An AI designed keyboard layout (2021)

I think you bring up really great points, and it's probably the main reason there isn't more heterogeneity. There is a nice middle ground though, in customizable keyboards with macro buttons. I have the ErgoDox which is a split keyboard with these columns of three keys on each side of the split, and a cluster of thumb buttons. Really is nifty (once you get used to it) for programming. Even simple things like having one of the thumb buttons be a macro to enter "=>" which I use heavily in JavaScript is really nice.

This is an almost complete non-issue in practice. It sounds like an expectation someone has that hasn't actually switched to a different keyboard layout.

I'm typing on neo [0] and it's no problem at all.

[0]: https://neo-layout.org

About 12 years ago, I quit qwerty cold turkey on an unlabeled das keyboard ultimate for Dvorak and my typing speeds went from about 102wpm to 5. I printed out a label of the layout and put it on a wall a good distance from my chair and referenced it to find the correct keys. It took me about 2 weeks to get back up to 40wpm and another year later I was typing at my normal speed.

I still think it’s one of the best layouts; others bring up the home row but Dvorak had a lot of other factors at play too. If you’re interested, I highly recommend this 1972 article[0] on the layout, it’s quite a story.

One benefit of learning blind without ever using labels was that I can jump on any computer with a qwerty keyboard, switch to Dvorak, and just start typing. I have never ran into a computer that actively prevented me from switching keyboard layouts, and I even have a word processor that comes with Dvorak as an option. Bear in mind, I am still typing on a QWERTY keyboard, but if I type the letter Q, it outputs on the computer a comma.

Most modern games can detect alternate layouts and remap keys automatically, and for those that can’t it’s not difficult to remap them.

Back to the question of switching though. I went five years exclusively using Dvorak and not QWERTY, and for me that was fine. I will papers, I was programming, and I would simply just switch to Dvorak when I went on a computer that was not my own. The few times I did have to use QWERTY, I would just hunt and Peck. However, I ended up getting a job where they did a lot of deskside support for various clients, and of course I could not just change the keyboard layout on them. At some point, I realized, that I was able to switch my mindset when typing in qwerty, and suddenly I was just as proficient as I used to be in Corti then in Dvorak. You have to have kind of an active change in your brain similar to if you are speaking in a different language. If I’m on a qwerty keyboard I’m in “qwerty mode” and on Dvorak, default mode.

I must warn you, even after two weeks and 40 words per minute, I found Dvorak so comfortable I didn’t even care about my typing speed anymore and stopped doing typing drills. Consequently, while I am capable of using a qwerty keyboard for short periods of time, I find typing on one so uncomfortable that if given the opportunity I just switch to Dvorak. Obviously I would not do this on a client’s computer, but an Internet café is fair game.

I must also warn you that since Dvorak actively spreads the load across all fingers, your pinky may get sore when you first start only because those muscles aren’t used to being used. If you’re interested in reading my experience, I wrote about it in 2010[1].

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20190125034817/http://infohost.n...

[1] https://aj.ianozi.com/2010/12/switched-keyboard-layouts.html...

To give my personal impression, as someone who switched to neo [0] about 2 years ago. To be fair I only had about 20 years of QWERTZ & QWERTY experience before that.

1. For me it took about a year or so until I surpassed my QWERTY typing speed with certainty. I typed about 80-90 wpm on QWERTY and currently type at about 90-100 wpm on neo.

2. Yes, it's not a big issue. I rarely type QWERTY nowadays, but whenever I have to it clicks after a few minutes and I can type at maybe 70% the speed I typed at before. I'm certain were I to use it more, I would be able to type both at my "native" speeds. I also relearned all my emacs shortcuts pretty quickly. Using emacs is harder on QWERTY now, but fortunately I pretty much never have to do that now.

3. Due to 2, it's not really a problem. The actual problem is the other way round. You cannot easily give someone else access to your computer. It can be a bit annoying to change keyboard layouts each time someone else wants to quickly use your computer.

Hope that gives some perspective.

[0]: https://neo-layout.org

Look up Sean Wrona -- one example of typing skill that can't be improved by changing keyboard layouts. People looking into Dvorak are often warned that it isn't a magic bullet to make them faster, only possibly more comfortable.