A community for sharing comics related to programming
Icon base by Delapouite under CC BY 3.0 with modifications to add a gradient
Hover Text:
And the ten minutes striking up a conversation with that strange kid in homeroom sometimes matters more than every other part of high school combined.
Transcript
[Above a bar graph:]
11th-grade activities:
[The y-axis is labeled:]
Usefulness to career success
[Above the x-axis are two small bars and one huge bar. Below the x-axis, each bar is labeled:]
900 hours of classes
400 hours of homework
One weekend messing with Perl
My most useful skill from primary and secondary school has actually been a typing class in middle school on what I think was an IBM Selectric typewriter (or clone of it).
I type every day both on the job and off the job. Granted, I'm a basic QWERTY Bitch® who hasn't played around with other formats but I type fast enough that my coworkers frequently comment on how fast I type. Ain't nobody got time to wait for your fingers to catch up with your thought when trying to type input into a computer.
Did you ever do one of those typing speed tests? I'm curious what kind of words-per-minute speed is fast enough for coworkers to comment on it.
Did one just now. It isn't the fastest that I've done but I'm also on a different-than-normal keyboard (an ortholinear split mechanical keyboard).
Bah!!! Beginners numbers...
I'll have you know I barely passed typing class on one of those IBM ball electric typewriters at 31wpm.
On the IBM computers with word perfect 5.1 from the 5.25' floppy. I was much faster... 32wpm.
Then I got ulnar nerve damage from a terrible bicycle accident in Europe aka.. I fell off.. and now I average 20wpm.
Damn dude, I'm not a slow typer but 91 words per minute is blistering fast. Gave it a go on my laptop keyboard with the benchmark test (2 minutes) and ended at 64WPM with only one typo.
I type around 100-120 wpm (before errors) and often get comments. Realistically I'm a bit a slower because I have to go back and fix some errors.
Damn, you're almost twice as fast as me, and I'm not exactly slow, either! Definitely comment-worthy.
That's more than double the score I got from my highest score when doing a speed test on my phone, which I know is faster for me than just using a computer keyboard.
As a non-native speaker, those 11th grade English lessons were pretty good. My school also had programming as an elective (though I didn't take it, since I didn't see myself as a math-y/programmer-y person in highschool).
Is Perl the programming thing or a girl?
It’s xkcd, so it’s the programming language
cant be sure 'bout that
Either way I'm crashing hard
Yes
I kind of take issue with the idea that education is simply vocational training. Not that I necessarily think that's what Randall is trying to say here. But I feel like a lot of discussions about the current state of education in the US (and especially higher education) frame it that way.
Messing around is one of the best ways to learn any programming language
Second best. Best way is being thrown into a project solo
Damn this one's dark.