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Comment by j-g-faustus | Hacker News Reader

Why you shouldn't switch:

    This reminds me of when I tried to switch to a Dvorak 
    keyboard. The trouble was, I don't use one computer. I 
    use all kinds of computers. I use other people's 
    computers. I use three computers fairly regularly at 
    home and three at work. I use computers in the test lab 
    at work. The trouble with customizing your environment
    is that it just doesn't propagate, so it's not even
    worth the trouble.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000059....

Which is my experience too. Dvorak would need to be at least 2-3 times faster than Qwerty to outweigh the disadvantages, a "possibly 10% faster" doesn't cut it.

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I hear this so often as an anti-Dvorak argument, and I cannot understand it. It seems like a complete non-objection to me.

If I need to use an unfamiliar computer, I can revert to hunt-and-peck Qwerty.

If I use that computer so often that hunt-and-peck significantly slows me down, I can afford to spend two minutes to switch the keymap to Dvorak.

[FWIW: I use Dvorak to prevent repetitive strain injury. "Time saving" is hardly an issue.]

  I use Dvorak to prevent repetitive strain injury.

Do you have any evidence that it helps? ("I don't have RSI" does not count. I don't have it either, and I don't use dvorak).

Two individuals' experiences is hardly what I call evidence :)

And even if there are studies, I suspect it will probably depend on the individual as well, as do a lot of health-issues.

I don't know any links to hard data, but from what I recall there are a few studies. If it's useful to you, then my personal experience is as follows:

  * I used to have RSI badly.
  * I read stuff on the internet about RSI.
  * One of the suggestions was to use Dvorak.
  * I started using Dvorak.
  * I took some other mitigating actions like getting a
    different chair, tilting my keyboard back
    and taking more
    typing breaks.
  * I noted that touch typing Dvorak was much more
    comfortable than touch tying Qwerty.
  * I haven't had RSI for ten years.

The cause and effect is not directly obvious, but I'm certain that Dvorak helped me to some extent. The downside is: three weeks of frustration whilst trying to learn it, and occasionally having to switch keymap on an unfamiliar computer.

I actually had a similar reason for switching to das, a layout optimized for the finnish language. I was starting to get wrist pain while typing, started to take notice of my posture and switched to typing with das.

Typing feels more natural and I can notice a huge difference to typing with qwerty (which I can still almost touch type).

Again, I can't really say anything definite about the cause and effect but I can recommend giving a better keyboard layout a try.

As silly as it sounds to say... At this point it's iPad support and not other people's computers that would get in my way. Has anyone had success keeping _both_ layouts in their brains?

I used to write all my prose with dvorak and all my code in qwerty. Now that I write significantly more code than prose, I hardly ever switch over to dvorak. My dvorak speed has regressed a ton so it's not really worth it.

It's sometimes fun, though. I wrote this using dvorak.

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