4 ms·

> For example, some students wrote queries containing ,≠, instead of != or <>. Was this done on paper? Typing ≠ takes some doing.

turnerc 5y ago
From the study: > Participants wrote their notes and answers on paper, which they showed in front of the webcam. Yes it seems they did
- dehrmann 5y ago
  That's pretty flawed methodology since you'd want to know what problems people encounter in the real world and how quickly they solve them.
- jve 5y ago
  I mean, who writes queries on paper? And by pressing Execute, SQL will gladly provide error message that the student will, I think, quickly resolve. Is this a contest that measures how well students can write compile-able code without executing it or what? Moreover, IDE would have helped those students for sure: SQL keywords are highlighted in different color + autocomplete.
pcblues 5y ago
Easy if you have an APL keyboard :) (Hint, it's on the 8) https://www.dyalog.com/uploads/images/Business/products/us_rc.jpg https://www.dyalog.com/uploads/images/Business/products/us_r...
Wevah 5y ago
Option-= on a Mac with the US layout, fwiw.
- JadeNB 5y ago
  Man, Mac's keyboard shortcuts for special characters irritate me so much. First, they're there, and it's absolutely wonderful! I use far more semantically accurate Unicode rather than lossy ASCII approximations than I did back in my old Windows days. (If you don't know the special characters you can get, turn on Keyboard Viewer and whack your keyboard, especially modifier keys, a bit.) But … I can't customise them. Even back in the days when macOS was OS X and believed in user customisation, these specific shortcuts were frozen and un-customizable. (Like the folder shortcuts in Finder. Maybe it makes sense to you for CMD-SHIFT-D to open the Downloads folder, not the Desktop. Too bad!) (Boy, I hope I'm wrong and someone will come along and explain my stupidity to me.)
  - lelandfe 5y ago
    > these specific shortcuts were frozen and un-customizable I think Karabiner should allow you to do this: https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/ https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/ It's a utility that "remaps" keys – you set up key/key combinations that fire the original key/key combinations (it does not remove the original combination). E.g. you could bind Cmd-Q to Caps Lock if you wanted a really fast way to quit stuff.
    - JadeNB 5y ago
      The memory of what happened with kext's always makes me leery of relying on anything that reaches too deeply into macOS's guts, so I've always shied away from Karabiner, probably unreasonably. Old-style OS X believed in customisation—even now, you can set per-app keyboard shortcuts; it doesn't seem possible to bind Cmd-Q to Caps Lock, but, after slipping from Cmd-W to Cmd-Q and so quitting rather than closing a tab one too many times, I do have Cmd-Q bound to Cmd-Opt-Q for Safari only—and yet there's no Apple-blessed way of changing _those_ shortcuts, when it clearly had the architecture in place to allow it. That always irritated me.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
nightpool 5y ago
Yeah, IMO counting this as a syntax error is a pretty low blow. It's completely clear what the person intended, and they would probably have no problems clarifying if the researchers asked how they would type that query in.

turnerc 5y ago

From the study: > Participants wrote their notes and answers on paper, which they showed in front of the webcam. Yes it seems they did

dehrmann 5y ago
That's pretty flawed methodology since you'd want to know what problems people encounter in the real world and how quickly they solve them.
jve 5y ago
I mean, who writes queries on paper? And by pressing Execute, SQL will gladly provide error message that the student will, I think, quickly resolve. Is this a contest that measures how well students can write compile-able code without executing it or what? Moreover, IDE would have helped those students for sure: SQL keywords are highlighted in different color + autocomplete.

pcblues 5y ago

Easy if you have an APL keyboard :) (Hint, it's on the 8) https://www.dyalog.com/uploads/images/Business/products/us_rc.jpg https://www.dyalog.com/uploads/images/Business/products/us_r...

Wevah 5y ago

Option-= on a Mac with the US layout, fwiw.

JadeNB 5y ago
Man, Mac's keyboard shortcuts for special characters irritate me so much. First, they're there, and it's absolutely wonderful! I use far more semantically accurate Unicode rather than lossy ASCII approximations than I did back in my old Windows days. (If you don't know the special characters you can get, turn on Keyboard Viewer and whack your keyboard, especially modifier keys, a bit.) But … I can't customise them. Even back in the days when macOS was OS X and believed in user customisation, these specific shortcuts were frozen and un-customizable. (Like the folder shortcuts in Finder. Maybe it makes sense to you for CMD-SHIFT-D to open the Downloads folder, not the Desktop. Too bad!) (Boy, I hope I'm wrong and someone will come along and explain my stupidity to me.)
- lelandfe 5y ago
  > these specific shortcuts were frozen and un-customizable I think Karabiner should allow you to do this: https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/ https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/ It's a utility that "remaps" keys – you set up key/key combinations that fire the original key/key combinations (it does not remove the original combination). E.g. you could bind Cmd-Q to Caps Lock if you wanted a really fast way to quit stuff.
  - JadeNB 5y ago
    The memory of what happened with kext's always makes me leery of relying on anything that reaches too deeply into macOS's guts, so I've always shied away from Karabiner, probably unreasonably. Old-style OS X believed in customisation—even now, you can set per-app keyboard shortcuts; it doesn't seem possible to bind Cmd-Q to Caps Lock, but, after slipping from Cmd-W to Cmd-Q and so quitting rather than closing a tab one too many times, I do have Cmd-Q bound to Cmd-Opt-Q for Safari only—and yet there's no Apple-blessed way of changing _those_ shortcuts, when it clearly had the architecture in place to allow it. That always irritated me.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

nightpool 5y ago

Yeah, IMO counting this as a syntax error is a pretty low blow. It's completely clear what the person intended, and they would probably have no problems clarifying if the researchers asked how they would type that query in.