Friday, September 12, 2008

Typomatic

During these brief inspections of his output, one of two things would happen.The first possibility was that he'd reach for his mouse, because he had been
typing into the wrong window for the past 60 seconds, often with comical results. If he didn't reach for his mouse, he'd reach for the backspace key, which he would press, on average, the same number of times he had pressed other keys.

Nice qoute about people who cannot touch type (Eg: me). Steve's little rant hit a chord somewhat, but I feel that this area is the only one I'm victim of. I comment code profusely, I write long design documents, I contribute to the social wealth with discussions through forums, IRC, IM, Experts Exchange etc.

I guess I'm not the typical non-touch typer. I never learned to touch type, but more of a 4-finger-plus-thumb kind of guy. My word count is still down in the 30s - 40s, but I am an avid fan of communication. In fact I've been waiting for technology to save me for the past 15 years. Voice communication is still not ubiqitous online, but it's certainly getting there. I'm sure in another 15 years we'll be like Scotty in Star Trek IV:

Dr. Nichols: what did you have in mind?
Leonard McCoy: Perhaps the professor can use your computer?
Montgomery Scott: Computer. Computer. Ah. [McCoy hands him a mouse and he speaks over it] Hello, computer.
Dr. Nichols: Just use the keyboard.
Montgomery Scott: The keyboard. How quaint.


Unlike Steve's experience of being "forced" through typing, I never even had the chance. Typing was only offered in my school a year or 2 after my grade. I was a little envious of some computer geeks coming through behind me that got the offficial touch-typing training, but at Uni I would say only 50% knew how to touch type.

Let's face it: it's lazy.


Now that sounds more like me ...