Post #1513697
2026-04-17 12:17 UTC
Replies (2)
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@jonmsterling@mathstodon.xyz 2026-04-17 12:44
@maxsnew @carloangiuli @csgordon But not with word processing… and basic keyboarding skills, including things like “selecting a word or line at a time with the keyboard”, apply universally. It’s stuff like this that the kids don’t know how to do anymore, so they press the arrow keys a hundred times while seeking something…
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@csgordon@discuss.systems 2026-04-17 12:45
@maxsnew @carloangiuli I think we're interleaving concerns about students at different levels. Nobody's assuming first-years are capable vim users. But we might expect familiarity and some competence with basic text editing affordances like those in, say, Word and Google Docs. Select, and cut/copy/paste? I think Carlo is saying he's not even seeing that in first-years (I haven't taught first-years in a long time). I was alluding to the fact that I'm coming to the realization that assuming basic touch-typing is not realistic, despite the fact that most of our students have been typing essays in a word processor for years before college, often many years. I was saying that at least later (closer to graduation?) students should have ideally gotten to the point where they can not only type proficiently, but be familiar with some preferred editor beyond its basic text editing capabilities --- even just for *navigating* code, but ideally to help them turn their thoughts into code faster. Of course this all falls into the "hidden curriculum" bucket, e.g. https://missing.csail.mit.edu/2026/development-environment/, and we need to figure out where to cover this stuff.... like I said, in my undergrad some of this was built into the systems programming course, but that's unusual