There are, or used to be, a lot of sci-fi or adventure movies or TV shows in which a computer expert was pitted against a powerful foe, often a giant computer or a computerized consciousness. There would usually be a climactic showdown in which the computer expert had to defeat the foe using his skill. This would often be done by typing really fast.
I always wondered about this – can you really accomplish things on a computer by typing really fast? The type of things that might be crucial to an adventure story, that is, like breaking into a computerized security system, or affecting the characteristics of a virtual world.
In short, could you actually do anything significant just because you were typing really fast? Or could you engage in a command-for-command duel against a computerized entity or an opposing programmer that would require you to be quick with a keyboard?
Not that my question is limited to the concept of using the alphanumeric keyboard – I’m not talking about mouses or other specialized controls that are designed to directly control specific functions.
Sure. I am one of those people who do this. On our bespoke system, I can do stuff really fast.
It’s all about learning keyboard shortcuts. The mouse slows you down significantly, so the more keyboard shortcuts you learn the faster you can work at a computer.
Well, I guess you could modify control systems, change the parameters of something, enable or disable firewall rules, shut down various systems and things like that. Also, copy files, delete evidence , change passwords, delete accounts… is that enough for you?
There are many things you can do from a command line, if you know what you are doing. Not that any of that ever has to be done in such an expediant manner in real life, but hey, it’s a movie.
I used to think everyone that used LINUX could type WAY faster than me, until someone shared the trick that hitting the TAB key would auto-complete file and path names for you. Now even I look like an elite hacker to untrained eyes.
Yes, but could you become the hero of your own personal adventure doing that? Could you duel with a government security system? Could you fight with a computerized intelligence over the makeup and content of a virtual reality?
DOS… My kingdom for DOS… or Linux… or any other command line program.
In short… if the OS you are using is Command line, and is not GUI, then you can speed though things. I hardly remember win 3.1 and 386es …
In fact, I still perfer to use the keyboard. You dont have to ‘move’ anything to keep pressing keys. A Mouse begs for choppy action.
Well, from personal experience, if I get really engrossed in a deep session of code-hacking, I’ve been known to type really fast in the process. I get so absorbed in what I’m doing that my fingers just move faster and faster. It’s almost a trance-like state. It’s also utterly exhausting after a few hours. Heh… I’m sure some of you other coders know exactly what I’m talking about.
Maybe not saving the world stuff. But where I work we have macros that run macros that run macros.
A good example, which occured today, of needing to work fast is where I had to open up, fix, and then close one macro before another macro, in the process of running, could get to tthe point of running that macro.
One thing I love doing is solving problrms that other colleagues are having just by pressing a few keys.
I long for the day when our company allows us to set up a home access system (such as remote desktop controll) so I can show off to my colleagues from home.
I type 85 wpm (while correcting errors at the same time - just had it tested). My best friend, a medical transcriptionist, easily tops over 115 wpm using her macros. Maybe not going to save the world or be put into a movie, but she sure makes pretty good money
Ah, that brings back memories. I really need to get back into some kind of job that requires more coding than hacking out an occasional Perl script to do some regexpr sorting and filtering of data files.
I love that trance state where the code just flows from brain to fingers to screen without pause or doubt. It all comes a screaming halt, of course, when you try to execute or compile and find that you forgot to include the appropriate header, but until then…it’s like sex without the fumbling with buttons.
Anything that can be done on a computer can be done via the keyboard. The same is not true for the mouse. Some of the things you can do on the keyboard can be activated using the mouse, but not all of them, and even when it can be done, all the mouse is doing is activating code that someone else typed in previously. The mouse never “directly controls specific functions”.
But you also asked about speed. In most cases, typing your code faster will just mean that you get the job done sooner (provided that the speed doesn’t come with an increase in your mistake rate). If you’re somehow competing against a computer in “typing” speed, the computer is almost certainly going to win, since it can transfer characters internally far faster than you can transfer them through the keyboard. If the computer has to spend considerable time on something else (such as deciding what characters to send in the first place), then it’s conceivable that you could be faster, but it’s much more likely that the computer can’t do it in the first place (or at least, not without significant boosts in AI). Almost anything that a computer can do at all, it can do much faster than any human could ever hope for.
Of course, there’s yet another possibility, that you’re actually competing against another human. One could have a single computer system to which two users are connected, who are working towards opposed ends (like, say, each one is attempting to deny the other access to the machine). In this case, yes, whichever one works faster will obviously have an advantage.
Interesting OT Factoid
Ted McElroy IIRC copyed radio telegraph code on a manual typewriter at 75.2 wpm, error free in 1939. IF he had had access to one of today’s computer keybord…
Very fast as compared to what?
, change passwords, delete accounts… is that enough for you?
