this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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No Stupid Questions

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I feel swipe to type should be an option on laptops. Using keys to type is slow compared to swiping across alphabets. Remove the physical keyboard and put a 6" to 10" lcd with touch input on it.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Not at all.

Honestly, if you think one finger swiping is faster and better than ten fingers on a keyboard I would suggest you spend some time leaning to type.

[–] FuglyDuck 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

you know what's funny? the qwerty layout for keyboards were designed to slow people down because mechanical typewritters couldn't keep up with the typing speeds. It's purposely slower, moving the most used keys out of the way.

One wonders why we haven't created a new keyboard in all these years. maybe with the same physical layout so that it could just be a firm/software adjustment rather than physical.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Where did you get this non-sense?

The reason for the layout is to have letters that are commonly typed together on alternating hands as it is faster and also would prevent jamming in mechanical typewritters.

[–] kava 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You guys are pretty much saying the same thing.

keyboards were designed to slow people down ... moving the most used keys out of the way

  • /u/FuglyDuck

would prevent jamming in mechanical typewritters

  • /u/Kalash

I'm not sure why the hostility calling it non-sense. It's common knowledge QWERTY was created because typewriters frequently jammed when you were quickly typing characters that were close to each other. By spacing out the letters, they effectively slowed down the typing speed and made the machine more reliable to use.

The reason for the layout is to have letters that are commonly typed together on alternating hands

This is a feature of Dvorak. QWERTY basically randomly places the most commonly used letters randomly across the keyboard.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You guys are pretty much saying the same thing.

We're saying the opposite thing. It was designed for typing faster and prevent jamming, not for preventing jamming by being intentionally slow.

I’m not sure why the hostility calling it non-sense.

Well, it is non-sense. But I wasn't aware it was like a proper common misconception.

[–] kava 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Ok I see now we are arguing semantics.

Problem- people were having jams

Solution- space out most commonly used keys randomly so jams are less frequent

Consequences-

  • In theory assuming a perfect machine and a skilled typist you type slower because you have to move your fingers more

  • in practice you type faster because the jams were a much larger limiting factor than the key placement

So they slowed it down in order to speed it up. Both of you are saying the same thing.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

But your conclusion is faulty and the speed increase doesn't just come from less jamming (which is now irrelevant anyway), but direclty from spacing out the letters.

Typing consecutive letters next to each other often means you have to use the same finger and pressing multiple keys with the same finger is slower than using different fingers, as your "free" fingers can move into position in advance.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

One wonders why we haven’t created a new keyboard in all these years.

Oh they have. There are quite a few different layouts, apparently the Dovarak is the fastest.

But qwerty has been in use for so long it would be impossible to change.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As a former sysadmin who hopped around to different machines to do stuff, I would hate it when I had to type on some developers' computers, because they had set it up as Dvorak (vi on Dvorak is a special hell). Yes, it's a more efficient keyboard as long as that's the only machine you're on. If you have to use different machines where most of the users are on QWERTY, you just use QWERTY.

[–] kava 1 points 1 year ago

It's not so hard to switch back and forth with modern operating systems.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

DVORAK is a keyboard layout that you can enable via your OS and use with a QWERTY keyboard. It's laid out with the most used keys on the homerow to reduce finger movement.

I've tried swapping to it a couple times. Problem is, you have to throw all of your established muscle memory in the trash to learn it. I kinda wish I'd learned it first in a sense, but QWERTY is so dominant that I'd be struggling anywhere I couldn't change layouts.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You could have ten fingers on a keyboard plus some kind of assistance or auto-suggest too.

I'm not sure how well this would work but considering the ability of certain smartphones keyboard to learn your language pattern it could be useful to some.