• (cs) in reply to Sunday Ironfoot
    Sunday Ironfoot:
    I'm what you might call a 'Professional Hunt 'n' Peck' typist.

    "are you a hunt-n-pecker?" "heavens no! I'm a happily married woman."

  • Buddy (unregistered) in reply to ReptilianSamurai

    For Windows users, if your hands get tired playing the game...

    Save the following code as whatever.vbs

    strInput = InputBox("Enter text...") intLimit = Len(strInput) Set objShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell") For intIndex = 1 To intLimit WScript.Sleep(95) strCharacter = Mid(strInput, intIndex, 1) Select Case strCharacter Case "(", ")", "[", "]", "{", "}" objShell.SendKeys "{" & strCharacter & "}" Case Else objShell.SendKeys strCharacter End Select Next

    Copy the text before the test starts, click on the input field on the page, run this script, paste in the box, then click OK, if everything goes okay, focus should return to the input field and this will merrily type for you at about 100 wpm.

    In true spirit of this site, we can't actually have this run perfectly, now can we? For long quotes you have to recopy the remainder, reset focus to the input field, then rerun the script.

  • Steve Nuchia (unregistered) in reply to Terri
    Terri:
    Hmmm, I "meant" using all my fingers on the correct keys. I use about three fingers.
    I learned piano first, where you dynamically select the finger to use for a key based on where your finger are now and where they'll need to be in a moment.

    Then I learned to program on a KSR33. No idea about touch typing in 7th grade, I used the piano fingering method on the giant kathunking stone cylinders of the teletype keyboard. I still use pretty much the same approach even though I took (and passed) a touch typing course in high school.

    But I damaged my left ulnar nerve a while back (playing way too much MOO II with my elbow on the edge of my desk) and now the letters on the left end of the keyboard are very frequently transposed. Sigh.

  • Steve Nuchia (unregistered) in reply to Critter
    Critter:
    I ran into that with an instructor. The assignment (in a digital logic class) was to draw a schematic for a half-adder. My solution differed from the instructors, but had a similar parts count, and when I pushed him to work it through, I did get the credit.

    When I was grading calculus papers I noticed that solutions tended to fall into three categories. The pegagical philosophy in force called for a little essay with each solution explaining the analysis of the problem and justifying the solution; the answer was not just the solution itself.

    Category one: clearly right, or nearly right. A couple of moments to verify that all the necessary steps are present, scan for plagarism "tells", and mark any mistakes.

    Category two: clearly wrong. A bit harder than 1 because I have to identify the point of departure from the True Path and provide some guidance on how it should have been done, plus pull a numeric value for the effort out of somewhere, but not too hard.

    Category three is where all the time went. Creative solutions, whether right or wrong, take a lot of time to grade. I have to first understand the argument, then I have to parse it for fallacies, then if the argument is sound but the answer wrong I have to repeat the analysis to identify the point of departure. If the answere is right but the arument fallacious I have to determine whether this happened by luck or by plagiarism. It can take as long to do this for one problem as it does to grade a whole stack of papers in the other two categories.

    I understand why some TAs (and many professors) won't take the time to do all that work. I don't approve of it, but I do understand.

  • (cs) in reply to fa_f3_20
    fa_f3_20:
    Back in the day ("the day" in this case being a Data General Nova II; go Google it), I wrote a typing speed challenge program. What it did was spit out a string of 1-20 random characters, wait for you to type that in correctly, and then spit out another one, until two minutes were up. Your score was the number of characters completed in two minutes.

    The kicker was that, unlike most typing test programs, it considered the entire printable ASCII character set fair game, and every character was equally likely. When we started playing with it, we were amazed at how much our typing slowed down when we had to type back strings like 8*#KH93m#)(@< and hd2:"]{3p2$81`o~. Recalling this, it sometimes still amazes me that anyone ever completes a C or Perl program...

    Perl isn't very helpful: $ perl -e '8*#KH93m#)(@< and hd2:"]{3p2$81`o~' syntax error at -e line 1, at EOF Execution of -e aborted due to compilation errors.

    This is no worse than my usual first stab at a Perl program, but not very helpful. Turning to C (and wrapping in main()):

    $ cc -o /tmp/drivel /tmp/drivel.c /tmp/drivel.c: In function main': /tmp/drivel.c:3: error: syntax error at '#' token /tmp/drivel.c:3: error: syntax error at '#' token /tmp/drivel.c:3: error:KH93m' undeclared (first use in this function) /tmp/drivel.c:3: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once /tmp/drivel.c:3: error: for each function it appears in.) /tmp/drivel.c:3: error: parse error before ')' token /tmp/drivel.c:3: error: stray '@' in program /tmp/drivel.c:3: error: missing terminating " character /tmp/drivel.c:4:2: warning: no newline at end of file

    The compiler is your friend. I'm sure I could get this to work in about half an hour or so. Did the Data General also provide a design, so I can figure out what it's supposed to do?

  • eric76 (unregistered) in reply to halber_mensch
    halber_mensch:
    This reminds me of one assignment I had to complete in school...
    That was kind of like a second semester Economics test I took. The teacher was a graduate student in the Economics Department.

    One question on the test was a multiple choice that went something like (It's been 35 years, so give me some slack on the question part since I don't remember the exact term):

    A producer in an inelastic market:

    1. must sell at the market price.
    2. something else.
    3. something else yet again.
    4. none of the above.

    It was obvious that the lecturer wanted choice 1, but after some thought, I chose 4 instead.

    He obviously counted it wrong.

    I argued with him that the producer could sell below market price, if he desired.

    After class was over, the argument continued in his office. Another graduate student walked in and after hearing my argument, agreed with me. Finally, the instructor gave me credit for the question, but only as long as I promised not to tell anyone else in the class about it.

  • rleibman (unregistered) in reply to Secundum
    I suppose you speak Esperanto too.

    Can't speak for the other guy... sed Jes... mi parolas Esperanto kaj tajpas gxin en mia Dvoraka klavaro. Cxu vi ne?

  • zoot (unregistered)

    When I took my first typing class, we used old manual typewriters. Our favorite activity, when the teacher was out of the lab, was to take a long sharp pencil and gently place its eraser on the f and g hammers and rest the pencil against the roller. Then slam down on the f and g keys and watch your pencil shoot like a missile toward whatever (or whoever) is in front of you. If you were careful the pencil would travel more than half way across the room. Try doing that with a modern computer keyboard.

  • don't use tabs (unregistered) in reply to Dave
    Dave:
    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.

    What? That is lame indentation, so hard to see.

    class GreatStyle {

    int foo() {

    bool done = false;

    while(!done) {

    done = !done;

    }

    } }

    The indentation is so much easier to see that way. No problem.

  • Robin Lionheart (unregistered) in reply to MacMog
    MacMog:
    Strangely enough, the fact that it prevents typewriters from locking up actually leads to increased speed because while one hand types a letter, the other hand moves into position to type the next letter.
    Dvorak alternates the use of left and right hands more than QWERTY does.
    Ergonomic studies show that Sholes (QWERTY) and Dvorak produce statistically insignificant differences in typing speed. In fact, the studies that show dramatic improvements from the Dvorak layout come from Dvorak himself. More on the history and ergonomics in this article.
    Marcus Brooks has written a refutation of the Dvorak-defaming article you cite.
    So in short, if you type faster with Dvorak, by all means use it, but that doesn't mean teaching Sholes has ruined typists forever.
    I would avoid referring to QWERTY as Sholes, because when faster typing machinery became available, Sholes found QWERTY inadequate and patented a revised layout that put all the vowels under one hand (before Dvorak made a similar innovation).

    Using a poor keyboard layout probably won't "ruin" you or doom you to carpal tunnel syndrome. If you haven't invested a lot of effort into learning touch typing yet, you might like to try both and use whatever works best for you.

  • (cs) in reply to Robin Lionheart
    I would avoid referring to QWERTY as Sholes, because when faster typing machinery became available, Sholes found QWERTY inadequate and patented a revised layout that put all the vowels under one hand (before Dvorak made a similar innovation).
    You left this out of your post: [image]
  • fa_f3_20 (unregistered)

    real_aardvark, anyone who used a Data General will tell you that the machine, just like the people who designed and built it, did any damn thing it wanted to do at any given moment.

  • DKO (unregistered) in reply to Derlin
    Derlin:
    The C++ standard doesn't require <list> to be implemented as a pointer based linked list, it just specifies the interface it should use.

    If it walks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it IS a duck. The standard describes a doubly linked list in every way.

    I had a similar problem with an idiot professor; I had to implement an AVL tree; luckily I had already written one about 6 months earlier, and just used that. I was told I should not use an existing implementation, but write one by my own. Never mind the source files had a copyright notice with my name on them. My code is now the Boost.Intrusive's AVL tree.

  • Finibus Bonorum (unregistered) in reply to Finibus Bonorum
    ----------------------------------- CAPTCHA: "esse"

    I'm a firm believer in the telekinesis method. Just to show everyone, I performed James' typing test from today's topic introduction:

    The opportunities present for today's college graduates are numerous and 
    vast.  Those who choose to perform excellently will achieve the recognition 
    that secures promotions.  Commitment to quality leads to victory above all 
    obstacles.  The challenges faced by employers, insitutions, and organizations 
    require college graduates to work consistently in the pursuit of greatness.
    

    It took me a mere instant [ie., speed of thought] to type the 52 words/377 characters via telekinesis: 52 words / (0.001s * 60s/min) = 3,120,000 wpm. And I just "know" my accuracy score is 100%. Here's my result:

    The opeointuptris preenst for ta'oyds cgoelle gtreadaus are nureuoms and 
    vast. Tshoe who cosohe to pefrorm exllctneely wlil acivehe the rocotignein 
    that scueres poroointms. Citomemmnt to qltiauy ldeas to vtrociy avobe all 
    oebsatlcs. The cleeanlghs feacd by eyprmoles, intsioniuts, and otgrazaiinons 
    rrqieue colgele gdtuaeras to work ctetnonlissy in the pursuit of gesrnteas.

    Curious? Visit http://www.writtenhumor.com/misspeller.html. It works best with one- and two-syllable words.

    ----------------------------------- CAPTCHA: distineo

    After my superlative performance using telekinetic typing, I decided to try actual keyboards like you mere mortals. However, just to be suitably unique and to demonstrate my superior skills, I used the reputably superior [what does John C. Dvorak, the PCMag columnist think of this keyboard?] Dvorak keyboard. Here are my wonderful and perfect [of course] results:

    Yd. rllrpygbcyc.o lp.o.by urp yreaf-o jrnn.i. ipaegay.o ap. bgm.prgo abe
    kaoyv  Ydro. ,dr jdrro. yr l.purpm .qj.nn.bynf ,cnn ajdc.k. yd. p.jribcycrb
    yday o.jgp.o lprmrycrbov  Jrmmcym.by yr 'gancyf n.aeo yr kcjyrpf axrk. ann
    rxoyajn.ov  Yd. jdann.bi.o uaj.e xf .mlnrf.pow cbocygycrbow abe rpiabc;aycrbo
    p.'gcp. jrnn.i. ipaegay.o yr ,rpt jrbocoy.bynf cb yd. lgpogcy ru ip.ayb.oov

  • Finibus Bonorum (unregistered) in reply to Finibus Bonorum

    ----------------------------------- CAPTCHA: distineo

    After my superlative performance using telekinetic typing, I decided to try actual keyboards like you mere mortals. However, just to be suitably unique and to demonstrate my superior skills, I used the reputably superior [what does John C. Dvorak, the PCMag columnist think of this keyboard?] Dvorak keyboard. Here are my wonderful and perfect [of course] results:

    Yd. rllrpygbcyc.o lp.o.by urp yreaf-o jrnn.i. ipaegay.o ap. bgm.prgo abe
    kaoyv  Ydro. ,dr jdrro. yr l.purpm .qj.nn.bynf ,cnn ajdc.k. yd. p.jribcycrb
    yday o.jgp.o lprmrycrbov  Jrmmcym.by yr 'gancyf n.aeo yr kcjyrpf axrk. ann
    rxoyajn.ov  Yd. jdann.bi.o uaj.e xf .mlnrf.pow cbocygycrbow abe rpiabc;aycrbo
    p.'gcp. jrnn.i. ipaegay.o yr ,rpt jrbocoy.bynf cb yd. lgpogcy ru ip.ayb.oov

    [/quote]

    ------------------------------------ CAPTCHA: tation

    And with the Colemak keyboard which is supposed to be superior to the Dvorak keyboard, another virtuous triumph:

    Ghf y;;ypglkugufr ;pfrfkg typ gysaj'r cyiifdf dpaslagfr apf klmfpylr aks
    varg.  Ghyrf why chyyrf gy ;fptypm fxcfiifkgij wuii achufvf ghf pfcydkuguyk
    ghag rfclpfr ;pymyguykr.  Cymmugmfkg gy qlaiugj ifasr gy vucgypj abyvf aii
    ybrgacifr.  Ghf chaiifkdfr tacfs bj fm;iyjfpr, ukruglguykr, aks ypdakuzaguykr
    pfqlupf cyiifdf dpaslagfr gy wype cykrurgfkgij uk ghf ;lprlug yt dpfagkfrr.

    QWERTY to DVORAK converter: http://wbic16.xedoloh.com/dvorak.html

    QWERTY to COLEMAK Converter: http://colemak.com/Converter

  • (cs) in reply to silent d
    silent d:
    Sunday Ironfoot:
    I'm what you might call a 'Professional Hunt 'n' Peck' typist.

    Hunt 'n Peck is not enough, I prefer Search and Destroy.

    I didn't know you can do that!

  • Sebastian (unregistered) in reply to halber_mensch
    halber_mensch:
    because I knew how our population of foreigner TAs operated

    What does it matter where they're from? Is their being foreigners supposed to prejudice us in some way? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that this is an unnecessary detail.

  • Plays Too Much Scrabble (unregistered) in reply to Spectre
    Spectre:
    Dangit, Alex, I can't believe there wasn't a single "aa"!
    A kind of hawaiian lava is a perfectly valid word, thus not affecting Alex's accuracy.
  • Mr (unregistered) in reply to ReptilianSamurai
    ReptilianSamurai:
    (qwerty having been designed to prevent type-writers from locking up because people typed too fast on them)

    I think that's an urban myth. The keys were chosen so that the most used characters weren't close (so that they didn't lock up). Reducing the speed had nothing to do with it.

  • (cs) in reply to Markp

    If a programming major (or anyone else) is typing a paragraph in Microsoft Word, he or she will not type "enter" after every line. From what the original poster said, this was a generic "touch typing" course, and without knowing the context of what you are typing, you cannot know the correct convention for hitting enter.

  • kelvo (unregistered)

    Excuse me, look for the mispelled word -- "insitutions" from below .

    WTF.

    ================== The opportunities present for today's college graduates are numerous and vast. Those who choose to perform excellently will achieve the recognition that secures promotions. Commitment to quality leads to victory above all obstacles. The challenges faced by employers, insitutions, and organizations require college graduates to work consistently in the pursuit of greatness.

    =====================

  • ��˫��Ƥ (unregistered)

    Э��������˫��Ƥ��˾��������˫��Ƥ��˾,��רҵ����˫��Ƥ��˾,��˫��Ƥҵ����ϵר�߹�����˫��Ƥ��˾

  • Dan Grossman (unregistered) in reply to krupa

    PAWS/Oregon Trail guy:

    Did you go to Warwick Elementary in Bucks County, Pennsylvania? E-mail me, djg38 [at] drexel [dot] edu.

  • chucky (unregistered) in reply to halber_mensch

    Being her I'd point out that you had used a DOUBLY linked list, not a link list (being less memory efficient ;-)).

  • nikesalelin (unregistered)

    www.nikesalesite.com Sale Cheap Shoes, Nike Shoes, Adidas Shoes , Bags, Glasses, Jerseys. Free Shipping

    www.nikesalesite.com is an online marketplace to purchase high quality fashion footwear at an economical price. It strives to unite the savvy shopper with the ideal pair of shoes to meet their every need. www.nikesalesite.com sets itself apart from other online retailers by offering:

    • a distinct selection of shoes in every size available
    • free shipping
    • excellent customer service
    • on demand answers to questions. nikesalesite.com understands that shoes do not fit the same way by every manufacturer therefore, we offer a 'no questions asked' return policy. Also, if the product you are looking for is not on our website, contact us and we will help you find what you are looking for. www.nikesalesite.com does not follow the fashion, we walk along with it!
  • nikesalelin (unregistered)

    Sale Cheap Shoes, Nike Shoes, Adidas Shoes , Bags, Glasses, Jerseys. Free Shipping Come on!Top quality and Lower price for wholesale! Free Shipping! Don't miss! Newest adidas shoes with best price! Low price! high-quality!! good prestige !!! Newest Nike Shoes, Adidas Shoes have come on!! Welcome to start business from small order! website: http://www.nikesalesite.com

  • BrandonPhone (unregistered)
    Comment held for moderation.

Leave a comment on “WTF-U's Typing Test”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #209795:

« Return to Article