August 30th, 2006 at 3:15 pm
Pieter Hintjens, the CEO of iMatix, has launched the Capsoff organization in a campaign urging hardware manufacturers to ditch the oft-abused and misused key on keyboards.
For those of you who don’t know this, the manufacture of a Keyboard is “governed” by a universal Standard called ISO 9995. What that means is that all keyboard manufacturers have to abide by the defined keyboard layout and specification of this standards document to sell competitively in the marketplace. For example, this standard is what defines where the “shift” button should be, or where the “ctrl” button is located.
Considering that, I have 3 reasons why “Death to Caps Lock” is a nonsensical idea:
- As I have been part of Standards councils before, I know how much hassle it is to create/ modify a standards specification. To implement Pieter’s idea of simply doing away with the Caps Lock key is harder than it sounds. “Officially”, in order to change a small or large part of this standard, the standard has to be proposed to ISO, a new council then needs to be formed to make a new standard, the standard has to be written up, then sent out to the council members, voted on and approved/ re-approved (depending on how many changes there are). The whole process could take years! Honestly, it is not worth the time and effort just to get a single keyboard key taken off. That is probably one of the many reasons why the keyboard standard has not changed in a long time.
- My second reason why it is easier said and done is the crucial cost factor. Just to change a small part may mean increased design and manufacturing costs for companies to modify their existing keyboard design, machine jigs, dies, tools, packaging etc. - which may run into the millions of dollars. Is it even worth it to spend millions of dollars on changing the way the machines manufacture a keyboard, changing the machine itself, changing the packaging, wordings and all other manufacturing/marketing related stuff just to accomodate a handful who “don’t like the Caps Lock key”?
- Thirdly, the “Caps Lock” key is not totally useless, especially in Data entry. Pieter’s reasoning for omitting the Caps Lock seem to be largely related to people who use the internet and those in the “cyberworld” (hence his caption of “Stop the Shouting”) but he seems to forget that there are many common usages outside the WWW as well e.g. in the manufacturing industry and beyond.
Richard Butterworth, a freelance writer, summed it up very nicely …
Like so much of what happens in modern life (and is usually foisted upon us by busybody governments) your curious initiative appears designed to do nothing other than to save us from ourselves. It is as though you perceive everyone out here in cyberville to be so incapable of rational thought and action that you feel you must undertake a grand crusade on our behalf and ride to our collective rescue - to an end which actually amounts to very little.
If I do not need the caps-lock key, I do not use it. However, I bitterly resent the thought of an innocent computing function being removed by a “self-appointed” guru of computing etiquette as though I were a naughty schoolboy abusing a rain-gauge.
Is it simply another manifestation of pointless, nannying interference from an opinionated ‘expert’ who believes he knows what’s best for everyone?
I really couldn’t agree more! Last I heard Pieter is lobbying to get the “Prt Scr” key off the keyboard as well. I want to conclude by saying that Pieter REALLY needs to find better and more productive ways to spend his time!
Source: Wired Online
4 Responses to “Death to Caps Lock”
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kristarella said: @ 9:33 pm
August 30th, 2006
Very informative and well presented post. I was thinking from the start of this post that I really only use the caps lock key for data entry but in those case it’s quite useful.
I get annoyed when people only write in caps on the web too but it’s a similar annoyance to misapostrophication (just to name one example that has been raised recently). Naturally we all make mistakes in writing unless we proof-read many times, and even then it happens. A lot of mistakes or annoyances can be fixed by educating, not just removing the opportunity to make them.
thanassis said: @ 6:43 am
August 31st, 2006
There are many games that use the Caps Lock key. Eliminating it won’t go well with PC gamers.
The layout of the keyboard follows conventions. The qwerty layout was first seen on typewriters and was designed to mimise the possibility of jamming. Ofcourse there is no need for the traditional layout to still exist on computer keyboards but changing it means trouble with existing software.
Steve S said: @ 3:26 am
September 1st, 2006
I was doing some Databasing a few months again, and pretty much everything was in all caps. Losing the CAPs-LOCK key would have put me in a sad state indeed.
Also Foo, if you listen to Buzz Out Loud (the C-NET podcast), I suggest taking a listen to a few episodes from last week. They have some really entertaining commentary on the keyboard wars.
Pam said: @ 12:10 pm
September 4th, 2006
I like print screen…I use it alot. It allows me to capture my screen to teach. I am a staff development coordinator to a bunch of medical types and about half of them are computer/internet illiterate. *shakes head* Hard to believe I know. So I use it to show them what they should be looking at.
Great post.
Pam