Weak Typing — the Lost Art of the Keyboard 362
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."
Whole lot of nothing? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Thanks for letting us know that typing is a useful skill, I guess.
i wash soneo,e haf yold me thus yeard aho@@@
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You just gotta gets rhythm!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Itz2ghPDiEY [youtube.com]
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HTC Desire Z, or whatever they call it in $YOUR_AREA
I have it and use it for IRC, mail, ssh ++.
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If you want a slide-out keyboard, you can't go wrong with the new Blackberry Torch 2 (9810). Though if you plan on typing a good bit, the Bold 9900 has the best smartphone keyboard on the market today.
The future is here now, no need to wait :)
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You might want to look into a SawStop.
As for phones, when I borrow my wife's iPhone and use the on-screen keyboard, I never use my thumbs to type on it; I always use my index finger. Efficient? No, but no touchscreen keyboard on a phone is ever going to be efficient; there's no tactile response and no space for full-size keys (or key images rather). I have all my fingers and thumbs BTW.
On a regular QWERTY or Dvorak keyboard, I'm quite fast however.
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Efficient? No, but no touchscreen keyboard on a phone is ever going to be efficient; there's no tactile response and no space for full-size keys (or key images rather).
One word: Graffiti
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This will depend on how big of a nation you live in, and about how close your native language is to English when written. The smaller the nation, and the further from English (resulting in odd letters or perhaps even replacing whole alphabets) the language is the less likely that there will be a slide out keyboard phone in your market.
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I find i type best on touch screens using two index fingers. I hold the phone, in landscape mode, with the thumbs and middle fingers of both hands and use both index fingers to type with, dividing the keys up between the hands as in touch typing. I can type quickly and accurately like this without much effort.
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Personally I find that using Swype with my index finger decimates my two-thumb typing speed (and ease).
It really comes down to personal opinion though, but if you have trouble using thumbs to type I suggest you check out some of the alternative keyboards such as Swype.
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> Is it just me, or is there nothing to the posted article?
How can you say that. This is a concise and insightful analysis
of the history of
the art and practice of the grandest of all
skills from its birth to its current sad state. It is also a great example of another greatly admired skill of using many words to
hide lack of content. The author lays bare
is deepest feeling and
the innermost workings of his brain (image used without permission from the
makers of Hannibal). We should
applaud the author for his e
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typing class in school (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Totally agree. Thought it sucked at the time that I had to learn, but now I can punch out this comment so fast, and accurate, it was totally worth it. And I also learnt other skills such as document formating, document naming conventions, and oh, how to not bash the crap out of keyboard...
Amazes me the things that are clearly important for life that are no longer taught - perhaps it should be a requirement of any degree or certification.
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Glad to see that I'm not alone in that regard. I learned in 7th grade with a personal typing class. I took off and got right up to 60 wpm. I've typed medical transcription for years and years and I'm fast, probably more 85-90 wpm.
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Summer school between seventh & eighth grades.
Boy were my teachers happy about not having to read my handwriting any more . . .
I used to be abled to do 100wpm on a manual. I can't hit those speeds any more, but I'm still fast enough that some people haven't believed I w actually typing until they looked at the screen.
Ive only had one secretary who could type faster than I do (and she used to compete [seriously!])
Anyway, everyone is missing the most important thing here: how would we play nethack withou
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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.
When I was in middle school, we were taught to type on Apple IIs, though those weren't quite as nice as the IBM Selectric II I had at home.
I'm obviously younger than you (unless those Underwoods were antiques when you used them), but even so I was taught how to
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I took a similar class in elementary school (except using computers 'cause it was the 90's), and I can honestly say that I didn't learn a damn thing. I was still "hunting and pecking" until I taught myself C when I was in high school.
The moral of this story: people will learn to touch-type if they need to. People who use computers a lot will unconsciously memorize the keys until they realize that they no longer need to look at the keyboard when they type as I did. People who don't use computers a lot wi
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I'm discovering that the callouses I get from playing guitar aren't so good for touch screens, either.
Sorry to hear about your thumb, though. Table saws scare the bejeezus out of me.
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Strangely for me I had a different experience. I was also learning to touch type on my own at home at the same time. For whatever reason the daily switch from manual typewriter to keyboard prevented me from getting any good at it. Once I failed the typing class and only used computers my typing speed immediately went up to 100 wpm.
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I agree there. Learning on a manual really enforces the muscle memory. Now on a soft touch keyboard I can type very quickly, actually too fast as I lose a lot of accuracy. Each new type of keyboard I use requires me a couple weeks to get the hang of it again (ie, mac keyboard took some getting used to).
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Funny, I had a similar class in High School and it was the most useless class I ever took. Of course, I already knew how to touch type by then (my Mom taught me starting when I was ~10).
It was also only the first or second year since they transitioned from old typewriters to actual computers. I think I taught the teacher a few things in MS Word in that class ... in between playing some silly typing game. Given that I finished every assignment before he finished explaining it (which did result in a few is
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For me, at least, by the time I burst up to 120 wpm, there's not much left of my brain. Somewhere around that speed, it becomes like electronic circuit design once you hit a signalling frequency where you have to take into account transmission line effects. I think the brain has to begin sequencing physical motions in key clusters, like modems that modulate multiple bits per baud. I also think that if your hands don't stay extremely close to home position, just a small amount of sway from side to side i
ongoing keyboard illiteracy (Score:2)
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?").)
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It's pretty pathetic. I learned on manuals and IBM Selectrics (now there was a kick-ass keyboard), and got my speeds up to 90wpm, a perfectly respectable typing speed for a secretary 20 years ago. It just galls me to look at kids nowadays fumble around on keyboards, getting pathetic speeds with horrific accuracy. The first thing my high school typing teacher did was to break the will of hunt-and-peck typists of their spirit, like some sort of office ed. drill sergeant. It paid off, no one in the class w
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Now, of course, I watch people scanning in a few pages and then spending 20 minutes fixing all the spelling mistakes, and thinking "Ah, my, 15 years ago I could have typed that two or three times over."
Typing was without doubt one of the top five most useful classes in High School.
All of those term papers/reports in HS and college really emphasized accuracy for me. I literally did not have the ribbon, Whiteout, or paper to spare for silly typographical errors. Knowing how to manually center text is also occasionally useful.
The typo's that show up when someone relies heavily upon autocompletion are cute though.
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I'm under 30, but I had the benefit of being taught to type starting when I was 6. Somebody (probably dad) realized my visual impairment was going to lead me to using computers for everything and therefore I should spend a lot of time at school learning to type. It amazes half my friends how fast I can touch type and I'm not really very fast (between 60 and 80 wpm in most cases). My speed was terrible until I took the optional typing course in high school. Perhaps half the course was typing and the rest w
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i'm 27 and we were required to take keyboarding in high school and touch typing was stressed. anyone that was having trouble got a cardboard blind that fit over your hands/keyboard so you couldn't even look at the keyboard if you tried.
i'd been using computers for nearly a decade at that point and i was terrible at touch typing, but that class forced me to learn quickly ;D
I'm an outlier (Score:2)
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Wouldn't that increase the chance of repetitive-motion injuries? All the load goes to just one hand.
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Re:I'm an outlier (Score:5, Funny)
You're not holding a drink. You're not kidding most of the people on this website dude. ;-)
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I've often wondered why the #1 most popular password is "password" and not, you know, "stewardesses" or "miminypiminy"
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I'm pretty sure I've seen you on Chatroulette.
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I actually learned how to do this when I broke my right hand years ago. At my best I was able to hit about 25 words/minute, so no speed records were broken, but to this day it helps me drink coffee and code at the same time, or use a mouse. Once you master how to do it you can seamlessly move between typing styles depending on what you need.
It's also been a horrible habit as it caused me to put my coffee down next to my mouse numerous times. Learn to single hand type with your right hand or get a track b
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Sensationalist crap (Score:2, Funny)
This sort of sensationalism never would have been allowed back when Taco was running things.
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Maybe. But without Taco, you gotta wonder who's gonna post a dupe of it on Tuesday.
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In the Time of Taco, all stories, and verily, all comments, never stank of elderberries. Can we say that for all stories AFTER Taco?
Weak typing? (Score:5, Informative)
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On the plus side, perhaps I have found someone who will finally I understand me. I've had to explain with frustration to many a C "programmer" that python is dynamically, but strongly typed. It seems the entire school of programmers descending from "C" thing static typing = strong typing. Which is amusing, because C is weakly typed.
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Wow.
You must be new here. :)
hawk
Re:Weak typing? (Score:4, Informative)
You could just read http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/ [lambda-the-ultimate.org] . Slashdot doesn't quite cut it anymore since the great dumbing down of 2008.
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haha, seriously ... when I read the title, I honestly thought this story was going to be about how the lack of [variable] type declarations in scripting languages was causing people to type [on the keyboard] less! oO;
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together with putting it in the "developers" section and tagging it with "programming", is highly misleading
So, you are saying that slashdot's weak typing system is a drawback?
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May I express my disappointment on the lack of pun comprehension on Slashdot?
I use something other than touch/home keys (Score:3)
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.
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I do something similar. I'm pretty sure it's because I never officially, learned to touch type - I just keep my fingers in the home position and let them wander over the keyboard as necessary, using whatever fingers are closest to the relevant key.
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Yah, me too. I score 95 wpm on the online tests, but it's rarely useful for me to type at that speed. My home position is (usually):
SHIFT A E T SPACE SPACE J 0 [ ENTER
What? I learned to type on a C=64. Turns out having the middle finger right next to $ was handy for both directory listings (LOAD "$",8) and perl scalars. Shift under the left pinkie was pretty crucial for shift-arrowing back then too.
I find myself migrating keys between hands or fingers as needed. I think I pulled that in from piano play
Umm. No. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
I hate to tell you this... (Score:2)
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.
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It maybe a local effect, but I mostly see ultra-slim chiclet style keyboards these days , and personally use a Macbook Pro. So no, these keyboards do not have any elevation on upper rows. Everything is flat.
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Not always [logitech.com]. I'll admit that this keyboard is definitely harder for touch-typing from a cold start, but I've just gotten too used to the minimal movement and relative quiet of laptop keys.
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The only reference to Apple in the 20 or so computers listed having chiclet keyboards is the Apple II. FYI: They've changed.
Whatever works best for you (Score:2)
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
Type? (Score:2)
I shout at the damn thing until it does as it's told.
I'm gonna summarize this one for everyone (Score:2)
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.
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a vagrant on amphetamines.
Oh, cool, I was wondering where Cmdr. Taco was these days.
Woah (Score:2)
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.
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Oh, and before anyone points out the obvious, the missing "at" between good and typing is more about a lack of proof-reading than typing skill. :)
To answer the question (Score:2)
Sort of like QWERTY touch typing, but without any sort of structure
It's more like my fingers learned it over 25 years.
Slashdot is dead (with link) (Score:2)
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. Appa
Some people just can't learn (Score:3)
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.
Back on the Linotype... (Score:2)
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
I think SWYPE will overcome typing (Score:2)
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.
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I like Swype, and use it as my main keyboard on my phone, but it has some major drawbacks. If the word you want to type isn't in its dictionary (a fairly common occurrence for technical terms), it gets to be pretty annoying to use. And god help you if you need to enter a password.
I think you'd have better luck adding a prediction key to the regular keyboard. Maybe cut the space bar in half, with the right half being space and the left half being "guess what word I was typing). Or better yet, do the inte
I learned to type in a Compuserve chat room (Score:3)
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Instead of replying fast and furiously in chatrooms we are replying fast and furiously to phone texts. Same thing, different generation. And more useful for finding each other at noisy bars.
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Hello computer! (Score:2)
Keyboard? How quaint.
The correct spot for the dimples are over the... (Score:2)
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 t
Model M (Score:2)
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!
Tangent from the topic.... (Score:2)
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 le
this article is stupid for this reason (Score:2)
"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
Mandatory IBM Model M zealous fanatism in 3, 2, 1: (Score:5, Funny)
Typing and Morse code (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [yahoo.net] . I've also heard good things about the Cherry keyboards.
there's an inherent speed problem (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Does the speed matter? (Score:3)
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.
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I suggest we force the world to go Dvorak, and to hell with QWERTY..
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Mre lap.by er,b!!!
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I can't believe Dvorak isn't an option as a virtual keyboard on iOS (but not on OSX), it annoys me Apple omitted this from day 1, yet with a decent effort, supports something like Cherokee or Catalan.
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* ok, there is 1 worse. The *&%#& bilingual keyboard with it's half-sized shift key. I speak both english and french, but can't stand that EVERY bloody laptop (possibly apple excluded) only has half a left shift key.
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The first thing we were taught in my typing class was to stop reading what we were typing. To a well-trained and experienced touch typist it should be irrelevant whether what they're typing is ""Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him", or "Mr. Stevens agreed to meet with the principals at 4:00PM on Friday to work out the details for the transfer" or "sadjlkj aoirwtoiqj34t nas904845$$42jgf".
If you're making mistakes because the text is hard, you're reading t
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(That was my comment you're responding to--sorry, I wasn't logged in.) Surely you need to put the text that you're typing into short-term memory in order to type it, and the more familiarly the text is organized, the easier it's to do that. I would be surprised if you found a study that shows that touch typists type as quickly in an unfamiliar foreign language as in their native language.
Besides, in real life just about the only texts I type are texts that I am composing while I'm typing them. (The excep
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I was never formally taught how to touch type, and I sort of developed an ad-hoc style on QWERTY. It was fast enough for me, but after a few years I was getting quite bad strain in the back of my hands if I typed too much. I don't really type faster on Dvorak, but it has fixed bad habits I developed with Qwerty and I don't get hand strain when typing. (It has probably made me a better touch-typist because I never rearranged the keys on my keyboard)
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I had some strain in grad school but haven't had any strain in the 12 years since (and it's not like I've been writing significantly less than in grad school--I've written two books and a lot of articles since grad school). I wonder if my ad hoc style has evolved in a way that avoids strain by including a randomization that makes for less repetitiveness of motion (or maybe some other feature of the ergonomics has improved--I do a lot of writing on a laptop while lying down nowadays).
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It's easy how they could forfeit the "advantages" since they aren't really there.
I've seen programmers who could do 120 wpm using five fingers, three on the right hand and two on the left hand.
I used to be able to do about 90 wpm, then somebody got the damn fool idea that I should take a typing class in high school. It took over five years before my speed was close to what it was as a good hunt-and-peckist, and that was a real problem when I was in college at the same time. I'd have gone back to my old te
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Part of the problem is the horrifically awful QWERTY keyboard, and the dogmatic insistence of using touch typing that centers on the "home row". I touch type on QWERTY keyboards (when I'm not using a Dvorak), but I do NOT hover my fingers over the home row at all, because it's useless: you rarely use any of the characters there, and it causes too much finger strain to type the way they teach (or taught) in school. So instead, I just hover my hands above the keyboard and match the nearest finger to the key
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[......] I do NOT hover my fingers over the home row at all, because it's useless: you rarely use any of the characters there [......]
The point of basing your fingers over the home keys is not because you''re more likely to use those keys. It's because you have to base your fingers somewhere fixed - otherwise it's not possible to find the keys you need without looking - and those keys are in the middle of the letter keys, which minimizes the amount of finger movement required to reach any required key.
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I'm going to type this post without using the backspace or delete keys at all. In fact, no editing as I type whatsoever, which is pretty rare for me.
You see, /I taught myself to more or less touch type, though I do keep my eyes fixed on the "t" and "ty" keys, as a point of spacial reference. Thinking about what I'm doing, I do drift over to 'f' occasionally. I reach about 60 to 65 wpm, including fixing mistakes as I know I've made them. That slash in the third word of this paragraph is driving me nuts. Fort
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I've learned to type on AZERTY but have for most of my professional life used QWERTY. I had a stint with DVORAK but we techies type code and e-mails, not prose (although it would be much easier if either looked more like prose). The people that should benefit from DVORAK (are there any actual scientific tests that prove it is better?) have probably never heard there are different keyboard layouts in the world or how you can change them.
In the mean time, for most intents and purposes I want a keyboard I can
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Compatibility.
If you learn to type on Dvorak, even if it is better/faster/etc, if you want to use another PC it most likely has a Qwerty keyboard, so you either have to change the layout (may not always be possible) or use the keyboard as is, probably less efficiently than you would if you had learned to use Qwerty from the start.
If you use a measurement system that is different from anyone else, you will have problems communicating. Now, while the US system is standard in the US (so you can talk to some pe
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F CowboyNeil does my typing.
?
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G. I don't have fingers, you insensitive clod!
Re: Weak Typing (Score:3)
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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.