I switch between Dvorak and Programmer Dvorak depending on if I’m writing code or not. Helped keeping my RSI in check for the last 8 years.
Does anyone here use Dvorak?
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Re: Does anyone here use Dvorak?
#12I switched to Dvorak in college because hunt and punch was too slow to write all the papers I needed to write, and I kept looking at the keyboard with qwerty.
I still remember the day when I lay on the grass outside my dorm room with my laptop on my stomach typing a paper while looking at clouds. It was wonderful.
Re: Does anyone here use Dvorak?
#13How hard was the mental brain remapping/muscle memory remapping? Much of my work history involved lots of travel and working on sites and it wouldn't have been realistic to try and adopt it. It was tough enough working on French keyboards. AZERTY? I did visit a client in Chicago once and sat down at the guys desk to find a Dvorak keyboard on a solaris desktop. After 2 minutes of finger picking and eye scanning i kind…
I found it easier to learn ten-finger touch typing with a whole new layout, than to unlearn years of terrible habits with QWERTY. Took about a week to easily exceed my QWERTY speed. As far as I can tell, it has not affected my speed with QWERTY at all. Using QWERTY is slightly frustrating as I'm about half as fast as with Dvorak, but I still do the same old annoying 30 - 40 wpm with my four-finger peck technique that…
interesting, thanks
Re: Does anyone here use Dvorak?
#14Muscle memory is a strange thing. I tried picking up Colemak last year and stopped because I made no progress. I then tried again recently and started right where I left off, at a slightly higher WPM.
It's odd that I could just continue progress that quickly and there's been absolutely no problem switching between keyboard layouts.
Re: Does anyone here use Dvorak?
#15Muscle memory is a strange thing. I tried picking up Colemak last year and stopped because I made no progress. I then tried again recently and started right where I left off, at a slightly higher WPM. It's odd that I could just continue progress that quickly and there's been absolutely no problem switching between keyboard layouts.
This was basically my experience in learning morse. Stopped after I somehow couldn't learn the next letter properly.
Come back a year later, and I was way better at it --- with no practice whatsoever in between.
Re: Does anyone here use Dvorak?
#16I've used it since 2001. IMO, it doesn't matter what layout you use, the key is learning to touch type properly if the goal is speed. Some layouts are probably truly awful, but the primary ones are all about as good as each other. The main pro, for me, of Dvorak is that it actually feels a lot more natural with Emacs' default key bindings (my primary text editor) than QWERTY ever did.
Re: Does anyone here use Dvorak?
#17I used Dvorak for about 15 years and loved it. There are probably incrementally better layouts now, but Dvorak was available when I switched. I found it very much more comfortable than QWERTY. Perhaps a little faster. But ending the pain in my hands was the big win. I would strongly encourage others to switch to an improved layout.
That said, I switched back to QWERTY about 5 years ago when Parkinson's stopped me from touch typing with my right hand. Now I type with my left hand and one finger on the right. I have to look at the keyboard. I use too many different keyboards to practically relabel the keys. It didn't take more than a few weeks to re-learn QWERTY on the left hand. My hands hurt more now, but at least keyboards are better now than they used to be.
Re: Does anyone here use Dvorak?
#18Uh, we all use Colemak.
Re: Does anyone here use Dvorak?
#19I've used Dvorak for the past ~20 years.
When I first started, I found it easier to learn touch-typing in Dvorak because I couldn't cheat and look at the keys.
It's great when I'm using my own devices, but is irritating when I have to use someone else's computer, so I have to suddenly become a hunt-and-peck loser again.
On the positive, nobody else can use my computer either. :-P
I've gone the whole hog and use an Ergodox as well, for maximum non-interoperability.
Re: Does anyone here use Dvorak?
#20The hardest part of learning dvorak is losing the ability to type Crtl + C, Crtl + V with one hand.
I recommend getting a gaming mouse were you can remap hot keys to spare buttons.