid 70's, and it stuck. Can I type 100wpm? Nope, but I can type faster using a QWERTY keyboard with those little dimples on the F & J keys. Not to mention the 10 keypad with the dimple on the 5 key ;)
I'm a "I know I don't do it right but I'm proficient enough for my needs" typist. With no training whatsoever I can hit 40 wpm on my Model M (with minimal peeking at the keyboard) once I get warmed up....if I actually bothered to learn how to type correctly who knows how fast I'd be.
I think the real subject of posts like this is an underlying problem of how you and I can tell the machine what to do.
After struggling with Repetitive strain injury problems for two years now, my view is a little bit different. Dealing with computers is not only about using the keyboard (it's not 1960 or what) but using a mouse for clickable actions, typing keys and doing both at the same time. There was no real consistency across all different operation systems, nor is it between single programms. I was very disappointed when the trend of touchscreens on phones, labtops and tables came up and most interesting thing was swype, which is not open source. I had some fun trying dasher but as it has no OS functionality implemented there is still room for other projects. Another critical point is programming where typing is very different to writing 'real' text. I mean, dealing with formal languages shoul lead to a point, where you just put pre-existing nodes together to a kind of network. If you think of 'graphical' programming languages like purdata, vvv, or max, you near to it. But for my arms there was no release from pain.
In using the qwerty-keys you're joining an accidental innovation back from 1868.. I played with the dvoraks and neo- Layout, but that's not really possible when you're working on different computers alll the time.
A last hope is speech recognition - another still under-developed technology! In every star-wars-i-robot scenario they're talking to their walking-computers while killing guys and stuff where today you feel like a dumb robot yourself speaking the same simple sentences while your computer tries to not explode.
To end my first and much to long posting I must say: The whole discussion of how to tell the chips to run is absolutely underrated and totaly lacks scientific and open source support when it comes to radical innovations. There must be smarter, faster and less painful ways (outch!)!
My guess is that people not able to type keys or use computers in the expected ways are out of this Mailing-List-Forum-Postings-Discussion (cause they cannot join) and for everyone else there is no problem.
Correct me if I left out any alternative...
I think touch typing is an important skill for those jobs where words/minute matters. But I think that in the world today, 95% of what people do with a computer is limited by how fast they can think, not how fast they can type. it's nice if you can type without having to look at the keyboard, but beyond that, in today's world speed is not a requirement.
Especially the case where there is a (hand)written text that needs to be copied is becoming very rare, which according to the article was the reason that touch typing was invented. Today most information goes from mind to keyboard, and is then copied electronically from then on. Rarely does a written text have to be re-typed. Of course there are some exceptions and some other cases where words/minute is still relevant.
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
Useless dimples? RRRROOOOOOFFFLLLLL
With those pointless optical imaging components of your brain RUDELY protruding through your face and feeding high resolution images to your frontal lobe - I guess they ARE useless. Facedesk facedesk facedesk facedesk
I've only seen older Apple keyboards do this. Every other keyboard I've found puts them on F/J. Personally, I find both of them easy to adapt to, but when I went from an F/J keyboard to a D/K keyboard, my first several sentences all started out with gibberish because I was accustomed to the F/J layout and I'd mis-place my hands.
Do you have examples of other keyboards that put the dimples on D/K?
Program Intellivision!
That is very much me. The IBM Model-M is the only keyboard that lasts me more than a couple weeks. Back in the mid 90's, my IT dept was a little frustrated as I'd finish off the stock Dell and newer IBM keyboards in as little as 2 weeks. They finally found an old "M" and told me if I broke that one, there is no hope. When they talk about pounding code? Yes. Literally.
Take care...
Nuff said.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
Chuck Norris, is that you?
There is no reason the touch input device should only be made to work in English. It could have settings for every common world language. People in countries that speak Spanish, for example, use different keyboards than English speakers. So in the case of keyboards with buttons several versions need to be created for different languages. A touch pad device just needs new software to have the different letters. I imagine a touch pad device would be MUCH better in languages like Chinese. So you are pointing out a weakness that applies to keyboards as we now know them and does not apply to touchpads.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
I think you get the picture - the picture of a magnificent IBM Model M keyboard, that is.
It's the only keyboard that's certified for dealing with the Zombie Apocalypse, and is ideal for use by lumberjacks too.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
I managed to bypass the otherwise-mandatory-for-computer-class typing class by virtue of my parents picking up a copy of version 1.0 of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. EGA graphics on an Epson-branded XT clone... ah, those were the days. The software came with a real manual, most of which consisted of the history of the typewriter and typing, and business correspondence templates.
I got up to about 50WPM. Not great, and probably not as fast as if I signed up for a real typing class, but good enough to get by.
ive had many typing classes, but never learned correctly(typed one handed because of gaming.... yes gaming) then i got a Dvorak keyboard about a month ago.... no wait it was the start of summer O__O time does go fast , and then i finally started typing correctly because it really was the most natural way
warning pointless sig
The QWERTY keyboard was laid out in days gone by to actually slow typing down.
It seems that the first typewriters were prone to sticking keys and if someone really took off (speed wise) then the typewriters would jam...
So, this is why most people have a problem with typing at speed, the damn keyboard layout is the problem!
Too bad we didn't switch to the DVORAK layount in typing class, it is so much faster...