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A lot of people had very little video/voicechat experience before the pandemic. It doesn't occur to them, that the "downgrade" to audio-only is actually better

A lot of people had very little video/voicechat experience before the pandemic. It doesn't occur to them, that the "downgrade" to audio-only is actually better than video+audio. Text trumps audio in terms of communicating hard facts. But many people outside of the tech industry can't properly touch-type. Just consider how many people still make phone calls instead of writing an e-mail.

lbriner 5y ago
Many people in the tech industry can't touch-type! Certainly in the UK, and probably Europe, where you are much less likely to have a comp-sci degree, it is very hard to create consistent requirements for devs like "touch type 60 words per minute" or "understands patterns and principles". It would be great to have something, even an industry standard like exists for law, medicine and even some building trades to at least have a base-level of consistency. I think this would help communication a lot - the domain language like "this wouldn't work as a Singleton because we need to subclass it" is nice and terse but only if you know the words.
- kgwgk 5y ago
  > much less likely to have a comp-sci degree > consistent requirements for devs like "touch type 60 words per minute" How are those two things related? Is typing part of the computer science curriculum?
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    It was part of my elementary school curriculum :/ and that was 22 years ago. (In the Netherlands, and of course we used typewriters, since we didn’t have that many computers yet) Edit: modified for clarity based on comment
    - kgwgk 5y ago
      I'm pretty sure computers were not so rare in the Netherlands in 1999!
      - Aeolun 5y ago
        Fair point. I meant, we had computers, but not a whole class full of them. Teaching kids one by one on the one computer per class would have been very inefficient. Modified the original comment.
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    I don't think so; the causation would be in the opposite direction. A lot of experience typing (code) would tend to make someone more likely to pursue and complete a CS degree.

lbriner 5y ago

Many people in the tech industry can't touch-type! Certainly in the UK, and probably Europe, where you are much less likely to have a comp-sci degree, it is very hard to create consistent requirements for devs like "touch type 60 words per minute" or "understands patterns and principles". It would be great to have something, even an industry standard like exists for law, medicine and even some building trades to at least have a base-level of consistency. I think this would help communication a lot - the domain language like "this wouldn't work as a Singleton because we need to subclass it" is nice and terse but only if you know the words.

kgwgk 5y ago
> much less likely to have a comp-sci degree > consistent requirements for devs like "touch type 60 words per minute" How are those two things related? Is typing part of the computer science curriculum?
- Aeolun 5y ago
  It was part of my elementary school curriculum :/ and that was 22 years ago. (In the Netherlands, and of course we used typewriters, since we didn’t have that many computers yet) Edit: modified for clarity based on comment
  - kgwgk 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure computers were not so rare in the Netherlands in 1999!
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      Fair point. I meant, we had computers, but not a whole class full of them. Teaching kids one by one on the one computer per class would have been very inefficient. Modified the original comment.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  I don't think so; the causation would be in the opposite direction. A lot of experience typing (code) would tend to make someone more likely to pursue and complete a CS degree.