Is this a technological metaphor?

For some Hacker challenge I was reading up on different keyboard layouts, Dvorak and stuff. And the technological lock in is baffling me: The rationale for qwerty was to reduce jamming of the typewriter letter arms. Today that doesn't make sense anymore, yet we stick to it. Wondering how much of today's tech is dragged down by things like that.

This stuff often also makes me weary of the first decisions, like choosing a protocol or data base - its kind and layout, because we might be stuck with it for reasons of backwards compatibility.... Like when Microsoft opted for the backslash as a directory separator..

Here you go.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/...

If it's good enough there's no need replacing it. Unless you want to do it then great

Same withthe cursor and the mouse 😆 I totally agree

I learned Dvorak a while ago. It was okay to type...

Terrible to program:

Shortcut keys are out of order. ZXCV are all still undo cut copy paste. The most common programming character are at pinky fingers or the corners.

Microsoft only opted for the backslash because the forward slash was already taken for command line switches. And no, that was not MS' decision, it was IBM.

For the keyboard, I don't even see a problem with QWERTY. Dvorak just isn't really better, that's why nobody has bothered to change. That's also why "dragging down" is nonsense.

Btw., the 110V / 230V main lines are also decades old standards. Hey why don't we just change for the lulz and pay billions for the infrastructure update for no reason?

Not everything is crazy like web dev.

@irene pinky finger?

@Fast-Nop I read the Microsoft backslash story some time ago and understand it was a reasonable decision for them, didn't wanna blame anybody. It's just about the arbitrariness. So maybe "dragging down" was wrong in this context here, as the benefit of other keyboard layout seem hardly measurable or unequivocally proven. - Now if there is no relevant metric to optimize for or the metrics cannot point out anything superior: just move on?

(Maybe we should also do this with OOP, TDD, Agile: no metrics proving they are really 'better', or help producing 'better' code - thus move on and continue banging out some shitloads of code?)

Think qwerty is bad, try qwertz nigga, that shit fucking sucks

@tekashi Still nothing against the German Mac keyboard. - "|" and "\" are all through modifier on the "7", "~" is on the "n" and you will have to Google that shit, coz it's not printed on the fuckin' keyboard.

@phorkyas oh so you're in that boat too 😅. The French layout got those as well.

@phorkyas well agile methodologies does have research studies in its favor

@Nanos haha classic 🧐

Come to think about it... Scrollbars also fit this category

There is a lot of stuff that we use because we got used to and we dont want to screw the compatibility.

ASCII, querty, 1000 different protocols, launguages, hardware, connections...

@Nanos are you from Hobbiton or something? The standard door height in Europe is 2.04m

@matt-jd sauce? (problem for me is already that Agile is such a fluffy term. Some of the methodologies sold under that label, I would even love to see implemented.. but most of the stuff seems so buzzwordy, tautological hogwash)

@Nanos The cursor hides fine on a Mac. Which inferior OS are you using?

@phorkyas apart from looking in academic journals or perhaps a Google here is a handful of sources I used for a short paper thing at uni. Not all of them are research papers. chong & hurlbutt or something by L. Williams(think she has written about other agile methods as well) is worth checking out. Realise that it's mostly focused on pair programming but that's part of agile methodologies, and should give a pointer to where to look

@matt-jd First time I actually read the Wiki entry on Agile, first paragraph it had some interesting links. To quote from Lee, Gwanhoo; Xia, Weidong (2010). "Toward Agile: An Integrated Analysis of Quantitative and Qualitative Field Data on Software Development Agility". MIS Quarterly. 34 (1): 87–114. doi:10.2307/20721416. JSTOR 20721416:

"However, the agile development literature is largely anecdotal and prescriptive, lacking empirical evidence and theoretical foundation to support the principles and practices of agile development."

It's not that I'd be against the values they want to put forward or.. don't see the good aims. - It's just often with so much meta meetings, nebulous terms: yeah we 'inspect and adapt', follow INVEST principles - how do you want to measure that, which metric should tell you I'm 80% 'agile', through wasting 100k$ on scrum workshops and meetings?.. then just let me have a beer at the foo bar instead!

@phorkyas sure the agile development literature but what about the actual research, I do agree that the development literature is very anecdotal, one of my provided references is a proof of that.

I do not entirely understand your comment but largely I assume you're talking about when shitty management hold meetings unnecessary meetings for the sake of being agile? I think it's more about corporate behaviour and its effects than agile methodologies as described in the extreme programming book

@Nanos PC isn’t an OS. Although I just checked on Bohdi Linux and it doesn’t disappear. I wonder if that happens on a distro with a fancier window manager.

All shortcut keys are wrecked son!

@irene On Ubuntu lxde it was hidden, but the screen capture also took the second TV screen that is no longer attached, and I can't take a screen shot if the main menu is opened. Remember I had a similar problem once on Windows or macOS that I just couldn't capture the very context menu I needed to show an error in. Yeah, shooting missiles into space, but unable to save some fucking pixels.

@matt-jd The actual research will probably be hard to do - dealing with all that social factors and how to get proper control groups, etc.

So many of your references were on pair programming. I wasn't aware it's part of Agile, and Extreme Programming, too (thought it was its predecessor). So thanks, I learned a bit. - but it also made me more confused about what "Agile" actually is. - The original manifesto btw I didn't like: to much management jargon for my taste.

@Nanos Linux basics are basically the same everywhere like a Pi or something. Safe bet is just run it in Virtualbox to learn it. If you really want to learn snag that Windows license, make sure you make a Windows installer, and do a full install of linux.

It is like a musical instrument. You won't learn it when it sits in a box in a closet. You learn it when it never gets put away. It doesn't take motivation to do the things you do without thinking, put the thing in the path of your standard routines and you don't have to make yourself motivated..