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Don't learn Dvorak

dudzik.co

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Re: Don't learn Dvorak

#131

Post by jamesg »

dudzik wrote: post #79
jamesg wrote: post #42

If you're considering learning Dvorak, I'd strongly recommend considering Colemak instead. I tried Dvorak with the hope that it would mitigate RSI, but it spreads the work among fingers pretty unevenly -- I really ended up just moving the problem rather than fixing it (mostly to my right pinky). Colemak is (relatively) easy to learn if you know QWERTY, and it's been life-changing for me: I can work for more hours of…

What is your experience when you have to use the QWERTY layout? Is it a frustrating experience or can you use it just fine given that Colemak is more similar to it than Dvorak?

At this point I'm pretty terrible at QWERTY on a physical keyboard. I'm fine with it on phones and tablets for some reason, but my brain is pretty hard-wired for Colemak on physical keyboards at this point. I also use a Kinesis Advantage keyboard which adds to the context switch when I have to use a different computer (though this is less significant for sure).

If it's a Mac, Colemak is one of the pre-installed layouts, so if I need to work on someone else's computer I'll just enable it while I work on it and remove it afterwards. Otherwise I can manage, but it does slow me down quite a bit, and I'll have to look down at my hands pretty frequently. You immediately notice the extra workload though: Colemak is pretty low effort, but QWERTY just feels like finger moshing to me now.

I'm pretty sure it's possible to remain proficient in both, but QWERTY was sufficiently destructive to my hands that I use it as little as possible.

Re: Don't learn Dvorak

#132

Post by brennebeck »

jgalentine007 wrote: post #118
hajile wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vortex Pok3r. It's a 60% keyboard which is a nice compromise for travel IMO. You still have programmable layers, but don't have to reach for them when doing basic programming tasks. 4 dipswitches at the bottom allow you to switch to colmak or dvorak in hardware, so no messing up the host system settings.

Cool, I almost got the same one but went with a leopold 660m, also 60%. I just have caps lock mapped to backspace and use vim for everything I can (checkout cVim for chrome) tried colmak out today but will stick with qwerty since I'm 100% at 100 wpm touch typing.

I just looked at cVim and it’s definitely interesting. I’m currently a user of Vimium. Have you tried both, by chance? Curious about a comparison

Re: Don't learn Dvorak

#133

Post by danpalmer »

saagarjha wrote: post #64
danpalmer wrote: post #52

Switched to Dvorak last Christmas, over the break from work. The bad: - I’m still not as accurate with non-Python punctuation as I was on QWERTY. - no support on iOS - people need to change my layout if typing on my machine The good: - noticeably more comfortable typing - can be faster for some things - I have been forced to touch type as I don’t use any Dvorak printed keyboards, this has contributed to me typing fas…

> no support on iOS Are there no Dvorak keyboard apps?

There are 2-3, I've tried them all and none are really usable. None have had an update in the last year or more, some crash on launch, some are lacking the most basic usability features (double space for inserting a ".", readable fonts, correct layouts, etc).

Re: Don't learn Dvorak

#134

Post by danpalmer »

chillacy wrote: post #72
danpalmer wrote: post #52

Switched to Dvorak last Christmas, over the break from work. The bad: - I’m still not as accurate with non-Python punctuation as I was on QWERTY. - no support on iOS - people need to change my layout if typing on my machine The good: - noticeably more comfortable typing - can be faster for some things - I have been forced to touch type as I don’t use any Dvorak printed keyboards, this has contributed to me typing fas…

You definitely don't want dvorak on iOS, qwerty was designed to maximize distance between keystrokes to prevent typewriter jams, that can only help on iOS where the keyboard is small and thumb taps are big and imprecise.

I can see your point, although Dvorak was also designed to maximise the back and forth between 2 hands, for typing speed, and that could actually have a positive impact for precision when the whole word is being taken into account. Most typing with thumbs on small screens relies heavily on autocorrect in that way, so I can imagine that Dvorak might provide more information for that to work, even if each character might be less precise by itself.

Re: Don't learn Dvorak

#135

Post by aiilnns »

singularity2001 wrote: post #130
jamesg wrote: post #42

If you're considering learning Dvorak, I'd strongly recommend considering Colemak instead. I tried Dvorak with the hope that it would mitigate RSI, but it spreads the work among fingers pretty unevenly -- I really ended up just moving the problem rather than fixing it (mostly to my right pinky). Colemak is (relatively) easy to learn if you know QWERTY, and it's been life-changing for me: I can work for more hours of…

If you worry about RSI, use speech recognition whenever you write emails or comments. There is even a trick to use it on Linux if you're interested (not the crappy sphinx/kaldi).

> there is even a trick to use it on Linux (not the crappy sphinx/kaldi)

What do you mean? What are you using?

Re: Don't learn Dvorak

#136

Post by gr__or »

starpilot wrote: post #31

Keyboard layout doesn't matter for typing speed . There are endless videos on YouTube of people typing 90+ WPM with two fingers . I use Dvorak at home because it's more comfortable and I hope will prevent RSI in the future. I keep my work laptop in Qwerty because sometimes other people have to type on it. I switch between both layouts with ease. My Qwerty typing speed is slightly slower, but that has not had material…

There's also dozen videos of people finishing Dark Souls with a Guitar Hero controller, yet you don't see people using those in the ESL.

Re: Don't learn Dvorak

#137

Post by eeZah7Ux »

CtrlAltT5wpm wrote: post #62

Forgive any ignorance on my part; I'm not a dev, just a lurker with a moderately above average familiarity with tech. I mostly type with 6 - 8 fingers, with my attention split 50/50 between the keyboard and the screen. I can type around 50 wpm, more or less, though I probably average around 30. While I'll concede that typing faster would be a boon, how much faster can one realistically type before they start to outru…

It's often not about speed. Dvorak allows more comfortable typing and to give no attention to the keyboard.

Re: Don't learn Dvorak

#138

Post by emodendroket »

vlthr wrote: post #120
emodendroket wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Squeeze therapeutic putty 30s per hand, wrist curl underhand and overhand 10x3, rotate hammer from left to right 10x3. Nothing too fancy but it's the routine an occupational therapist gave me and it worked.

Is there a video/article you could share describing how to do these with good form? I am now about 7 years into an RSI issue that nothing seems to work on, but I haven't committed to any training routine for more than a couple of weeks (with no effect).

There might be, but wouldn't it make more sense to visit an OT and get personalized recommendations?

The BB Pascarelli and Quilter RSI book is worth reading.

Re: Don't learn Dvorak

#139

Post by gboone »

Must be just me but when I tried to learn Dvorak I got literally nauseated. Never felt so sick from doing something so simple/hard. He mentions stroke victims' struggle but for me it was like having a vision impairment like upside down vision. Otherwise I would have probably kept going.

Re: Don't learn Dvorak

#140

Post by brennebeck »

brennebeck wrote: post #132
jgalentine007 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool, I almost got the same one but went with a leopold 660m, also 60%. I just have caps lock mapped to backspace and use vim for everything I can (checkout cVim for chrome) tried colmak out today but will stick with qwerty since I'm 100% at 100 wpm touch typing.

I just looked at cVim and it’s definitely interesting. I’m currently a user of Vimium. Have you tried both, by chance? Curious about a comparison

Actually, I just installed cVim to test and went through the docs. Very nice work. The config setup alone... anyway, Thank you! Appreciate the recommendation gp!
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