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Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)

workmanlayout.org

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Re: Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)

#211

Post by thomastjeffery »

stevev wrote: post #40

A few years ago I was stuck between workman, norman and colemak. I decided to go colemak for ease of transition. Being a longtime qwerty typer, my hands came to favor a more left hand typing ratio. I later realized colemak tends to be more right hand. My qwerty wpm rate went from avg 130 down to 80. My hands feel more comfortable typing colemak for long durations compared to qwerty. The placement of the letter H and…

I was in the same position, and picked workman.

In the end, portability didn't matter, because I can just use my programmable keyboard everywhere.

Re: Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)

#212

Post by thomastjeffery »

lmilcin wrote: post #8
unwoundmouse wrote: post #5

This is dope, I love how the author took a rigorous approach towards analyzing how much effort could be saved through this keyboard

Well, you are going to spend all the saved effort in ensuring you have the layout working everywhere. I am contractor, most of the time working on corporate PC. I use dvorak and it is already a huge PITA to explain to yet another corporate drone I need to be able to set up my own keyboard layout. Windows does not have Dvorak layout with polish accents so I have to either use my own driver or, more likely, write witho…

This is why I just bring my keyboard everywhere. I get everything I want without inconveniencing anyone else.

I've considered building something extremely small like a Planck just for the extra portability.

Re: Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)

#213

Post by thomastjeffery »

xupybd wrote: post #126

I'd really love to see some serious work go into studying keyboard layouts to see if they actually make the differences claimed. Not that I'm sceptical more that I'd like to be able to quantify the difference they are worth. I'd love to try one out but not sure it's worth the time investment.

There has been a lot of effort put into quantifying potential results.

At the end of the day, workman is much more comfortable, and that makes me happy.

Re: Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)

#214

Post by thomastjeffery »

MrOxiMoron wrote: post #113

I don't use my computer for writing epic novels, I'm using it to play games (key placement doesn't matter) and programming. So how much easier/difference is there for programming in different languages? I know for a fact that PHP made the choice for the namespace separator based on availability on certain keyboard layouts.

Hopefully you are writing comments and documentation.

You just wrote a whole paragraph on HN.

In my experience, there is a huge increase in comfort to be had.

Re: Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)

#215

Post by thomastjeffery »

stormdennis wrote: post #52

I used hunt and peck for years before learning to touch type. After four years of touch type I'm still fairly crap. If I try to speed up i commonly get the letter order wrong of two successive letters. I'm a lot better than hunt and peck but I'm kind of disappointed. Would it be a major job moving to Dvorak and can you expect big improvements? Also is it better for the keys programmers use that others don't use so mu…

If your goal is speed, you won't see significant gains.

If your goal is comfort, you may see significant gains. I did.

Re: Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)

#216

Post by thomastjeffery »

pluto9 wrote: post #25

I'm amazed that people are able to quickly "try out" new keyboard layouts. I'm not a particularly good typist as it is. I feel like a new layout would take months of infuriating practice and lost productivity to learn.

Successfully "trying out" does not involve proficiency.

I tried out several layouts before deciding I liked workman the most.

Re: Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)

#217

Post by thomastjeffery »

gillesjacobs wrote: post #141

I have done testing of my own on personalized keyboard lay-out by keylogging myself. My initial interest in keyboard layouts was piqued years ago with the CarpalX project [1], so I started keylogging myself in 2017. I am a researcher, programmer, sysadmin, and work in a multilingual environment (Python, English, Dutch, R, Java, French, Spanish), so I was expecting some interesting results. I put 3 years worth of keyl…

Thanks for sharing your stats. It's really neat to see that context.

I've been using workman for a few years. I chose it over colemak and norman after trying them all and picking the one I enjoy the most.

Re: Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)

#218

Post by lwb »

dmix wrote: post #36
lwb wrote: post #24

Looks very interesting, but re-learning how to type is so painful, not to mention devastating to my productivity at work, that I think I can only afford to do it once in a lifetime... I recently made the switch from QWERTY to Dvorak, during a 2 week period while I was in between jobs, and it was one of the most frustrating things I've ever done. Over a month later and I'm back up to a plodding 60 WPM (from a glorious…

I was curious about vim as well. I wonder if the defaults of vi are somehow optimized for QWERTY. This thread convinced me to try switching to Dvorak but I'm a bit scared after reading your comment. It's not clear from your comment, did you switch back to QWERTY or are you still giving it a shot?

> I was curious about vim as well. I wonder if the defaults of vi are somehow optimized for QWERTY.

A few are, such an hjkl being on the home row, but the rest are more semantic (for example, "t" is "unTil", "f" is "From", "a" is "append", "i" is "insert", etc. So all of those lend themselves to muscle memory from repeated use but aren't particularly better or worse on any keyboard layout. Dvorak keeps "j" and "k" together (in the place where "c" and "v" are, respectively), which is a nice touch.

> This thread convinced me to try switching to Dvorak but I'm a bit scared after reading your comment. It's not clear from your comment, did you switch back to QWERTY or are you still giving it a shot?

I switched to Dvorak about a month ago, and have no plans to switch back! It is a definite improvement in comfort, which I expect to translate to a speed improvement eventually. Nowadays when I type anything at all in QWERTY I wonder how I ever put up with contorting my fingers into such strange shapes to type the simplest words -- not to mention how so many words have almost zero hand alternation.

Re: Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)

#219

Post by WorldMaker »

nvarsj wrote: post #129
underyx wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, most common problems were caused by placement of special keys (shift, ctrl, backspace, enter) and that's not something colemak, dvorak or their friends seem to be addressing. You're still mostly right, but Colemak does actually move Backspace to the Caps Lock key, which is a change I'd recommend to every single person who types on a computer keyboard.

I'm not convinced by that. I use thumb clusters now, but on a normal keyboard I would always move my whole hand and hit backspace with my right ring finger. Similarly with modifiers I would either karate chop or move my hand. Using pinky should be avoided if possible. Similarly the common recommendation to bind caps lock to control is the worst possible thing for RSI.

> I would always move my whole hand and hit backspace with my right ring finger.

My understanding is that (maybe non-intuitively) whole hand movements are more likely to cause wrist-related RSI than single finger travels. (Single finger travels are more likely to create knuckle RSIs, certainly.) The missing letter in RSI is sometimes "movement" as it is stress from repetitive movements.

Anecdotally, the biggest mistake and the source of most of my pain from the way I had learned QWERTY was a lot of whole hand movements, and reducing those was a very clear and specific goal for me when I relearned touch typing (on Colemak).

Re: Workman Keyboard Layout (2010)

#220

Post by WorldMaker »

fho wrote: post #136
cuddlybacon wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if the defaults of vi are somehow optimized for QWERTY. Only hjkl for movement. Everything else is fine. I still wouldn't make the switch again. You'd get more millage from spending the ~2 weeks doing a bunch of speed typing practice with qwerty.

The problem is that most of the typing in vim is based on muscle memory ... thinking about it I have no idea what the keys I use for commenting out code. I tried to learn Dvorak and later Neo ... Not being able to use Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V like I was used to was annoying ... not being able to use vim anymore was the reason I stayed with QWERTY (QWERTZ in German).

That Ctrl key muscle memory is why Colemak made the explicit decision to leave all of ZXCVB in the same place as QWERTY.

A lot of Vim is mnemonic and while relearning the muscle memory is tough, relearning the mnemonics can be useful to reinforce what you know about Vim.

(Just maybe don't make the mistake I made at one point of trying a "remap the world" configuration, learning entirely new mnemonics for classic operations, and then realizing maybe too late I'd prefer a smaller remapped config. Unlearning the wrong mnemonics is hard.)

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