CAPS LOCK delenda est

[unixronin]

Seems I'm not the only one who hates the aps lock key.  Evidently there's an organization called Capsoff, run by Pieter Hintjens, CEO of iMatix, urging hardware manufacturers to remove the caps lock key from keyboards.

"The Caps key is an abomination," Hintjens writes on his blog.  "It's a huge key, stuck right there where the Ctrl used to be, and as far as I know, it's only used by 419 scammers and Fortran programmers."

[Over]Zealous net newbies have also subjected the Caps Lock key to overuse, composing e-mails and newsgroup posts entirely in capital letters, an ugly and inelegant style of communication akin to screaming.  In fact, the Capsoff organization's slogan is "STOP SHOUTING!"

The antagonism toward the Caps Lock key extends beyond its misuse by 13-year-old trolls and naive users.  Caps Lock is also responsible for failed entries of passwords and other case-sensitive phrases.  Users of word processors are forced to retype any text that was entered with Caps Lock accidentally turned on.

Comments

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

I've been known to pop the key off and cut off the stud.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I just remap it to an extra L-Shift. :)

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

But that's not as satisfying as hacking on hardware. :)
In extremes you get to char plastic!

[attutle.livejournal.com]

I use a Digital LK250 keyboard, which has the keys where they damned well belong.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

I still have not forgiven them for moving my ctrl key. I am in EE, so I still do programming in fortran.

How about a compromise? Put the caps lock next to the scroll lock. Nobody uses those keys. ;)

[robbat2.livejournal.com]

I disagree. As a driver developer, I have major uses for SysRq, scroll lock, and Break.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

Sorry, the winkie thingie was supposed to indicate toungue firmly in cheek.

Useful graphic for the situation.

[unix-jedi.livejournal.com]

The Control key being there makes the most sense.

Of course, I'm so used to it being elsewhere, on the 4 Sun keyboards we've got with it there, I continually caps lock trying to control-c or d.