Gen Z-ers Are Computer Whizzes. Just Don't Ask Them to Type. (msn.com) 149
Typing skills among Generation Z have declined sharply, despite their digital nativity, according to recent data. The U.S. Department of Education reports that only 2.5% of high school graduates in 2019 took a keyboarding course, down from 44% in 2000.
Many educators assume Gen Z already possesses typing skills due to their familiarity with technology. However, access to devices doesn't automatically translate into proficiency, WSJ reports. Some schools are addressing this gap by introducing typing competitions and formal instruction when students receive Chromebooks.
The shift towards mobile devices is contributing to the decline in traditional typing skills. Canvas, an online learning platform, reports that 39% of student assignments between March and May were uploaded from mobile devices, contrasting sharply with teachers who completed over 90% of their work on computers.
Many educators assume Gen Z already possesses typing skills due to their familiarity with technology. However, access to devices doesn't automatically translate into proficiency, WSJ reports. Some schools are addressing this gap by introducing typing competitions and formal instruction when students receive Chromebooks.
The shift towards mobile devices is contributing to the decline in traditional typing skills. Canvas, an online learning platform, reports that 39% of student assignments between March and May were uploaded from mobile devices, contrasting sharply with teachers who completed over 90% of their work on computers.
Sounds like a job for... (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like a job for Mavis Beacon!
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yeah, but everyone complains about the high costs of paying prevailing-wages and having to do all the record-keeping to ensure that all the subcontractors are doing the same.
Oh wait, that's Davis-Bacon.
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My high school had a mandatory typing class, and we used IBM Selectric typewriters. Had to unlearn putting two spaces after every period.
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Had to unlearn putting two spaces after every period.
HaHa, I've reinstated the practice - it makes multi sentenced paragraphs a lot clearer to read (although admittedly, I'm a fool for assuming anybody reads past the first sentence).
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And yet if you look at your own comment, you'll see but one space. Double whitespace is ignored in HTML by default, so anything going back thru that layer is gonna get spit out with a single space unless the web app in question explicitly puts NBSP codes in
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I took an optional typing class in high school. Optional because it was for the "business track" students, rather than college track, or vocational track. Just one semester only. Manual typewriters, and having to really put some force into each key stroke, compared to an electric, really reinforced the muscle memory. It was a great class and a skill I have used most days since then. When I was in the computer terminal rooms at the university, my friends would look over and say that I must be typing rand
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I had a typing class in a whole lab of obsolete Apple II computers. Perfect use for old tech.
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I still do it if only for the fact that it triggers the younger generations :P
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I remember when Mavis Beacon came out. It was a year after my typing class and the new class got to use it.
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Haha!
I still never kracked my original PC version. Damn copy protection. Did anyone every get a KryoFlox image? I wonder if DosBox emulates copy protection?
In the Apple 2 world we have the .woz format which can replicate any copy protection because it stores every bit. Anything similar for IBM PC's?
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Yes. In the PC world, when you copy a file you copy all of it, byte for byte. There aren't any special files connected with normal files on a PC that you have to find and copy. Anything like that is part of the copy protection and is put there by the company selling the software.
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Some PC games with copy protection had a non-standard formatting on the diskette so the program would check if the number of sectors was correct and refuse to run the game if it was not. So the DOS copy routine would copy every bit of the program from disk to disk but it would not necessarily duplicate the structure of disk sectors.
If It Ain't Got A GUI (Score:5, Insightful)
Then Gen-Z types are totally lost.
And we always wondered why Micro$haft made Windows Server administration tasks all point & click
Re:If It Ain't Got A GUI (Score:4, Insightful)
It has been such a great help to me over my professional career.
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I hated it when my folks MADE me do it....but I am SO thankful now that they had me take typing in Jr. High.....
It has been such a great help to me over my professional career.
I let AI write my resumes & CV now. It spellchecks better than I do. /s
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Or at least it says it does when you ask it to check ;)
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AI says "You're coed look write to me."
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I hated it when my folks MADE me do it....but I am SO thankful now that they had me take typing in Jr. High.....
It has been such a great help to me over my professional career.
People had to make you do it? Criminy. I was *BEGGING* for a typing class by the time they would let me take one. This was way pre-internet days. Apple II+ was the machine we learned on, state of the art, just came out. I wanted to write. And I wanted to code. And I hated how slow I was naturally. I had already had several years of musical instruments, and once the concept clicked in my head, "Oh, it's just like learning different fingerings for the same chords, just not all hit at the same time," I was off
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LOL...trust me...it was WAAAAAAY pre-internet days for me too.
I dunno if there was even an Apple I out when I was taking it.
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Ancient Royal manual typewriters in Jr. High.
Of course, the muscle memory is still there, which means I literally pound the keyboard, because that's how I learned to type.
We used to call that "steam powered". (Score:2)
Took typing in Junior High. When I got to High School, they literally said that didn't count. I took typing in High School. It was an easy credit and I ended up on the proud side of sixty words per minute error free - I could hit eighty and still be under the five error limit in a five minute test back then.
I had to learn touch 10-key on my own, but it didn't take long to hit 10,000ks/hr. Some of my earliest employment was as a data entry clerk, I was even a keypunch operator for just over a year befor
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Technically, if an Apple computer existed, then it was not "pre internet". It was just before internet was popular with the masses. ARPANET was around, and linked up to at least one other network, and thus was an "internet".
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Typing is a skill used almost every day for a programmer. Or in this day and age, used every day for just about everybody working in an office. It just makes sense to know how to do it right.
Yes, I do see a lot of untrained typists who get by, they can type at a reasonable speed, only they could be so much better. My college friend types normally with his left hand but then uses only his index finger on his right hand, and is able to type quickly. It just looks weird and I know he could be twice as fast
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yeah. I take care of computer networks and even as GUIs have intruded into the operational elements for basics, to do any real troubleshooting on even a heavily software-defined network still requires a lot of CLI. And obviously setting up the network to begin with requires a ton of it. And that's if it's a brand new deployment without having to consider existing infrastructure that must be kept in-service and isn't trying to do incredibly complicated things like MPLS or VXLAN or the like.
That said I did
Re:If It Ain't Got A GUI (Score:5, Insightful)
Then Gen-Z types are totally lost.
And we always wondered why Micro$haft made Windows Server administration tasks all point & click
Yeah the "Gen-Z are computer whizzes" is horseshit. They're whizzes at adapting to the latest phone, pad, or gizmo. They suck at using actual computers. If it's not baked into a dumbed-down IoT device, they're lost. They don't even understand computer basics like directory structure concepts [theverge.com].
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Don't count on directory structures remaining fixed. The switch from hard disks to persistent-RAM opens up new possibilities. COW wasn't possible until storage space seemed unlimited. Who knows what persistent-RAM will lead to. Remember how surprising it was when hash tables replaced B+Trees as the most efficient search method.
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Yeah the "Gen-Z are computer whizzes" is horseshit.
Was going to say something similar. Being nimble with point-and-click apps doesn't make you a whiz; they're designed for ease of use.
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Then Gen-Z types are totally lost.
And we always wondered why Micro$haft made Windows Server administration tasks all point & click
Yeah the "Gen-Z are computer whizzes" is horseshit. They're whizzes at adapting to the latest phone, pad, or gizmo. They suck at using actual computers. If it's not baked into a dumbed-down IoT device, they're lost. They don't even understand computer basics like directory structure concepts [theverge.com].
Their UI existence, has been touchscreen-enabled. Didn’t even have to learn what a mouse does. Apple infamously made them question what a “computer” even is. And the reason file/folder structures are foreign to them, is because the App Store Install button replaced any and all need or responsibility to learn what setup.exe is, or where it got saved.
In short, their computing experience is quite “refined” in the sense that it’s tuned for a toddler to use. Literally.
Re:If It Ain't Got A GUI (Score:4, Informative)
And we always wondered why Micro$haft made Windows Server administration tasks all point & click
The ability to type and the ability to remember long strings of command line arguments are not related. Incidentally you can still administer WIndows Server from the command line if you want. It's all still there for you. But fuck Microsoft for giving users more options, we should all use computers only the way *you* decree.
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If your system's made to do work
You gotta learn to use a CLI
That GUI thing is hot but it's for gaming, by and by
So dust off that old keyboard
Learn to read text with your eyes
If you plan to get that work done, you gotta learn to use a CLI
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If you plan to get that work done, you gotta learn to use a CLI
That's what she said.
I learned to type at 55 WPM (Score:2)
Then after about a year of practice you'll be pushing 65 to 80 words per minute.
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"In 2 and 1/2 weeks using a off-brand typing tutor program I bought at CompUSA for 15 bucks. You don't need a freaking class to learn to type."
This is true of most everything and is why self-taught folks in technology generally outperform their degreed counterparts. Turns out 'self-teaching' is the same universal skillset utilized to solve all real world problems.
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In 2 and 1/2 weeks using a off-brand typing tutor program I bought at CompUSA for 15 bucks. You don't need a freaking class to learn to type. Put on some music fire up typing tutor program and in a couple of weeks you'll be touch typing.
Then after about a year of practice you'll be pushing 65 to 80 words per minute.
Yeah, I can type at around 80wpm if I am really going, but have never taken a formal typing class. I just used computers a lot as a kid because my dad always had them around, so I learned to type that way. He is the same way, even though his entire adult life has been spent working at computers, mostly writing C code, he's never learned to type formally either.
What it does mean however is that neither of us can transcribe a document for love or money, but thankfully that is not such a large requirement as i
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Not guaranteed.
I've been touch typing for decades, and I still don't type all that fast. (I'd guess around 40 wpm, but I haven't measured in decades. I think I may have gotten slower.)
OTOH, mostly what I do is programming, and typing speed is NOT what I push for.
Re:I learned to type at 55 WPM (Score:5, Interesting)
Gen Z don't care about typing, and they are far from tech whizzes, hell most don't understand tech in the least. Just because you can use an app or grew up with tech, doesn't mean shit. Everyone grows up around cars and eventually learns to drive, most don't have a clue how a car works, either ICE or EV. Ask them any technical details about how some piece of tech might work and they'll fumble and be lost. I'd love to see a real study on this, but I'm betting the percentage of Gen Z (and younger) that truly understand tech is about the same percentage as Millennials, Gen X and even Boomers. People either get it or they don't. I work with plenty of people who have been taught tech, but they still don't get it. I know a Gen Xer who deals with cloud stuff, terraform, etc and they don't understand basic file paths. Same for the InfoSec space, I see a ton there that have little to no business sitting behind a keyboard for anything beyond data entry, but here they are handling security.
It's also not just Gen Z that can't type, I'd guesstimate 80% of my co-workers struggle with typing. I pound out paragraphs in the time it takes my fellow, Millennial and Gen X co-workers to type a sentence or two and the few boomers still working are even worse.
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Agreed. There's confusion between simply being able to use something well and understanding how things works and being able to do something with that knowledge.
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I took formalized typing classes in school.
Started on IBM Selectrics, and then using Typing Tutor IV on Apple //'s.
For a long time, I'd be somewhere in the 125-130wpm range. These days, it's closer to 100-110wpm. Getting old sucks.
can i flex my mob as bt kbd lol (Score:2)
Just give them an app that turns their phone's keyboard into a bluetooth keyboard, they'll be fine.
Although, it would need contextual autocomplete, otherwise coding would be a total nightmare for them.
"Gen Z-ers Are Computer Whizzes." (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: "Gen Z-ers Are Computer Whizzes." (Score:3)
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If they can't code without an IDE or an AI assistant, in assembly, on any instruction set, on any given Sunday, they're not computer whizzes.
Re: "Gen Z-ers Are Computer Whizzes." (Score:2)
Re: "Gen Z-ers Are Computer Whizzes." (Score:4, Insightful)
Arguably, you'll find more highly skilled computer users amongst Gen-X. Mostly because they had to actually learn how they work to even use the ones they had access to in childhood. But that will be a very uneven distribution since there were also many in that generation that "successfully" avoided computers into adulthood.
Gen-Z probably has a more even distribution and on average better skills at USING computers (at least smartphones and tablets) but it doesn't seem to extend to UNDERSTANDING computers.
Re:"Gen Z-ers Are Computer Whizzes." (Score:5, Interesting)
Stop right there. There may be some computer whizzes in Gen Z, but I haven't met too many of them yet.
What's real funny to me about this article saying they're "whizzes" is the number of stories we've had about them not understanding some very fundamental basics of computing. They can whip a phone out and do about anything, sure. And probably four times faster than I can do the same things. But they don't know what files are or that there are such things as folders. They don't know about internal components in the system. They don't really seem to grasp the concept that it's not just what you see, that there are ones and zeros in the background making all this happen. They grew up with computers all around them, so to them they just "exist." There's no understanding of them required, and for the less inquisitive among them, they don't go seeking that understanding.
There are a few I've met that did get inquisitive enough to go investigating, and yes, those folks are actually what I would call computer whizzes. But, those folks also don't match any of the previous, "Gen Z doesn't understand" articles about computing. They had a grasp of all the basics and sometimes more. Then their's folks like the daughter of a friend who couldn't type a sentence in under an hour on a keyboard, but can thumb-type faster than any adult I've ever met. When presented with my wife's MacBook she had photo studio up and was taking selfies in about fifteen seconds, and my wife didn't even know she had photo studio on her system.
Most younger folks are great at doing the things they want to do on computing devices. Most of those things involve the superficial upper layer. Selfies, texting, photo sharing, and social networking apps. Get deeper than that and you start getting a lot of blank looks until you step away and they can get back to texting and sharing photos.
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I had a kid in one of our NOCs bragging about how fast & smart his generation was with computing devices. I said "No, you guys can type faster than other generations with your thumbs but if you ever meet someone like me in an actual typing contest you'll get smoked even if you
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Basically, Gen Z is the Pakled from StarTrek.
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what files are or that there are such things as folders
And why should they? Its not like those things really exist. In the end there are blocks or depending on the underlying hardware perhaps just individual bits. We chose to organize groups of those things into files/folders/directories because those were physical analogs we had familiarity with.
Not many kids today been in an office space with 10s of file cases lined up along 100s of feet of wall. So why should arrange information in such a fashion on computer systems, any more than a 3.5" floppy should be t
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But they don't know what files are or that there are such things as folders.
I have a challenge for you: Do they need to?
No really think about it. The computers adopted the structure of files and folders not because it was the best way of doing things, but because technology mimicked real life at the start. There's a reason the "new" button is usually a blank sheet of paper, the "save" button a floppy disc (though that may be lost on GenZ too), the "copy" button is two sheets of paper, and that folders look identical to manilla folders complete with the tag at the top to write text
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I actually think this does make them computer whizzes, as annoying as it sounds. At the end of the day, computers are a tool for getting things done, just like a bicycle. The highest layer of a tool's operation (riding the bicycle) is the most efficient layer to operate and often the best way to make money (deliver the groceries). Trying to understand the deeper layers of operation is not necessary for the vast majority - it wastes their limited time and is most definitely a form of gatekeeping*. *A word that gen-Z has rediscovered. It is very applicable.
Until the first time you need to put your chain back on or change a tire. There's a reason knowledge is a positive thing. There's also a reason that people say there's a negative aspect to only knowing the superficial layers of what you need to know.
Granted, this comes back to a longer argument I've had with a group of rather philosophical friends: Is specialization a negative? If we lived in a truly cooperative society, where all were attempting to contribute to some larger overall goal, or some larger pur
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Gen-Z would immediately reply that there is a very good Youtube video for both. It is painful to hear, but this shows appropriate resourceful problem solving skills.
I have this conversation with friends I know to be self-reliant and independent. I find joy in doing some manual things myself, and it produces a great deal of self-assurance and safety, but I'm willing to bet our society produces more wealth
No, this makes them fairly bright chimps. (Score:2)
Or, less complimentary, well trained LLM's. Their interactions with their handheld general computing devices seldom rises above the level of trained responses to basic stimuli.
This trait is not exclusive to Gen Z, but it is disproportionately present there, IMHO.
Re: "Gen Z-ers Are Computer Whizzes." (Score:2)
That's why I don't worry about my job as I keep aging. They'll never be a threat and we'll always be needed.
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Or just about anything normal with computers (Score:5, Interesting)
Everyone in my social network (older Millennials and Gen X) who deals with Gen Z complains about how unbearably incompetent Gen Z tends to be with computers. Literally not knowing what a file is at all. Having no idea that there is a strong correlation between "more open windows = more apps = fewer resources available = slower system." Stuff like that.
They are also the most likely to fall victim to online scams of any generation today [unitusccu.com].
There are certainly plenty who don't fit that stereotype, but the consensus is that they're like a much worse version of the Boomers but without any excuses related to age or exposure to tech.
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Or having their web browser setup to open 3 bazillion tabs cuz they don't know what bookmarks are and are too lazy to take a second or two to look for something.
I can hear them Gen-Z types now - Mom ... I CAN wear this to school ... cuz I wore it every other day this week to school. while slowly wiping off the fast food residue.
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Literally not knowing what a file is at all.
Tell them to plug in the network cable when they're in the office at their desk. It's as if you're speaking Swahili to them.
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Literally not knowing what a file is at all.
Why do they need to? We mock them but the reality is the way data is presented to them makes the concept of file and folder structures somewhat irrelevant to them. They load music on their phone and they don't go browsing folders, they go searching albums and artists. They download something from the internet and it shows up in the Downloads section. This is how modern OSes present content to them. The understanding of file and folder structures is becoming increasingly irrelevant, and funny enough the peop
Re:Or just about anything normal with computers (Score:5, Insightful)
but without any excuses related to age or exposure to tech.
No I think that a few of us lived in the golden age of understanding computers. The OS was simpler, and would shit the bed often enough you needed to understand it so you could fix it, which you could. The PC had just been liberated from a zoo of bespoke mainframes, and you could own both computer and software. Smartphones weren't a thing (with their history of being owned by the phone company).
Space was precious, and programs were small, to the extent you could get software as printed code on a magazine, and type it into your computer yourself -- which also meant you could edit it. No 100 GB games which have copy protection and must call home, and by the way you don't own it we said we sold it but it's just a license to use it as long as our platform and the game's server don't shut down.
So yeah, things are much better now, which also means any idiot can clicky the button. And so very much cheaper now, that anyone can buy them, even people who hardly care about them. Even if there really are more tech-savvy people in the younger generation, they'd be camouflaged and you wouldn't be able to find the nerd.
Flip the Curriculum (Score:2)
I propose flipping the two. Teach kids keyboarding in grade school so they don't develop bad habits early. In middle school, teach cursive as an art form and work on developing unique and beautiful writing.
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In my area, they've given up on cursive entirely. I taught my kids enough to sign their names, which is all they're ever likely to use cursive for.
Another generation and it'll have to be a thumbprint or retinal scan, because the only thing kids will be able to write will be an x.
They stopped teaching cursive in the US (Score:2)
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You don't need cursive, as long as the character recognition software on the touchscreen can understand your writing.
Nobody else is going to actually read your scribble.
(Do they still have a course in med school to teach MD's to write illegibly ?)
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Cursing, on the other hand....
35 WPM. With Thumbs! (Score:2)
10 years ago and friend and I got into a conversation with a couple of servers at the restaurant we frequented. I asked one of them about her typing speed on her phone, as compared to a standard keyboard. She said she was hunt-and-peck on a standard keyboard, but was very fast with her thumbs on her phone. Having taken typing class myself in grades 9 and 10, I remembered the basics of how to measure typing speed. We put her to the test, and she clocked in around 35 wpm, after subtracting 5 for a typo.
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point taken, but 35wpm is still super slow compared to anyone competent on an actual keyboard.
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Very true - I type about 100 WPM. But I seldom (if ever) hit that speed when coding.
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What speed would you get coding on a phone? Special characters? Ugh.
Two thumbs ... (Score:2)
Not just gen Z (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm 71 and I had a long and very successful career writing code, and I still do it
I can't touch type
I tried, but never could acquire the skill. I can't play the piano either
None of this mattered. Typing is the least important part of creating software
I was good at finding simple solutions, designing easy to follow logic, avoiding bugs, and when they arose, finding them
Creating software is about understanding the problem, finding a strategy to solve it, implementing the strategy, then refining, testing and perfecting it
BTW, I once saw a video of the famous scifi author Arthur C Clarke. He typed like I do. Two fingers
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I've been coding for 40 years and I can't, either. Now, I do use all my fingers, but I have to look at keyboard to type.
My kids, on the other hand, Gen Zers, can touch type. My older son can do about 75 wpm. My younger son goes out of his way to annoy me: he can type about 120wpm while looking at me (i.e. not even remotely at the screen), and the words are generally something like "My dad should really learn how to touch type".
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We had typing class when data entry was the common tech job. Now we have erm, AI query classes? when data repetition is the common tech job.
Gen Z-ers Are Computer Whizzes (Score:2)
Are they though?
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No, they don't even know what a file or directory is. *1 And they can't even tell time unless it is digital *2
*2 https://forums.macrumors.com/t... [macrumors.com]
*1 http://www.reddit.com/r/Progra... [reddit.com]
My typing skills result in reduced phone use (Score:3)
I just can't using my phone with its crappy "keyboard" and limited screen, plus it's still tainted with "your phone doesn't belong to you and neither does the software" from back when phones came from phone company.
AI as keyboard (Score:2)
Before Keyboards were standard (Score:3)
I am a 77 year old geek, who did NOT take typing in high school. However, when I started college in engineering I got a portable typewriter and the typing book that was used in the city schools at that time. I practiced some, but not enough to really think I could type. However, I was able to write reports and other papers using all ten fingers on more or less the right keys. I also had to keypunch my programs on two different model keypunch machines and for the PDP-8 lab we used what I think was an ASR 33 TTY for punching our ASCII tapes. This was all between 1965 and 1970
After graduation I enlisted in the Air Force and my first assignment during the Vietnam War was to punch the cards needed to update the data base on the system that monitored sensors along the Ho Chi Minh trail. This was a daily update just before dark and it HAD to be right. I punched and verified every card.
My next assignment found me using both keypunch machines and terminals for a Univac 1108/1110 computer and terminals connected to a DEC PDP-10. For each one of these the keyboards, other than the letter keys, were often very different.
In 1976, after service, I worked for an organization that had both dumb terminals connected to and IBM 360 system, more keypunch machines and a bit latter IBM 3270 green screen terminals for programming.
I was in that last job for several years before my boss even had a hint that I did not touch type. I could WRITE or COMPOSE on any keyboard with very little problems but the one skill I never learned, nor really ever needed, was the ability to transcribe from a document, either hand written or typed, using any of the multiple keyboards that I had to use regularly.
Does having a smartphone glued to your face? (Score:3)
Technology-literate does not mean computer-whiz.
What happens when you sit them down in front of a computer with a keyboard running Windows? Now what happens when something invariably goes wrong?
Gen X are the OG Whiz Kids (Score:2)
Gen X are the OG Neckbeards (Score:2)
MY generation invented neckbeards and basement dwellers.
I knew dude 30 years ago that had a goon cave before it was even called that!
Aslan: Do not cite the Deep Magic to me, Witch! I was there when it was written.
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[cue the "I was there, Gandalf" meme]
https://i.redd.it/v1ogtkpatsz7... [i.redd.it]
Or even a mouse (Score:2)
And these days, keyboarding should be mandatory (Score:2)
to graduate. You can't function as an adult any more without basic computer skills, even as a ditch digger.
The only class I took in high school that I use as an adult is typing. (And I only took that because I had to have a "manual arts" credit to graduate, and the only other class open for the slot was a welding class that, the previous semester, had welded the door to the shop closed. From the inside. And were getting ready to do the same to a school bus, also from the inside, when the teacher thought may
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I took typing in summer between grades 10 and 11 at my own initiative. My handwriting was always poor, and my school papers usually got marked down for that. This was in a New Jersey summer classroom with no air conditioning, manual typewriters, and a teacher with a heavy regional accent. This became somewhat useful immediately, but within a year became very useful when I had access to a computer. The resounding mechanical feedback of a keypunch, and later of 33 and 35 Teletypes, helped.
Access to a Wang
Comfortable with technology (Score:2)
Don't confuse a generation's comfort with technology with an expertise. Everyone on my block can drive a car. They are generally all very comfortable with using a car to do things. But none of them are race drivers. (unless they are secretly The Stig)
I think it's really great that Gen Z are comfortable with technology. It means the generation that follows them won't have to teach old people how to sign on to the bank's website or whatever. Like the problem that Millennials and Gen Xers face, such as trying
Not computers, "apps" (Score:2)
They're great with GUI apps and knowing which niche tool is good for what - creative tasks and the like.
They're not so great at "computers", aka knowing how to operate them in a logical, rational fashion. Troubleshooting? Forget about it.
Mostly, they seem even more lost than Boomers when it comes to rational troubleshooting and investigation. It's definitely made harder by the fact that "just search the internet" or "rtfm" doesn't much apply because a) the internet is now trash, and b) the manual rarely exi
Typing is old, but good (Score:2)
I blame all these new-fangled languages they use.
Much better with the proper standards which enforce strict typing.
(btw, how do you indent with tabs on a phone?)
Or configure sshd_config... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's amazing how many "agile devs" I know that are completely helpless when the IDE on their MacBook Pro won't launch, or they can't find a network share, or or or.... And the number of would-be devs who don't understand the fundamentals of networking, or configuring SSH, or apt/apt-get/yum/freebsd-update-ing their production platforms, or how many of them have been stymied by versioning issues within Ruby Gems or dozens of other npms/packages/modules in Node and other languages. As the old-timers die off nothing is replacing those abstracted layers of programming knowledge with anything meaningful. Keyboard skills are the most visible but knowledge of basic electricity, electronics and TTL logic are right up there, they're just invisible ...for the moment.
QWERTY anachronistic (Score:2)
Sure, I took a typing course in the 1980s as I saw computers as the future and was right.
But now? I don't use a keyboard on the small screens we interact with today, I use a hybrid tap/swipe nine keys which is MUCH faster and easier to see without reading glasses.
Nowadays professionals type less and dictate more, all my doctors have switched to audio transcription instead.
Hopefully in the near future direct brain interfaces because standard and typing becomes entirely moot.
Rubbish (Score:2)
>Gen Z-ers Are Computer Whizzes
Absolute rubbish. Ask any Gen Z-er where their files are stored, and how.
They wont even understand the first question
Metrics? (Score:2)
Do typing courses in high school exist? (Score:2)
No one takes typing in high school anymore because typing on keyboards is required in middle school and often in elementary school. My kids were given typing assignments on a typing website starting in the 3rd grade. Basing typing competence on enrollment in high school typing classes (they don't exist in our local high school) is a dinosaur way of thinking.
Only elective course I remember (Score:2)
taking in Junior High. That skill is still valid.
Re: familiarity with technology. (Score:2)
Sysadmins don't really need much in the way of typing skills [pinimg.com].
s/Sysadmins/MS-Windows "Sysadmins" (Score:2)