Re: ODE -- The Other Desktop Environment

Keith Keller wrote:
On 2008-03-06, Michael Black <et472@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The Natural Philosopher (a@xxx) writes:
Tom Newton wrote:

But the fact is, the vast majority of computer experts can touch
type.
I cant. And I am as much a computer expert as anyone.

The comment seems to be based on misunderstanding, at least.

Well, on the part of ''Tom'', it's based on trolling. But for the rest
of us, I think touch typing can have two connotations.

The first is simply "typing without looking at the keyboard", which is
what I often assume. I do this all the time, even when coding.

The second is ''real'' touch-typing, putting your fingers on the home
row and using the ''correct'' fingers to hit the keys (e.g., left pinky
hits Q). I don't do this, and never have. For example, I use the left
ring finger to hit a, and use left pinky to hit shift to do A; in
general my pinkies hit the ''extra'' keys like shift. But I'm not
looking at the keyboard when I do this.

Anyway, to refute ''Tom's'' point one more time, I know many an expert
sysadmin who type with two fingers, and look straight down at the
keyboard when typing. They manage to type very fast, but they don't
look at their screen while typing unless they're playing Warcraft.

--keith

I have a slightly different take on this.
When I was in high school I knew I wanted to go into electronics and it seemed to me at the time that someone in that field would have to type reports.
So, in my senior year (1965-1966) I took a typing class and learned to type about 45 WPM at that point. We at least had electrics to learn on. My other motivation was that the class was all girls except for me. The jocks looked down on me as some sort of wimp, but I had more female friends and phone numbers than they could count. The first computer I ever saw and got to play with was a mainframe in 1978. By that time I had been typing reports and even whole documents at work on an IBM Selectric and could go about 60 WPM. Now I can do about 100 WPM if I get into a chat situation and the person on the other end is trying to blow me away. That doesn't do me a lot of good here since I have to think about what i want to say, and programming is even more thinking.

And, finally, I have seen good programmers using 2 fingers.
Lousy typists but great understanding of the language (C).

2 cents mode off.
Bill Baka
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: ODE -- The Other Desktop Environment
    ... And I am as much a computer expert as anyone. ... The first is simply "typing without looking at the keyboard", ... putting your fingers on the home ... row and using the ''correct'' fingers to hit the keys (e.g., ...
    (comp.os.linux.setup)
  • Re: Sore fingers
    ... but I'm finding that mostly I'm using the second finger on reach hand ... Just lately I'm noticing that the ends of my second fingers are ... I assume the same holds true for typing. ... when you hit them with shift. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: Auto Capitalization
    ... I've seen two-finger "hunt and peck" typists who could type that way faster than I can touch-type, though if you have to look at the keyboard, then you're limited to composing rather than typing from handwritten or printed copy. ... I do manage to stumble along with ten fingers (is "stumble the right ... >> period (or question mark or exclamation point). ...
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  • Re: Does your reading corrupt your writing?
    ... I don't post much here (too many posts to keep up with on a regular ... reading a lot of newsgroups and playing a lot of multiplayer games. ... Body memory affects my typing. ... one of a set of homophones much more frequently, and so my fingers run ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: Early evenin/lateafternoon bowl, 7/11/07
    ... typing was about the only ... I think it was a variety of carpal tunnel, but it was in the palm ... I had 2 fingers on the left hand and one on the ...
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