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I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that

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Re: I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that

#11

Post by cecilpl2 »

I've been typing dvorak primarily for about 20 years, also since I was in high school, and I highly recommend it.

I agree that switching is a pain in the ass. It will make you essentially unable to type for about 2-4 weeks.

Ctrl-C/V/X is a valid concern. I fixed it by mapping mouse buttons to copy/paste, and also getting an Advantage2 Kinesis into which I've programming custom keybinding for Undo/Redo/Copy/Cut/Paste.

I can still touch type qwerty and often do at work on co-workers' keyboards. I'm pretty slow though, about 40wpm (100 on dvorak), and I usually have to look at the keyboard.

I also use qwerty on my phone - I tried dvorak and also found it to be a hindrance there. That makes sense, since dvorak is designed specifically for ten-fingered typing.

The primary benefit that the author of this post completely overlooked is comfort. It just feels... easy and comfortable, in a way that Qwerty doesn't even come close to. Whenever I am forced to type Qwerty I feel like I am doing finger calisthenics. It's tiring. My wrists never hurt after full days of typing, and I'm hopeful that the reduced motion and strain will help me avoid carpal tunnel or other hand/finger issues.

I plan to spend my entire career and much of my free time in front of a computer. Why on earth would I subject myself to anything less than the best interface system possible? That would be like a professional chef using the $20 knife block from the grocery store, or your doctor using WebMD to try and diagnose you.

Re: I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that

#12

Post by sleepydog »

I used Dvorak for 5+ years. I eventually stopped for a number of reasons:

* Occasionally coworkers or friends will need to type on my keyboards and I grew tired of having to switch back and forth.

* Similarly, using someone else's computer would require me to type QWERTY anyway.

* I've been trying to reduce the amount of custom configuration I have to maintain and backup to the bare minimum.

* It didn't make a difference for me ergonomically. Typing for a long time still took a toll. I saw a much better improvement simply by occasionally changing my sitting position.

Re: I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that

#13

Post by fouric »

I learned to touch-type in QWERTY first, and then Dvorak.

Currently, my speed with the latter is significantly higher (~60 WPM vs. ~90 WPM), but as DSK is my primry layout, that's possibly just due to the relative amount of time that I spend using them.

However, subjectively, using Dvorak feels nicer for me than QWERTY - temporarily using the latter feels like going back to a modeless editor after years of using a modal one (vim and emacs+evil).

Does anyone else get this feeling?

Re: I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that

#14

Post by lmilcin »

I've used Dvorak for the past 15 years.

I have learned to touchtype qwerty at school and then regularly trained it for couple of years without much improvement at around 60wpm (yeah, I'm not very agile). Then one day I red a book (I believe it was Bill Gates "Business at the speed of thought") and decided to switch to Dvorak and use same methods I used to learn it at school. It took me a weekend and Monday but on Tuesday I was able to type Dvorak and couple of weeks later I plateaued at around 80wpm.

What I like about Dvorak layout is not that I can type faster but the feeling.

Re: I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that

#15

Post by coldtea »

It's not yes. It was non-scientifically created and self-promoted to hell from the inventor in the early 20th century, for commercial interests. And there are a lot of myths about Qwerty too:

https://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html

Not to mention that for programmers it's even more complicated. Most of our symbols we use most of the time (e.g. { } ; -, _) have nothing to do with DVORAK vs QWERTY, and the distribution of most common letters isn't even the same as English (e.g. C and the use of i).

Add OS keyboard shortcuts (and things like Vim and Emacs special keys) to the mix, and it gets even more complicated soon.

Oh, and since this is not 1970 anymore, consider that computer users come from all other the world, and type in their native languages, where QWERTY vs DVORAK means even less.

That said, there are better researched layouts that DVORAK, with actual modern research behind them.

Re: I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that

#16

Post by Foober223 »

I tried dvorak for a little while. Had the same impression as most. It feels good and many letter combos flow smoothy off the fingers. But no significant gains in speed.

I switched back to qwerty for the ubiquity. Despite having no grand design behind it, qwerty gets many things right by accident. Many common letter combos bang out nicely under qwerty too.

Re: I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that

#17

Post by rhn_mk1 »

I'm disappointed that this article is no different from all the other articles on keyboard layouts that I've ever encountered and ignores non-English uses.

Obviously, a post written in English has no good reason describing a Norwegian-specific alternative to QWERTY, but it still manages to ignore half of the population of English-speaking people by not taking into account using multiple languages on the same keyboard.

I'm slowly losing hope that someone will mention whether there are any accommodations in Dvorak for French accents, how it affects writing German or whether it is worth the effort to learn and switch to Dvorak for English while using the Estonian layout for other purposes.

Re: I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that

#18

Post by lmilcin »

fouric wrote: post #13

I learned to touch-type in QWERTY first, and then Dvorak. Currently, my speed with the latter is significantly higher (~60 WPM vs. ~90 WPM), but as DSK is my primry layout, that's possibly just due to the relative amount of time that I spend using them. However, subjectively, using Dvorak feels nicer for me than QWERTY - temporarily using the latter feels like going back to a modeless editor after years of using a mo…

I feel the same. I don't have the memory of typing qwerty before I learned dvorak but I remember, after I learned Dvorak, how much more fluid it felt. Now it just feels normal. I don't currently touchtype qwerty so I don't have comparison.

Re: I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that

#19

Post by secure »

I’ve been using https://neo-layout.org/ for about 10 years, which is a keyboard layout optimized for German, English, Programming, Maths, in that order. It has many layers with conveniently located “special” keys.

Dvorak only rearranges the main layer. NEO introduces a bunch of useful ones.

Adopting an ergonomic keyboard layout doesn’t typically make you a faster typist, but it makes typing more pleasant.

Re: I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that

#20

Post by urbanriv »

I have been using Dvorak for a few years. I think learning the skill was one of the weirdest experiences I have had. I went all in and switched the keys on my Macbook to dvorak, and went all in.

It can be frustrating in a way comparable to recovering from a stroke. Emails which normally take 2 min take 10+.

Eventually, it gets better, you start to gain speed and typing becomes normal again. I do like it, it definitely seems easier/efficient to touch type.

Using other computers is not weird, I can easily switch the layout if I plan on spending any significant time on them. The worst part is standard keyboard shortcuts sometimes lose their intuitiveness. Like scrolling with 'j' or 'k', on dvorak they are not close.

Overall, it is a fun challenge. If you commit you can become proficient in about a month, and it's more comfy to type in. But if you think it will be a 'lifechanging efficiency hack' you will be disappointed.

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