Difference between revisions of "561: Well"

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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(Transcript)
(Explanation: I expanded the Dvorak and text editor sections.)
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The first is about ''{{w|Firefly (TV Series)|Firefly}}'' the TV series created by {{w|Joss Whedon}} and canceled by {{w|FOX}}, due to poor ratings performance, after airing the first 13 episodes out-of-order. In Firefly, the main languages spoken are English and Chinese (in equal measure), because China was the only other world power besides America to go to space (Joss Whedon's own explanation on the DVDs). However, there are [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HumansAreWhite very few actual Asians] on-screen.
 
The first is about ''{{w|Firefly (TV Series)|Firefly}}'' the TV series created by {{w|Joss Whedon}} and canceled by {{w|FOX}}, due to poor ratings performance, after airing the first 13 episodes out-of-order. In Firefly, the main languages spoken are English and Chinese (in equal measure), because China was the only other world power besides America to go to space (Joss Whedon's own explanation on the DVDs). However, there are [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HumansAreWhite very few actual Asians] on-screen.
  
Dr. {{w|August Dvorak}} introduced the Dvorak keyboard layout in 1936 that is supposed to be far superior to the QWERTY keyboard layout. However, Dvorak has not replaced QWERTY, despite it being "better".
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Back then, typewriter keys had levers that stroke the paper when the key was hit but lowered slowly by gravity, which posed the risk of jamming the key mechanisms if one pressed a key that was adjacent to another key whose mechanism was still lowering. With that in mind, the "Qwerty" layout, named after the first six keys of consecutive letters, was designed with the purpose of separating common letter combinations, thus greatly avoiding the problem. Even so, once the typewriter mechanism was improved, Qwerty had such a holding of the populace; no one was willing to change. Dr. {{w|August Dvorak}} introduced the Dvorak keyboard layout in 1936 with the hopes of making a better keyboard. Dvorak is designed with better form in mind, what with rearranging the letters with the purpose of having the keys positioned in a way that is relevant to their position. (In other words, the most frequently used keys would be placed at the most easily-accessible places.) This reduced typing effort and strain while increasing typing speed and accuracy. Despite this, Dr. Dvorak had to fight against the Qwerty layout that was even more entrenched in the United States mind. Even today, Qwerty is still the standard. More complete information can be found [http://www.dvzine.org/zine/index.html here].
  
The title text perpetuates the Emacs vs. vi {{w|Editor war|debate}}.
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The title text perpetuates the Emacs vs. vi {{w|Editor war|debate}}. Both Emacs and vim are text editors that frequently serve the purpose of general-langauge editors of source code. The issue is that, while Emacs is more user-friendly and customizable, vim is more lightweight while needing few keystrokes in text editing. Because of this balance, fans of Emacs and fans of vim end up fighting each other.
  
 
All comics in the [[:Category:Well|Well]] series:
 
All comics in the [[:Category:Well|Well]] series:

Revision as of 20:36, 24 December 2013

Well
I'll concede ergonomics anecdotally, but none of the studies of Dvorak were at all rigorous (the most-cited Navy study was overseen by Dvorak himself). And the 'slow typists down' thing is a myth. Also EMACS RULES VI DROOLS WOOOOOOO!
Title text: I'll concede ergonomics anecdotally, but none of the studies of Dvorak were at all rigorous (the most-cited Navy study was overseen by Dvorak himself). And the 'slow typists down' thing is a myth. Also EMACS RULES VI DROOLS WOOOOOOO!

Explanation

Uncomfortable truths are truths that exist, but no one wants to have to think about them.

The first is about Firefly the TV series created by Joss Whedon and canceled by FOX, due to poor ratings performance, after airing the first 13 episodes out-of-order. In Firefly, the main languages spoken are English and Chinese (in equal measure), because China was the only other world power besides America to go to space (Joss Whedon's own explanation on the DVDs). However, there are very few actual Asians on-screen.

Back then, typewriter keys had levers that stroke the paper when the key was hit but lowered slowly by gravity, which posed the risk of jamming the key mechanisms if one pressed a key that was adjacent to another key whose mechanism was still lowering. With that in mind, the "Qwerty" layout, named after the first six keys of consecutive letters, was designed with the purpose of separating common letter combinations, thus greatly avoiding the problem. Even so, once the typewriter mechanism was improved, Qwerty had such a holding of the populace; no one was willing to change. Dr. August Dvorak introduced the Dvorak keyboard layout in 1936 with the hopes of making a better keyboard. Dvorak is designed with better form in mind, what with rearranging the letters with the purpose of having the keys positioned in a way that is relevant to their position. (In other words, the most frequently used keys would be placed at the most easily-accessible places.) This reduced typing effort and strain while increasing typing speed and accuracy. Despite this, Dr. Dvorak had to fight against the Qwerty layout that was even more entrenched in the United States mind. Even today, Qwerty is still the standard. More complete information can be found here.

The title text perpetuates the Emacs vs. vi debate. Both Emacs and vim are text editors that frequently serve the purpose of general-langauge editors of source code. The issue is that, while Emacs is more user-friendly and customizable, vim is more lightweight while needing few keystrokes in text editing. Because of this balance, fans of Emacs and fans of vim end up fighting each other.

All comics in the Well series:

Transcript

[A sign sits by a well.]
The Uncomfortable Truths Well
[A guy and Ponytail are lined up for the well; the guy throws a coin in.]
Well: For a universe that's supposed to be half Chinese, Firefly sure doesn't have any Asians.
[The guy is gone, a couple arrives behind Ponytail; Ponytail throws a coin in.]
Well: There's no solid evidence DVORAK's better than QWERTY. The standard histories are urban legends.
[Just the couple remain; Cueball throws another coin in.]
Well: You've never said "I love you" and meant it. It was always just words.
[Megan now throws in a coin.]
Well: You meant it every time.


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Discussion

s[he] be[lie]ve[d]141.101.98.124 14:40, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Shouldn't we elaborate on the questioned superiority of DVORAK? --129.206.196.49 20:45, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Actually, QUERTY was not designed to avoid jamming keys. It actually seems to be based on morse code mappings - to suit the majority of early users who were morse code operators. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fact-of-fiction-the-legend-of-the-qwerty-keyboard-49863249/?no-ist 103.22.201.159 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The final two frames appear to be foreshadowed by the title text within Connected (http://xkcd.com/807/) Lakeside (talk) 19:02, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I like how the 'uncomfortable truth' for the man is that he never meant it when he said 'I love you', but for the woman, it's that she always did! 108.162.219.223 23:47, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

What is ironic is that I am setting up a keyboard based on Michael Dicken's optimizer. Also, while I prefer vim (light weight!), I also have Xemacs out of my own choice. Greyson (talk) 20:37, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

The uncomfortable truth is that both emacs and vi are quite difficult to learn, just in different ways.
Emacs, after you learn it, allows you to write the highly flexible macros for the text processing but requires to type some very long command names to do most things. Being largely written is Lisp, historically Emacs had also been very slow and memory-hungry but with the modern computers it doesn't matter any more. Oh, and Emacs messes up the proper Tab characters, replacing them with spaces.
Vi doesn't have this flexibility but has a built-in set of commands extremely well suited to editing the programs. Vi is well-suited for the remote administration because it works well even over the very slow and high-latency connections and allows to do everything with just the alphanumeric keys, thus working even when the handling of the function keys (including arrows ans such) was not set up correctly. One of the newer versions of vi, vim, allows to do some very extensive programmable text manipulation, getting closer to Emacs in this respect; and vim can be set up to mess up the Tab characters just like Emacs. 108.162.246.5 21:58, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
vi is the hell, my keyboard doesn't have a META key... Maybe it's ALT, or ALT+CTRL,... ALT+SHIFT, or ALT+SHIFT+CTRL+ESC+...A hell. But you can rely on vi, it's available on every UNIX based system. So, if you just have a simple Telnet or SSH login you have to figure out how vi does work. --Dgbrt (talk) 23:30, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
Meta means alt. So M-E would be Alt-E.

The Firefly explanation is too much, especially with the point about airing out of order. I think with the inclusion of Randall's personal preference for Firefly, and its frequent reference by Randall, it would make a lot more sense. flewk (talk) 08:07, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

The voice in the last panel is clearly coming out of the well, as is the case in Well 2. It's not Megan saying "I love you" unlike the current explanation. 141.101.107.228 21:06, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

"A common myth states that this was done to slow typists down; this was not the case." Is that really a common myth? I've never heard about it. I've only ever heard about the jamming thing which, as pointed out in the explanation, seems to check out. Bischoff (talk) 08:05, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

LOL Emacs is anything but "user friendly" 162.158.79.113 14:20, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I've used VI since day one, and I've never used Emacs. It's user friendly, it just takes practi... wait. NanoMan2000 (talk) 14:56, 22 December 2021 (UTC)