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Untangling the myths and mysteries of Dvorak and QWERTY (2023)

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Re: Untangling the myths and mysteries of Dvorak and QWERTY (2023)

#51

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

gwd wrote: post #37
lgunsch wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm happy I switched to Colemak around 13 years ago. Mostly due to elbow pain. I do find it made a difference there. In general, I do type faster than before, and faster than many people around me. That's likely only because I actually had to practice.

Right -- see, I basically maxed out "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing" in high school. (That is, I practiced with it regularly until it couldn't find any particular problem with my typing, and resorted to giving me practice typing symbols, at which point I got bored and quit.) What prompted me to look at Colemak (and mechanical keyboards) was when some friend/colleagues at work were playing with typeracer.com, and I clock…

I've had a similar history, and also switched mostly to reduce fatigue & the risk of RSI. Colemak seems easier to use, even if it's not any faster. Of course it's quite possible that the improvement is simply due to the deliberate practice needed to switch layouts; even more than learning to type in the first place switching layouts takes focus and therefore makes it easier to notice & correct bad habits.

Re: Untangling the myths and mysteries of Dvorak and QWERTY (2023)

#52

Post by IAmBroom »

goosedragons wrote: post #32
IAmBroom wrote: post #18

According to this article, "a 1936 book called Typewriting Behavior" made "comparisons of the new keyboard to a jeep and the old one to an ox". Jeeps were invented in 1941. Some origin theories of the name date back as far as WW I (but for recruits, not vehicles). If the author truly used this comparison in 1936 it would be a tremendous citation for the word's origin. Or perhaps the comparison was made in a later edi…

Popeye introduced a character named "Eugene the Jeep" in 1936. Could have also been the origin of Jeep for the vehicle.

Yes, that's one of the popular theories.

I personally prefer reuse of the existing word "jeep" meaning "new recruit" to mean "new vehicle". But that's just an opinion.

Re: Untangling the myths and mysteries of Dvorak and QWERTY (2023)

#53

Post by KingEllis »

k__ wrote: post #17
alpaca128 wrote: post #13

The real problem with current keyboards is the physical arrangement of the keys. Staggered rows instead of columns make them less ergonomic, the oversized spacebar wastes much of the most valuable space on the keyboard. The thumb as one of the strongest fingers has almost nothing to do, with both thumbs mostly sharing a single key while typing text. While the weak pinky finger has to cover more keys than the others.…

"The thumb as one of the strongest fingers has almost nothing to do, with both thumbs mostly sharing a single key while typing text." To be fair, that single key is used rather excessively compared to the rest.

I had never considered until now that my left thumb never touches the keyboard.

Re: Untangling the myths and mysteries of Dvorak and QWERTY (2023)

#54

Post by stevage »

alpaca128 wrote: post #13

The real problem with current keyboards is the physical arrangement of the keys. Staggered rows instead of columns make them less ergonomic, the oversized spacebar wastes much of the most valuable space on the keyboard. The thumb as one of the strongest fingers has almost nothing to do, with both thumbs mostly sharing a single key while typing text. While the weak pinky finger has to cover more keys than the others.…

I still miss a Compaq keyboard I had with a split spacebar. You could choose various options; I had the left side as backspace.

I don't agree with your statement about switching though. I was a very good Qwerty typist, but I'm much faster and more accurate on Dvorak. Switching was one of the most useful things I have ever done.

Re: Untangling the myths and mysteries of Dvorak and QWERTY (2023)

#55

Post by stevage »

anon84873628 wrote: post #44
angiolillo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm typing this on a swiping keyboard. It's different enough that a better layout might have been worth it here... Perhaps, but as someone who has been proficient in QWERTY, Dvorak, and Colemak, and who now uses Colemak-DH I can say that I leave my phone and small tablet keyboards on QWERTY. The separation of common letters in QWERTY forces your finger to move farther when swiping, but that provides a bit more dist…

Same here. I adopted Dvorak as a youth, so when I got my first smartphone I put the keyboard in Dvorak. That only lasted a few days for two reasons: 1) What you said about the mistakes. It is so much easier to fat finger in a way that makes autocorrect clueless. 2) The muscle memory doesn't translate at all anyway. Obvious in retrospect, but typing with your thumbs is a completely unrelated skill to touch typing. Tur…

Huh, I do use Dvorak on my phone. I have a weird phone typing style with my left thumb and my right index finger.

My biggest issue is how often I hit '.' instead of 'p' for some reason.

Re: Untangling the myths and mysteries of Dvorak and QWERTY (2023)

#56

Post by stevage »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #36

I tried Dvorak for a while but gave up after I realized: 1. Not only are the key positions for typing different, but all the keyboard shortcuts I know needed to be re-learned too, and were often in much worse locations (as just one of many problems, Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V are no longer next to each other) 2. I still need to be good with QWERTY because basically everything uses it. It's a shame, because it does seem more e…

Re point 1, the standard solution is a keymap that switches to Qwerty when ctrl/command is held down. It works surprisingly well, and is widely available.

Re point 2, I have not found this to be true (when do I ever need to use someone else's keyboard?), but also I haven't lost my qwerty skill anyway.

Re: Untangling the myths and mysteries of Dvorak and QWERTY (2023)

#57

Post by goosedragons »

dylan604 wrote: post #43
alpaca128 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That key makes up about 15% in English text, and it could be covered by 10% of fingers but instead it's 20%. Meanwhile every use of shift, return, backspace, ctrl etc is done with the weakest fingers and often include some hand stretching to reach those keys. Altough I haven't looked at actual keypress stats and how those are distributed across fingers. Might be interesting to look into. On my keyboard I cover six ke…

> Meanwhile every use of shift, return, backspace, ctrl etc is done with the weakest fingers and often include some hand stretching to reach those keys. As previously stated, this is only an issue for non-practiced typers. With practice, it no longer feels like stretching. It just becomes muscle memory. It's like a novice golfer complaining that it hurts their hips when they rotate through the swing, or a tennis play…

Nah dawg. I was a practiced touch typist for years. We had oodles of typing in elementary school. Pain in my pinkies didn't get better. Only worse because keys like {}| are far more important in programming than writing English and add to pinkie stress. Switching to a Kinesis Advantage with thumb keys and layers to put keys like {} under better fingers resolved my problem.

Re: Untangling the myths and mysteries of Dvorak and QWERTY (2023)

#58

Post by Zambyte »

alpaca128 wrote: post #13

The real problem with current keyboards is the physical arrangement of the keys. Staggered rows instead of columns make them less ergonomic, the oversized spacebar wastes much of the most valuable space on the keyboard. The thumb as one of the strongest fingers has almost nothing to do, with both thumbs mostly sharing a single key while typing text. While the weak pinky finger has to cover more keys than the others.…

I switched to Dvorak around five years ago now. I decided to switch at the same time as switching to a columnar split keyboard (specifically the ZSA Moonlander, which is still my primary keyboard (my secondary is the ZSA Voyager for travel)). I did this switch at the same time, because I felt like it would be a sufficiently different keyboard that I wouldn't have as concrete of muscle memory, and I wouldn't be fighting my QWERTY instincts as much.

A big part of why I wanted to make the switch at all is because I was experiencing fatigue in my hands, and I felt that it could be due to my improper typing habits that I developed from mostly learning to type through playing videogames. I wanted to properly type from the home row, and the split columnar keyboard basically enforces that, and Dvorak makes it even easier.

I will say though, I type at about the same speed that I did before I made the switch. Switching layouts almost certainly will not enable you to type faster. Switching layouts encourages you to deliberately practice typing on that layout (I did lots of typing challenges while learning) which will make you faster. The biggest benefit for me has actually been in my back! The split keyboard allows me to rotate my shoulders back a lot more, which makes me feel way better at the end of the day. My hands are less fatigued too, but I don't feel like that was as big of a deal for me.

Re: Untangling the myths and mysteries of Dvorak and QWERTY (2023)

#59

Post by Zambyte »

vintermann wrote: post #16

I don't have a particular beef in the great Dvorak vs. QWERTY debate. But I really wish I had a brain which could do things like acquire muscle memory fluency in one keyboard layout without losing it in another. Though, I'm typing this on a swiping keyboard. It's different enough that a better layout might have been worth it here... I feel like I'm not using that much of my regular qwerty muscle memory, and what's op…

I switched to Dvorak at the same time as switching to a split, columnar keyboard. I have never used Dvorak on a traditional staggered keyboard, and I have never used QWERTY on a split columnar keyboard. By separating the layout usage on such distinct form factors, I haven't lost QWERTY even after not using it as my primary for years :)

I also do still use QWERTY for touchscreen devices, because you can't keep your hands on the home row on touch screens, so you lose the benefits of Dvorak (and I actually found the common letter combos being near each other to be way more cumbersome on a touch screen).

Re: Untangling the myths and mysteries of Dvorak and QWERTY (2023)

#60

Post by themafia »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #36

I tried Dvorak for a while but gave up after I realized: 1. Not only are the key positions for typing different, but all the keyboard shortcuts I know needed to be re-learned too, and were often in much worse locations (as just one of many problems, Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V are no longer next to each other) 2. I still need to be good with QWERTY because basically everything uses it. It's a shame, because it does seem more e…

For me it was the command line. 'ls' and 'cd' with slashes are exceedingly annoying to type often on a dvorak.
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