Keyboard layout doesn't matter for typing speed. There are endless videos on YouTube of people typing 90+ WPM with two fingers. I use Dvorak at home because it's more comfortable and I hope will prevent RSI in the future. I keep my work laptop in Qwerty because sometimes other people have to type on it. I switch between both layouts with ease. My Qwerty typing speed is slightly slower, but that has not had material impacts on my work. I much more enjoy typing in Dvorak. Everything in this article is a non-issue, and for the biggest reason for switching, preventing RSI, he admits, "it might be worth a shot."
Don't learn Dvorak
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Re: Don't learn Dvorak
#32I've always had a dream of writing an OS plugin that would determine if you're typing QWERTY of Dvorak from your pattern of keystrokes and then switch over to the appropriate layout. V2 would go back and fix your garbled text.
Re: Don't learn Dvorak
#33On the subject of using other people's computers: How do people who use a heavily customised environment -- like Emacs with modifications (like caps-lock key for CONTROL) -- cope with this?
At some point you just stop using other people's computers or having to share yours with anyone. It's not necessary nor productive for software development.
Re: Don't learn Dvorak
#34Before I switched to Dvorak, I had RSI problems. I still have RSI problems, but they are much less severe and much less frequent. The difference is stark. It makes a huge difference in quality of life for me. I have also tried alternative keyboards, like the Kinesis and the Ergodox, but switching to Dvorak seems to have had the largest impact. > Learning a new layout is one of the most frustrating experiences that I’…
Doing daily exercises for the hands and wrist solved my issues.
Re: Don't learn Dvorak
#35On the subject of using other people's computers: How do people who use a heavily customised environment -- like Emacs with modifications (like caps-lock key for CONTROL) -- cope with this?
I use an ergonomic keyboard and IntelliJ with emacs key bindings. The answer is that nobody else ever uses my computer, or they use it for about two minutes before giving up and telling me what they want.
Re: Don't learn Dvorak
#36Left my work Mac on in the office... Got in the next morning and saw my prankster coworker at my desk. I call out to him, what the hell are you doing. Sheepishly he flashes a toothy grin and says, "M____, why do you use Dvorak?"
Without skipping a beat, I reply, "precisely for this reason".
Security by obscurity. ten seconds of my life: totally worth the three months of effort I put into learning it decades ago.
Re: Don't learn Dvorak
#37Left my work Mac on in the office... Got in the next morning and saw my prankster coworker at my desk. I call out to him, what the hell are you doing. Sheepishly he flashes a toothy grin and says, "M____, why do you use Dvorak?" Without skipping a beat, I reply, "precisely for this reason". Security by obscurity. ten seconds of my life: totally worth the three months of effort I put into learning it decades ago.
Linux + i3. I don't even have a lock screen. Nobody can open Chrome.
Re: Don't learn Dvorak
#38Before I switched to Dvorak, I had RSI problems. I still have RSI problems, but they are much less severe and much less frequent. The difference is stark. It makes a huge difference in quality of life for me. I have also tried alternative keyboards, like the Kinesis and the Ergodox, but switching to Dvorak seems to have had the largest impact. > Learning a new layout is one of the most frustrating experiences that I’…
Interesting, I found learning Dvorak was way more frustrating than learning qwerty... Of course I learned qwerty at age five and Dvorak at age 19... And usually unlearning things is harder.
Re: Don't learn Dvorak
#39This article boils down to "Dvorak was difficult for me to learn therefore nobody should learn it."
I've been using Dvorak for about seven years now, and personally I love it.
For the longest time, I typed on QWERTY using a glorified hunt-and-peck method. I could type decently fast, but speed aside, I knew that touch typing was something I needed to learn. Figure if I was going to learn, I might as well learn on Dvorak.
Extremely happy with that decision. Typing just feels natural now, and I can type fast enough. There's many people that type faster than I do -- both QWERTY and Dvorak -- but I don't think I've ever thought to myself "I really wish I could type faster."
The biggest challenge for me in learning Dvorak was after I had more or less "learned" the layout, there was a period where typing was still involved consciously thinking "move this finger to this key". Most of my mental effort at that point was spent thinking about where to move my fingers, which made it more difficult to think about the actual code I was writing. Moved past that phase after a few weeks and never looked back. Overall, it took about month to learn, and it wasn't too difficult.
The author also mentions challenges when using someone else's computer. For me that's been a mild annoyance at worst--not enough of an annoyance to be worth complaining about. And on Mac OS at least, it takes all of a few seconds to switch keyboard layouts.
Re: Don't learn Dvorak
#40I make this same argument all the time. I switched to Dvorak 15 years ago, and though it did vastly improve my typing speed by teaching me to touch-type, I don't know whether it's intrinsically faster. Mostly it's just an impediment now: I can't type on other people's QWERTY keyboards, and other people can't type on mine. For any computer I sit in front of, I have to hunt-and-peck QWERTY keys unless I can switch the layout.