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Comment by shpx | Hacker News Reader

I used to be around 80 wpm with qwerty, now I'm 65 on dvorak, but it's much more comfortable.

It's hard to explain, but it feels satisfying to type. When I think about a word I'll sometimes think about what motions it takes to type it (on dvorak) and it just feels comfortable in my head. No regrets about the loss in typing speed.

The worst part about using dvorak is that no software is (or ever will be) designed for dvorak. Vim and emacs still work great, most shortcuts are phonetic and jk are where cv are, so I don't really mind.

I have been waiting for someone to sit down and redesign the keyboard layout for programming, and maybe this is it.

I've been typing on Programmer Dvorak[0] for 3 over years.

[0] https://www.kaufmann.no/roland/dvorak/ it comes with most (all?) Linux systems `setxkbmap -layout us -variant dvp`

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I've been on and off with Dvorak since about 16 years.

The feeling is consistent, when I do a lot of typing during the day with QWERTY my hands ache, with Dvorak they don't. So as you say, as long as the typing speed is ok, there's a huge win in how comfortable it is. For me the best way of separating between the two is how the motions are as well, with QWERTY everything is clustered and with Dvorak each key is on each hand, so much more of a hand dance, which in itself is quite nice.

I do remember the first time I introduced myself to it though. Removed all the caps on the keyboard and placed them accordingly, found myself unable to find the correct letters even though I searched the keyboard. Turns out every letter was under the hand that still rested on the keyboard ;) Took ages just to write common sentences, while the brain went crazy. Worth it now though!

The software support is better nowadays, used to be horrible with VNC and the likes. With NoVNC catching wind all those problems are gone though, even on things like IPMI with HTML5 consoles! RDP still blows my mind by changing the keyboard layout to whatever is running on the target machine.

Same, with Colemak. I actually type a little faster now, but the major benefit is how comfortable it is. Hardly have to leave the home row.

+1 for colemak.

I've used all of Qwerty, Dvorak, Programer Dvorak, and Colemak. I think Colemak is the clear winner in terms of comfort. I also don't care much about speed, I just want to not have my hands ache by the end of the day.

I experience the same satisfaction when touch typing and thinking about typing motions, but I've always used QWERTY. Do you have any idea why you didn't experience this until you moved to Dvorak?

I think one problem I encountered prior to switching to Dvorak was that QWERTY encouraged me to make bad touch typing habits like holding my right hand further toward the top row rather than at the home. This exacerbated my prior inability to pick up ambidextrous use of shift and ctrl.

My error rate is now tiny, backspace is for bad writing rather than bad typing. It is really comfortable to type on Dvorak in all manner of postures. I can type with my hands coming at the keyboard sideways, way above, way below, or while dancing or walking with the keyboard on a moving dolly; I've had no strain issues on any keyboard from doing this sort of thing regularly, or from sustained typing while sitting in crappy office chairs behind desks at the wrong height.

I think it might have something to do with the complete effectiveness of the home row. Because the home row reigns supreme in Dvorak, changes in posture aren't compounded by changes is hand positioning on the keyboard to hit certain motions.

My experience is similar to yours, except I am not looking for anything else. I switched to Dvorak 8 years ago and I haven't looked back since. My speed was lower and might still be but I don't care, typing is a delight and relative to the amount of time I spend on thinking and reasoning I think the overhead of any loss in typing speed is probably insignificant. Vim is the only keyboard control that matters to me anyway. (Though Vim is far from the only program I use.)

I feel it's important to mention that much of my love for Dvorak comes from the grid layout keyboard I've been using for all these years (wore one out though but bought a couple more to replace it), and which remains my primary keyboard both at home and at work.

I've experimented with grid layout; I like the Kinesis Advantsge. Would you mind sharing? Which brand works well for you?

Not OP but I have a TypeMatrix that I really like.

TypeMatrix 2030 USB

Try a Kinesis Advantage: https://jakeseliger.com/2009/07/20/kinesis-advantage. I think it's likely to be a bigger improvement than QWERTY vs Dvorak.

I have one and like it a lot, but it doesn't work in my bag or at the coffee shop.

Awesome. Let me know what you think after you play with it. I'm totally open to making changes.

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