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Why the Dvorak keyboard didn't take over the world (2014) [video]

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Re: Why the Dvorak keyboard didn't take over the world (2014) [video]

#171

Post by hahamrfunnyguy »

spookthesunset wrote: post #113
kloch wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> QWERTY users naturally wander around and have their hands leave the home row and I'm not entirely convinced it's actually wrong. I think you are learning it wrong. It's not hard at all to learn QWERTY with the proper training technique. I took touch typing in High School, back in the 1980's. Even back then I knew I was going to be doing a lot of work with computers so it made sense to take it. It turned out to be t…

> I took touch typing in High School, back in the 1980's. Even back then I knew I was going to be doing a lot of work with computers so it made sense to take it. It turned out to be the most useful class I ever took in school by a wide margin since I've used that skill all day every day for 35 years. Same. It's like the one high school class I use every single day. Do they even offer typing in high school anymore?

I graduated in 1999 and had to take two typing classes, one in 7th grade and one in 11th grade. Both were mostly wastes of time because I had already learned how to type.

I could type about 120-130 WPM back then and somehow, I was still required to take BOTH classes. I typically finished the work in the first ten minutes of class then studied or drew.

My family got a computer when I was about 5 and one of the first things I learned how to do was type. Having a personal computer in the late 80's still was pretty unusual. Ten years later, everyone had access to one either at home or in the school computer lab.

Re: Why the Dvorak keyboard didn't take over the world (2014) [video]

#172

Post by fsckboy »

api_or_ipa wrote: post #9

As a dvorak user, whatever increase in typing speed is mostly irrelevant, for most of us, our output isn't limited by how fast we can type, but how fast we can think. That being said, a long time ago I took an analysis of one of our code bases, mapped every character onto dvorak and qwerty keyboards to produce heatmaps, and it's startling how much less the fingers have to move on a dvorak keyboard. So if you're lazy,…

> analysis of one of our code bases, mapped every character

if your code base is C, is dvorak going to help with all the [^A-Za-z]* punctuation characters? That's what slows me down.

Re: Why the Dvorak keyboard didn't take over the world (2014) [video]

#173

Post by fsckboy »

jerf wrote: post #57
kloch wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> QWERTY users naturally wander around and have their hands leave the home row and I'm not entirely convinced it's actually wrong. I think you are learning it wrong. It's not hard at all to learn QWERTY with the proper training technique. I took touch typing in High School, back in the 1980's. Even back then I knew I was going to be doing a lot of work with computers so it made sense to take it. It turned out to be t…

"I think you are learning it wrong." Well, of course I did. I used a keyboard for many years before my formal middle school typing class and by then it was too late. My brain already knew better and typing exercises did no good because I already knew how to use the keyboard without looking. I imagine this is the dominant case. If you want to fix it, I recommend simply learning a sensible layout for touch typing. You…

> You also would not have needed such a class if the keyboard was laid out in Dvorak for everybody

you seriously believe, without any doubt, that with a clearly labelled dvorak keyboard and no typing lessons you would not have learned to hunt-and-peck at increasingly higher speeds as you did with QWERTY, but instead put your fingers "on the home row" and used your pinkies? At a young age, we all learn the alphabet, and if the keyboard is not in alphabetic order, you are on a hunt for keys, and fingers in the home position will obscure too many key labels.

Sorry, but thinking about it for 30 seconds makes it hard for me to take your argument seriously.

(as a total off-topic aside, back when Cambodian politics and Prince Sihanouk were in the news a lot, I thought "must be hunt-and-peck in German" every time I heard "FUNCINPEC" on the radio)

Re: Why the Dvorak keyboard didn't take over the world (2014) [video]

#174

Post by osbert »

I built a simulator to allow you to experience what it is like to type in Dvorak before committing to learn the layout. It assumes that you can touch-type in QWERTY. Enter some text into the first text box, and it gives you the equivalent keypresses to make [in QWERTY] that would output the same sentence in Dvorak.

https://dvorak.iterinc.com/

https://github.com/osbert/dv-sim2

A former colleague of mine graciously contributed Colemak as an option as well.

Re: Why the Dvorak keyboard didn't take over the world (2014) [video]

#175

Post by fsckboy »

Symbiote wrote: post #73
kloch wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> QWERTY users naturally wander around and have their hands leave the home row and I'm not entirely convinced it's actually wrong. I think you are learning it wrong. It's not hard at all to learn QWERTY with the proper training technique. I took touch typing in High School, back in the 1980's. Even back then I knew I was going to be doing a lot of work with computers so it made sense to take it. It turned out to be t…

> the instructor would call out "J-J-J Space, K-K-K Space, L-L-L space, sem sem sem space" That nicely demonstrates the poor Qwerty layout. The very first keys you learn are among the least used, especially semicolon. Adding the left hand (ASDF), we can then type 44 words from /usr/share/dict/words, like "salad", "salsa", "flasks", "falls" and "alfalfa". For Dvorak, the instructor would be calling out "H-H-H Space, T…

> That nicely demonstrates the poor Qwerty layout. The very first keys you learn are among the least used, especially semicolon

OMG no it does not, your argument is ridiculous. You have to learn all the fingers and then all the keys before you can touchtype, no matter what layout you are learning. You can't efficiently touchtype 20 letters of the alphabet then take your hands off to hunt and peck the rest on a dvorak or a qwerty.

What letter you are instructed to learn first is immaterial. (and in GP's example, since I was taught by the same system, you don't learn semicolon as your 3rd letter, he just threw that in; you learn to rhythmically intersperse pointers (index fingers) and thumbkins/space first, then you add in tall-men, interspersed, etc. then moving between rows.)

what you are trying to connect your argument to, unsucessfully, is the idea that index fingers are naturally the best typists (coordination, musculature), so "let's give them the most common letters to type", which dvorak does. But this also implies, btw, that your worst finger, pinky, will over time also get the least exercise, so the gulf between its skill and pointer's skill will grow, not shrink. (I'm not saying that's more than a 2nd order effect, just sayin, muscle memory, 10,000 hours...)

Re: Why the Dvorak keyboard didn't take over the world (2014) [video]

#176

Post by agnosticmantis »

I wonder if a keyboard optimized for typists (typing in English with the most common word being ‘the’) is also optimal for programmers (writing code in say Python, with the most commonly used word likely being ‘def’ or ‘if’). The statistics of the two corpora should be different.

Re: Why the Dvorak keyboard didn't take over the world (2014) [video]

#177

Post by barroomhero »

osbert wrote: post #174

I built a simulator to allow you to experience what it is like to type in Dvorak before committing to learn the layout. It assumes that you can touch-type in QWERTY. Enter some text into the first text box, and it gives you the equivalent keypresses to make [in QWERTY] that would output the same sentence in Dvorak. https://dvorak.iterinc.com/ https://github.com/osbert/dv-sim2 A former colleague of mine graciously con…

This is great! Also seems like a simple code engine.

Kjg; g; uodak! Ap;s ;ddm; pgvd a ;gmrpd ishd dluglde

Re: Why the Dvorak keyboard didn't take over the world (2014) [video]

#178

Post by tome »

rsolva wrote: post #109
jcalvinowens wrote: post #103

I switched to Colemak a little over 10 years ago and I've never looked back. I used to struggle a lot with hand pain when typing for more than a few hours, Colemak completely fixed that. It took me about three weeks to become proficient enough that typing stopped being frustrating. Those three weeks really sucked, that was the hardest part. It took a couple years, but I'm solidly "bilingual" now and can switch betwee…

Your story is very similar to mine, I switched to Colemak in 2010 and it took about 3 weeks of 5 minutes bursts of practice a couple of times every day(ish). I have never looked back. My motivation was moving my finger less, speed was just a bonus.

Eerily similar to mine too! Except I switched to Dvorak; Colemak didn't exist at the time :(

Re: Why the Dvorak keyboard didn't take over the world (2014) [video]

#179

Post by BeetleB »

kloch wrote: post #37
jerf wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the best thing about Dvorak (and similar layouts) is that if you want to do proper touch typing, it is quite possibly easier to learn Dvorak than to learn how to touch type QWERTY. Touch typing QWERTY is a constant uphill battle of using your willpower to force yourself to type correctly, despite the rest of your brain claiming it isn't the optimal way to type on that layout. I don't know that your brain is…

> QWERTY users naturally wander around and have their hands leave the home row and I'm not entirely convinced it's actually wrong. I think you are learning it wrong. It's not hard at all to learn QWERTY with the proper training technique. I took touch typing in High School, back in the 1980's. Even back then I knew I was going to be doing a lot of work with computers so it made sense to take it. It turned out to be t…

> I think you are learning it wrong. It's not hard at all to learn QWERTY with the proper training technique.

Eh, that's always easy to say, but I suspect it is not true.

I myself have tried several times, using several typing tutors, and I just couldn't do it. I can type without looking at the keyboard out of sheer habit, but the whole "put fingers on the home row" never clicked for me. It also, IMO, is very prone to RSI issues.

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