I taught myself a personal typing style, because I found touch typing to be awkward, unpleasant and quite frankly shitty to follow.
So yeah, not okay with the implications that not knowing those lines means not knowing how to type.
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I taught myself a personal typing style, because I found touch typing to be awkward, unpleasant and quite frankly shitty to follow.
So yeah, not okay with the implications that not knowing those lines means not knowing how to type.
It's not about not knowing how to type it's about not being /taught/ to type. Touch typing and the home row or whatever is what is formally taught.
Non standard touch typing is still touch typing
The last keyboard I built, I went with blank keycaps to force myself to learn to fully use the keyboard without looking.
I need a new keyboard. Those little nubs are worn off mine and I'm constantly putting my fingers on the wrong keys unless I keep looking down at it.
Put a small dot of clear nail polish or glue on the key to recreate the bump.
Hot glue applied via toothpick, problem solved.
The best typing training I ever got was IRC. You had to learn to type fast or some idiot wouldn't know how wrong he was.
This definitely prepared me for a career where 90% of my interaction with coworkers is via chat.
it took me quite some time to learn not to automatically append ":D" at the end of messages in business chat
I took typing lessons back in the mid ‘90’s, which was VERY uncommon for teens to do. When we got the first online multiplayer games, they only had text chat. I certainly had the fastest, foulest mouth in chat 😂
I had a high school class in the mid-90s that taught you how to type. It was taught on typewriters.
Arguing with strangers on the internet taught me more than any teacher ever could.
Playing MUDs felt like an advanced typing course to me. Especially before scripts and shit became available in the front end. Running around, going through attacks, spells, changing stances, running back to town, roleplaying with other players, reading description text and needing to figure out if a had to go through or climb something and it would get real fun if someone was fighting a mob in the room you entered. Raids and stuff were just insane. Trying to keep up with everything and typing constantly without using the mouse for anything. I haven’t thought about playing those games for a long time, thanks for the walk down memory lane!
While I can also say IRC, wasn't anything like proving someone wrong, just keeping up with the speed of the conversation required being able to type without looking at the keyboard.
Yeah, I feel like Discord (ugh) got that way quick, too, in more populated rooms. IIRC, IRC didn't have that "quote for context" either, so if you were hunt-and-pecking the conversation already moved on lol.
Yeah, for me it was all AIM chats, though I had a couple friends who used IRC. But if you wanted to be part of the conversation, you better know how to type. You wanna make a quip? Better be quick, because so does everyone else.
Is anybody gonna tell this oblivious 30 year old who's not particularly bad at typing what the lines are for?
So you can place your index fingers on the correct key without looking at the keyboard.
Huh, the more you know. Cheers!
I don't see how one wouldn't naturally get that, no offense. I mean, if one didn't paticularly really ever use a keyboard and typed like gen-x or olders, with index fingers, sure.
But surely if you're 30 and used a keyboard all your life you don't need to look at the keyboard while typing..?
No offense. I may just be way overusing one since I was a teenager idk.
I've seen an incredible number of people who were never taught to properly touchtype and where each finger goes and developed bizarre techniques to type with 4, 6, or 8 fingers that may be almost as fast as the proper one but horrendously non-ergonomic. Ubiquity of staggered layouts (instead of proper ortholinear) does not help — it's almost like it's begging to type Z with ring finger and X with middle one.
I’m deep into my 40s, and I’m one of those. I can get up to 70 words per minute for short stretches, but it’s still a weird dance that combines muscle memory and hand-eye coordination.
I did learn just enough to know to hover my hands and keep my arms at a good posture, so I’ve never had any RSI from typing. That also may be partly because that I’m so inconsistent that I don’t get enough of the R for RSI, LOL.
I touch type , and yes I figured out what the lines were for... But I definitely don't use them as reference points when I'm typing.
Doesn't really have to do whether youre good or bad. When they teach you officially, they show you that the j and f are the home row where your index fingers go. If you're self taught you might not know that and that's totally fine as long as you can still type.
Wow, they really don't teach you kids typing anymore, huh.
That's the nipples. You rub em and the keyboards like 'hey fj r over here!'
I grew up with a computer in the 80s and for years i would stare at the keyboard while mentally keeping track of what I was typing.
I took keyboarding in middle school and learned to touch type but it took years of practice to break the habits I formed as a child.
Now I'll be typing something and my husband will walk in so I'll pause and look over to see what he needs. One time he said "don't stop on my account" so I started typing again while staring at him.
I can hold a full conversation while doing this but have to slow down to around 60wpm to avoid transcribing the conversation.
As my 13yo would say, "why? I can just voice to text"
For when you need to do an assignment due the next day but your roommate keeps yelling at you to shut the fuck up already because they are trying to sleep while you slowly dictate the introduction to your 5 page essay, which then gets you kicked out of your class because you missed removing a few of the "SHUT THE FUCK UP!"s that your voice to text helpfully added for you.
I was never told, but I always assumed it was to orient yourself without looking, and that's where the index fingers go when hands are resting on the keyboard.
People look at me like I'm taking crazy pills when I bring up The Typing of the Dead. Literally House of the Dead with a keyboard. You type or you die. It brings that Dark Souls energy to Mavis Beacon's doorstep.
They don't teach typing anymore. Which is like. Makes zero sense.
I see college kids typing out essays with two index fingers.
No one learns typing unless forced. It's super boring.
They need to make it mandatory in public schools. Or future generations will be unable to type properly.
I learned it back in like 8th grade or something.
Something tells me that even if they taught typing, whoever's asking that question wouldn't have paid attention in that class anyway.
... or they know perfectly well and this is just another shitty clickbait post to generate engagement.
Having a booth for a PC game at conventions used to be difficult because people were not familiar with keyboard and mouse controls. If you weren't prepared for this you basically had to quickly add controller support somehow and send someone from your team to the next electric store and to buy a bunch of controllers.
Nowadays, though? Game convention visitors these days barely know how to hold a controller. They keep poking at the screens, hoping something happens. It's a frustrating experience for indie devs sometimes.
So yeah I'm not surprised when people look at keyboards like they're some kind of ancient slate.
As a blind computer user I'm shocked at how many people forget touch typing exists. I learned earlier than most, by necessity, and didn't have to take the then-mandatory keyboarding classes in middle school.