• Anonymous (unregistered)

    Fast enough to be first!

  • (cs)

    The opportunities present for today's commentors are numerous and vast. Those who choose to comment excellently will achieve the recognition that secures comments being featured. Commitment to quality leads to victory above all "first!"-posters. The challenges faced by programmers, bloggers, and bosses require commenters to write consistently in the pursuit of featuredness.

  • Bot (unregistered)

    The WTF here is that he A) listened to the lab assistant and B) tried it 3 times, doing exactly the same thing. Obviously, he should've tried it with carriage returns after failing the first time.

  • hehe (unregistered)

    I am the Flying Spaghetti Monster

  • krupa (unregistered)

    When I was in elementary school, the library had a bunch of Apple IIe's. Before we were allowed to play Oregon Trail we first had to get through some typing lessons in Paws. A few students (surprisingly or not, the lazier ones) discovered that the program only accepted correct characters and if you just lay your hands on the keyboard you can finish the test in less than a second.

  • (cs) in reply to Bot
    Bot:
    The WTF here is that he A) listened to the lab assistant and B) tried it 3 times, doing exactly the same thing. Obviously, he should've tried it with carriage returns after failing the first time.

    Reminds me of when my 4 year old tries to open his car door, but it's locked. Rather than waiting, he just keeps yanking hoping that somewhere between try 5 and 6 the door will concede and open for him.

  • morry (unregistered)

    aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aa aaaaa

  • (cs)
    Not only can I type pretty fast, but most of the time I'm not even looking at the keybiurd or the screem!
    Yes, we've known that for some time.
  • HelmondseBoy86 (unregistered) in reply to taylonr
    taylonr:
    Reminds me of when my 4 year old tries to open his car door, but it's locked. Rather than waiting, he just keeps yanking hoping that somewhere between try 5 and 6 the door will concede and open for him.

    the realWTF is that your son has his own car :)

  • Mouse (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw
    FredSaw:
    Not only can I type pretty fast, but most of the time I'm not even looking at the keybiurd or the screem!
    Yes, we can tell.

    What is the sound of one hand wooshing?

  • Walleye (unregistered) in reply to Mouse
    Mouse:
    FredSaw:
    Not only can I type pretty fast, but most of the time I'm not even looking at the keybiurd or the screem!
    Yes, we can tell.

    What is the sound of one hand wooshing?

    Woosh

  • Mouse (unregistered) in reply to Walleye
    Walleye:
    Mouse:
    FredSaw:
    Not only can I type pretty fast, but most of the time I'm not even looking at the keybiurd or the screem!
    Yes, we can tell.
    What is the sound of one hand wooshing?
    Woosh
    Make that two hands.
  • (cs) in reply to HelmondseBoy86
    HelmondseBoy86:
    taylonr:
    Reminds me of when my 4 year old tries to open his car door, but it's locked. Rather than waiting, he just keeps yanking hoping that somewhere between try 5 and 6 the door will concede and open for him.

    the realWTF is that your son has his own car :)

    Of course he does, but we're safe 'cause he can't afford any gas.

  • Terri (unregistered) in reply to Walleye

    heh heh heh, niiiiiice Mouse.

    I would have beaten them both soundly with the keyboard, leaving little indents all over their heads. Preferably little carriage-return shaped indents.

  • Schnapple (unregistered) in reply to krupa
    krupa:
    When I was in elementary school, the library had a bunch of Apple IIe's. Before we were allowed to play Oregon Trail we first had to get through some typing lessons in Paws. A few students (surprisingly or not, the lazier ones) discovered that the program only accepted correct characters and if you just lay your hands on the keyboard you can finish the test in less than a second.

    Gotta love a program that can be cracked by a lazy third grader...

  • Terri (unregistered)

    Hmmm, so you changed your initial comment FredSaw? Sneaky. grin

  • I walked the dinosaur (unregistered)

    The real wtf is calling yourself a "programming major" and thinking they would let some new "programming major" touch any of their system.

  • Mouse (unregistered) in reply to Terri
    Terri:
    Hmmm, so you changed your initial comment FredSaw? Sneaky. *grin*
    Got him on the quote though!
  • Mouse (unregistered) in reply to I walked the dinosaur
    I walked the dinosaur:
    The real wtf is calling yourself a "programming major" and thinking they would let some new "programming major" touch any of their system.

    Seconded. "I've no experience, but I'm going to start taking the class after this typing test (which I failed), send me teh codes".

    Even if they were right, they'd still not be getting near the code.

  • Charles (unregistered)

    The Flying Spaghetti Monster is stuck to my wall.

    CAPTCHA: plaga - A plagiarized word, singular.

  • (cs) in reply to Terri
    Terri:
    Hmmm, so you changed your initial comment FredSaw? Sneaky. *grin*
    When you're registered, you can do that.
  • Terri (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw
    FredSaw:
    Terri:
    Hmmm, so you changed your initial comment FredSaw? Sneaky. *grin*
    When you're registered, you can do that.

    Ah, okay. P'raps I'll register then.

  • (cs)

    I can type so fast, I made it to the 24th position in this WTF competition.

  • (cs)

    Aaaah, that's better - all registered.

    Oh and, incidentally, I've never bothered to learn to touch type either. And after all these years my brain seems to know where to aim for the right keys even when I'm not watching the keyboard.

  • (cs)

    I'm what you might call a 'Professional Hunt 'n' Peck' typist.

  • doubting thomas (unregistered)

    Isn't a programming major supposed to hit enter at the end of every line, which leads to properly formatted program code?

    This programming minor should just have applied what he does every day.

  • (cs)

    I can type faster than my shadow. I can even type faster than this sites rss.

  • (cs)

    Funny. I remember when I had to take a typing class for my AS degree, I tested out of it the second day, in like 10 minutes. I did it and was like "So... can I leave now?" to the teacher.

  • myxiplx (unregistered) in reply to Terri
    Terri:
    I've never bothered to learn to touch type either. And after all these years my brain seems to know where to aim for the right keys even when I'm not watching the keyboard.
    err... sounds like learning to me. :-p
  • Bot (unregistered) in reply to shinobu
    shinobu:
    I can type faster than my shadow. I can even type faster than this sites rss.

    No kidding!

  • unknown (unregistered)
  • (cs)

    Ok, so if you know there's a discrepancy in the rules, and you know that you typed it right the first time, would you not try the line breaks the second time?

  • (cs)

    TRWTF is that James didn't slap them for creating a ridiculous test and then being ignorant about how to succeed it.

    http://images.google.be/imgres?imgurl=http://i.ytimg.com/vi/A0nkfoSZmHo/default.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3Dm_uTORwmwfs&h=100&w=125&sz=3&hl=en&start=126&sig2=0LswbMqzLlLDhrHkfHt47w&um=1&tbnid=rCBcnr1a54KrZM:&tbnh=72&tbnw=90&ei=9TGPSJ68BJXg1wawu6nlBw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwerner%2Bbr%25C3%25B6sel%26start%3D108%26ndsp%3D18%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

    http://images.google.be/imgres?imgurl=http://i.ytimg.com/vi/A0nkfoSZmHo/default.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3Dm_uTORwmwfs&h=100&w=125&sz=3&hl=en&start=126&sig2=0LswbMqzLlLDhrHkfHt47w&um=1&tbnid=rCBcnr1a54KrZM:&tbnh=72&tbnw=90&ei=9TGPSJ68BJXg1wawu6nlBw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwerner%2Bbr%25C3%25B6sel%26start%3D108%26ndsp%3D18%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

    Didn't find the one where the biker goes mad in Volles Roääää! But you might find some examples of what should happen with the school staff.

  • (cs) in reply to ObiWayneKenobi
    ObiWayneKenobi:
    Funny. I remember when I had to take a typing class for my BUTT degree, I tested out of it the second day, in like 10 minutes. I did it and was like "So... can I leave now?" to the teacher.

    FTFY

  • (cs)

    This reminds me of one assignment I had to complete in school... if I remember right, the purpose of the assignment was to implement a hash table and use the hash table to find matches to an input word in a data file. The only stipulation was that the hash table data structure should be a pointer-based linked list. Most of the peons in the class trudged along with their Java implementations, but I was most comfortable with C++ .. so I happily tapped a '#include <list>' and went on my merry way implementing the hash table. It worked beautifully. I was devastated when I got my grade back and it was a 10/20, with the explanation form the TA written in red ink: "Not use linked list". I protested to the instructor, and he declined to do anything, referring me to handle the issue with the TA.

    I chatted with a few other students in the class, who had also received half credit because of the same use of STL list. I decided I wasn't going to let this go. I went to the TA, and again protested: "I used STL list, how can you say I didn't use a linked list?". She responded by stating, quite factually and with certainty, that STL lists are not linked lists. I was prepared for this event, because I knew how our population of foreigner TAs operated, and promptly pulled up http://www.sgi.com/tech/stl/List.html on her web browser. I specifically drew her attention to the first sentence, which read: "A list is a doubly linked list." She stared at the page in terror for several moments, looking desperately for some piece of evidence that would vindicate her .. and eventually she gave up, and gave me full credit.

    She was plainly wrong, and was more than reluctant to admit it. None of the other students that had used STL lists were given full credit in spite of this, unless they came in turn and showed her the same documentation ... hoping that the apathy of the students would save her from having to retract more grading errors. It worked, unfortunately. No one else stood up for their grade.

  • Derlin (unregistered)

    It's an evil typing test that includes typos: "insitutions" Or is that one of his permitted mistakes?

    The software I used in high school to learn typing couldn't figure out if you inserted or omitted a letter, so from then on all your keys were wrong (unless you screwed up again, and you couldn't backspace). So, maybe our hero should have failed, since "itutions" and every later character would have counted against him in this case.

  • (cs) in reply to doubting thomas
    doubting thomas:
    Isn't a programming major supposed to hit enter at the end of every line, which leads to properly formatted program code?

    This programming minor should just have applied what he does every day.

    that.canLead() ? 2 : otherProblems();
  • Dave (unregistered) in reply to Terri
    Terri:
    heh heh heh, niiiiiice Mouse.

    I would have beaten them both soundly with the keyboard, leaving little indents all over their heads. Preferably little carriage-return shaped indents.

    You indent with tabs or spaces not carriage returns.

  • Andrew (unregistered) in reply to Bot
    Bot:
    The WTF here is that he A) listened to the lab assistant and B) tried it 3 times, doing exactly the same thing. Obviously, he should've tried it with carriage returns after failing the first time.

    This is just the counting horse principle. He responded to a social stimulus, the lab assitant's annoyance, rather than reason how to solve it. For the hores it worked; people thought that Clever Hans could count. The student typist failed to address the test.

    The real WTF here is socialization!

  • Will code for food (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous

    That's what she said.

  • Dave (unregistered) in reply to Markp
    Markp:
    doubting thomas:
    Isn't a programming major supposed to hit enter at the end of every line, which leads to properly formatted program code?

    This programming minor should just have applied what he does every day.

    that.canLead() ? 2 : otherProblems();

    Actually that should be an if, the ternary operator is only safe to select between one of 2 possible values not 2 possible actions.

  • Chris (unregistered) in reply to taylonr

    My girlfriend does the same thing (with my car, not taylonr's son's car).

    The thing is, it works. The door latch is squirrelly and won't release unless you open it from inside or pull sharply. Don't pull quite hard enough and it seems to be locked.

    So, the moral of the story, is that sometimes you have to be a real jerk to get things done.

  • St. Doodle (unregistered)

    Reminds me of many years ago, when I was desperate enough for work to try the local temp agencies. One of them had me take a test on M$ Office, which I failed misserably. Is it because I wasn't able to use the commands I was instructed to? No...it was because I accessed them via the drop-down menu and / or keyboard shortcuts, and the testing program only recognized use of the toolbar buttons as "correct." Of course, they told me this after I failed, not before I took the test.

  • (cs) in reply to unknown
  • tpulley (unregistered)

    I had to take a stupid typing class in high school that I didn't need AT NIGHT because my guidance counselor was too inept to arrange my classes so that I could take all the required classes during normal school hours. I certainly didn't need it, but I tried to have fun all the same.

    We had to use apple II computers, and this was the mid 90's. Those are not the most ergonomic keyboards, being a good few inches off the desk, but that wasn't so much a problem. The biggest problem was that the typing program took enough cpu resource such that if you typed TOO FAST, it couldn't keep up and would ding you with an error. Oh, and if you hit the wrong key, followed by a backspace, you'd get two errors - one for the actual error, and another as punishment for hitting backspace as the erroneous letter would be suppressed from entry.

    The very next year the typing requirement was dropped.

  • Derlin (unregistered) in reply to halber_mensch
    halber_mensch:
    I used STL list, how can you say I didn't use a linked list?

    If I was the instructor I would have said no prepackaged solutions such as the STL. STL is great to have, but the point of specifying a pointer based linked list for the project was probably to have you implement your own linked list in the hash table.

    The professor should have specified, the TA should have known about the STL, and you should have asked. :-)

    The C++ standard doesn't require <list> to be implemented as a pointer based linked list, it just specifies the interface it should use.

  • Chris (unregistered) in reply to halber_mensch

    I would have given you half-credit as well. The assignment was poorly phrased, but it's clear that that the intent was that you implement both hash tables -and- linked lists. Perhaps you would have preferred a more pedantic professor who wanted you do each piece as a separate problem, but most people would prefer a more organic problem (as if that's possible in undergraduate data structures and algorithms).

    You freely, even boastfully, admit that you only did half the work. So 10/20.

  • Andrew (unregistered) in reply to halber_mensch
    halber_mensch:
    The only stipulation was that the hash table data structure should be a pointer-based linked list. ...I was most comfortable with C++ .. so I happily tapped a '#include <list>' and went on my merry way implementing the hash table. It worked beautifully. I was devastated when I got my grade back and it was a 10/20, with the explanation form the TA written in red ink: "Not use linked list".

    This is terrible whether you used Java or C++ STL linked-lists. This excercise doesn't teach you anything much. Programming students should practice building data structures from scratch.

    What was your hash function? How did you resolve hash collisions? Did the class teach anything about data structures?

  • fa_f3_20 (unregistered)

    I taught myself to touch type on a Teletype ASR33, which had long key travel and required a lot of force to overcome the mechanism's resistance. To this day, I destroy keyboards. Every two years or so I have to get a new one, to avoid getting tendonitis in my fingers.

  • nerdguy (unregistered)

    so let me get this straight... a college basically forced you to take a pointless class?

    gasp

    It beggars the imagination, I tell you.

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