Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 183 posts

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

#21

Post by lsd5you »

cecilpl2 wrote: post #11

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.…

Been using dvorak for perhaps 10 years myself. Ctrx-c/v/x, well they're not next to each other anymore (and kind need 2 hands to use)!

I recommend using this, in my mind a way bigger improvement than just moving to dvorak itself. It's like having vim navigation everywhere, but better.

   https://manybutfinite.com/post/home-row-computing/
Pretty sure my WPM is something like < 20 wpm in Querty (70 in dvorak). I look like a complete beginner whenever I'm on someone elses machine. Not really sure how others keep the dual fluency.

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

#22

Post by dnautics »

sleepydog wrote: post #12

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 differ…

One time a coworker tried to prank me by posting a silly message to slack on my terminal (I don't usually use my work Mac so I forgot to log it off), and he was thwart d by Dvorak.

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

#24

Post by zokier »

alexandernst wrote: post #9

I never really understood the obsession about WPM that some programmers have. You're a programmer, not a court reporter. You don't need +200 WPM. You need to think before/during/after writing each one of the characters you type. And more often than not, you actually spend +5min of 20 lines of code, so your +200 WPM ability doesn't matter at all.

I type normally below 50wpm (just did a test which scored 54, but that is above my normal day-to-day rate), and I do feel constrained by my typing ability. More specifically not the rate I can spew up finished code, but the way I can't efficiently and naturally use computer (via typing) for sketching out ideas and overall as a tool of thought or an extension of my mind. Indeed I do often resort to pen and paper for that purpose which, in addition to being just plain quaint, simply locks me out of vast arrays of capabilities and tools I'd have on computer (org-mode etc).

There are also other ways I think faster typing speed can transform the way computers are used, for example being more comfortable in the cli, being more willing to write small simple throw-away code snippets, less reliance on tools like autocorrect and autocomplete, which in turn can give more freedom to experiment with more niche tools, and so on.

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

#25

Post by dnautics »

esrauch wrote: post #5
saltcod wrote: post #2

Disagree with a lot here. I could touch type before switching to Dvorak, but it’s still been very much worthwhile. Just trying out a single sentence in QWERTY now the difference is stark to me. My fingers move so much. With Dvorak I find there is much much less finger movement. It’s not painless, but I’d recommend it to anyone who types for 8+ hrs a day. It’s not a small optimizations imo.

I switched about 10 years ago and can still touch type qwerty as well (and need to do so fairly often). I haven't seriously considered going back, but I don't know that there is even any ergonomic advantages much less speed ones. I think the most relevant thing is that it might actually be worse for programming, both from the symbols and from qwerty-optimized hotkeys. I use vim with most of the regular bindings which…

It's certainly worse for programming if you use a semicolon rich language.

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

#26

Post by dnautics »

lsd5you wrote: post #21
cecilpl2 wrote: post #11

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.…

Been using dvorak for perhaps 10 years myself. Ctrx-c/v/x, well they're not next to each other anymore (and kind need 2 hands to use)! I recommend using this, in my mind a way bigger improvement than just moving to dvorak itself. It's like having vim navigation everywhere, but better. https://manybutfinite.com/post/home-row-computing/ Pretty sure my WPM is something like < 20 wpm in Querty (70 in dvorak). I look like…

Perfect dual fluency took me about ten years. I still sometimes get confused if I am using a keyboard that feels like one of my own. And then there was the time I dated someone who, unbeknownst to me, used Dvorak. "Hey, what the hell is wrong with your keyboard?"

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

#27

Post by IndrekR »

I used Dvorak for about 5 years. Switch to it was hard. Stopped in 2008 when I got a nice Dell XPS laptop at work without approval to mod the keyboard. Soon after that switched back to QWERTY with all the other computers as well.

Main issues during this brief encounter:

- there was not a really big difference in speed, even after the training period;

- nobody was able to use my computer, having half of the keys blank also helped;

- it was very hard to use normal QWERTY that happened to be... everywhere; every coworker had it; or laptop you had for taking random notes.

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

#28

Post by jamestomasino »

zokier wrote: post #24
alexandernst wrote: post #9

I never really understood the obsession about WPM that some programmers have. You're a programmer, not a court reporter. You don't need +200 WPM. You need to think before/during/after writing each one of the characters you type. And more often than not, you actually spend +5min of 20 lines of code, so your +200 WPM ability doesn't matter at all.

I type normally below 50wpm (just did a test which scored 54, but that is above my normal day-to-day rate), and I do feel constrained by my typing ability. More specifically not the rate I can spew up finished code, but the way I can't efficiently and naturally use computer (via typing) for sketching out ideas and overall as a tool of thought or an extension of my mind. Indeed I do often resort to pen and paper for t…

There's also the personal enjoyment factor. People that run long distances rarely need that skill level. People that sing for fun don't need to do it. It's great to push your abilities just for its own sake. Lots of us just enjoy it.

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

#29

Post by jamestomasino »

It doesn't look like anyone has yet addressed my biggest PRO for switching to Dvorak. It has pretty much healed my RSI. QWERTY had caused a huge drain on my ability to type. I was at risk for being unable to continue my work if the pain progressed.

I made the admittedly-difficult switch to Dvorak and that went away almost immediately. My typing speed is on-par with what it was with QWERTY. I can type out conversational English in real time, and that's about my functional limit. I don't consider that a selling point, but for those of you with wrist pain I can wholeheartedly recommond Dvorak.

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

#30

Post by DavidVoid »

If you want to learn how to touch type without changing your layout I can recommend getting blank keycaps, that very quickly got rid of my bad habit of looking at the keyboard to "make sure" the keys were actually where I thought they were when typing.

Also I think it's worth mentioning that the QWERTY layout was likely designed for transcribing Morse code which explains some parts of its layout.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fact-of-fiction-...

Post reply on HN