I used to teach math in the local school. The kids had a great interest in 3D printing because I had a few fun items in my classroom that I had 3D printed. I decided to spend a couple of weeks teaching a bit of CAD through having the kids spend it designing a personalized key chain to print.
It took me 3 days of class time to teach them how to use a mouse…They couldn’t grasp the idea that a touch screen and CAD don’t go together, you need that mouse to make it work. It quickly became apparent that things quickly became difficult for them if it doesn’t have a touch screen.
And while some classes are always a bit better than others, there was always a noticeable number of them that struggled with using a mouse.
To be fair: I switched to Linux 6 years ago. I’m using a tiling windowmanager, a lot of custom scripts, a different keyboardlayout with six instead of two layers (great for writing greek math, and other symbols) and an enthusiastic emacs user. I know the my System in and out. As a CS end math student, I know a fair bit about a Computer. But when A sit in front of an ordinary windows PC, I am a little bit upset. I stumble a lot of times over the thought: “You don’t have a keyboard shortcut for this! You have to use the Mouse, to switch Windows or you have to click yourself trough a menu to change this setting. There are no man pages you can search with regex” I hate it!
I was being sarcastic. If a shortcut requires 5 buttons, it’s it really a shortcut? Press Win to open search and type link will probably also do the same thing
“an enthusiastic emacs user” Well, there’s your problem! (Sorry, I couldn’t resist the poke)
To be serious, Windows and that mouse are just tools-- same as any Linux distro is. A means to an end. Nothing more. There is nothing to be miffed about when you need to use that tool. Be proficient with all your tools. And when you need to use a tool, don’t be concerned about comparing it to the other tools. It diminishes you skills with that tool and and offers no gain to the solution.
But being stuck using windows when its not the right tool for the job is like having to use a pickaxe when you could be using q jackhammer, only the idiots in procurement don’t like power tools.
I mean i guess you must be pretty competent with an abacus then in case you ever get stuck somewhere where they wont let you ise a calculator? Your argument that people should spend time becoming proficient with inferior tools just because they are tools doesn’t really hold up. If something gets the job done better and more efficiently it makes the other tools obsolete. Thats the nature of technology.
I think that’s being a bit unfair to Windows. Some of its keyboard shortcuts are stupid, but it does have them. When it doesn’t, the problem is the application.
Some of the legacy keyboard shortcuts still survive to this day.
I live by Windows+R for the run dialogue.
If you populate %userprofile% with shortcuts named after keywords to your commonly used apps (eg fire.lnk for Firefox) then you can just slap Windows+R, type fire, Enter.
Generally, you’re totally on point, but I just wanted to drill into that mention about hotkeys for switching windows. You mean something other than alt+tab, ctrl+tab, and in some applications shift+brackets?
I haven’t run into the problem of people not being able to use a mouse - but I’ve found that very few young people are able to tell if something is saved on their own computer or being accessed over the internet. Saving or downloading files is not something they are familiar with. (Which I suppose is because a lot of modern software makes cloud stuff so silky smooth that people don’t notice it.)
I used to teach math in the local school. The kids had a great interest in 3D printing because I had a few fun items in my classroom that I had 3D printed. I decided to spend a couple of weeks teaching a bit of CAD through having the kids spend it designing a personalized key chain to print.
It took me 3 days of class time to teach them how to use a mouse…They couldn’t grasp the idea that a touch screen and CAD don’t go together, you need that mouse to make it work. It quickly became apparent that things quickly became difficult for them if it doesn’t have a touch screen.
And while some classes are always a bit better than others, there was always a noticeable number of them that struggled with using a mouse.
To be fair: I switched to Linux 6 years ago. I’m using a tiling windowmanager, a lot of custom scripts, a different keyboardlayout with six instead of two layers (great for writing greek math, and other symbols) and an enthusiastic emacs user. I know the my System in and out. As a CS end math student, I know a fair bit about a Computer. But when A sit in front of an ordinary windows PC, I am a little bit upset. I stumble a lot of times over the thought: “You don’t have a keyboard shortcut for this! You have to use the Mouse, to switch Windows or you have to click yourself trough a menu to change this setting. There are no man pages you can search with regex” I hate it!
It’s because Windows has to save its keyboard combinations for the important things, like opening a new LinkedIn tab.
CTRL - SHIFT - ALT - WIN - L opens linkedin.
Thanks, Captain Obvious. No need to post such common shortcuts like this
It was news to me. But then I haven’t used Windows more than trivially in years.
Gives me even less of a reason now.
I was being sarcastic. If a shortcut requires 5 buttons, it’s it really a shortcut? Press Win to open search and type link will probably also do the same thing
Gotcha.
I could totally believe Microsoft did some kind of stupid deal with LinkedIn.
LinkedIn was bought by Microsoft in 2016
It would probably helpfully suggest LinkedIn after you so much as type the L
Truly only the most useful of functions for this great operating system
“an enthusiastic emacs user” Well, there’s your problem! (Sorry, I couldn’t resist the poke)
To be serious, Windows and that mouse are just tools-- same as any Linux distro is. A means to an end. Nothing more. There is nothing to be miffed about when you need to use that tool. Be proficient with all your tools. And when you need to use a tool, don’t be concerned about comparing it to the other tools. It diminishes you skills with that tool and and offers no gain to the solution.
But being stuck using windows when its not the right tool for the job is like having to use a pickaxe when you could be using q jackhammer, only the idiots in procurement don’t like power tools.
Perhaps. But despite using Windows, you got the job done, right? Life is all about using the tools do have, rather than the ones you wished you had.
I mean i guess you must be pretty competent with an abacus then in case you ever get stuck somewhere where they wont let you ise a calculator? Your argument that people should spend time becoming proficient with inferior tools just because they are tools doesn’t really hold up. If something gets the job done better and more efficiently it makes the other tools obsolete. Thats the nature of technology.
I use Arch (btw) because it’s easy, simple, and beginner friendly
Absolutely lost in Windows, nothing ever works, and the documentation isn’t laid out well. Support is just sfc /scannow
This is why windows is here for a few games and Linux is for everything else.
I think that’s being a bit unfair to Windows. Some of its keyboard shortcuts are stupid, but it does have them. When it doesn’t, the problem is the application.
Some of the legacy keyboard shortcuts still survive to this day.
I live by Windows+R for the run dialogue.
If you populate %userprofile% with shortcuts named after keywords to your commonly used apps (eg fire.lnk for Firefox) then you can just slap Windows+R, type fire, Enter.
Win+X is also great. Especially since the Start Menu doesn’t allow for quick shutdown commands since Win 8.
Generally, you’re totally on point, but I just wanted to drill into that mention about hotkeys for switching windows. You mean something other than alt+tab, ctrl+tab, and in some applications shift+brackets?
Win+Shift+arrow to kick the active window to another monitor is handy when remoting into a PC with multiple monitors.
Also, when did windows get rid of the idea of a primary display? It seems to just open software on whatever screen it feels like now…
I haven’t run into the problem of people not being able to use a mouse - but I’ve found that very few young people are able to tell if something is saved on their own computer or being accessed over the internet. Saving or downloading files is not something they are familiar with. (Which I suppose is because a lot of modern software makes cloud stuff so silky smooth that people don’t notice it.)