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Comment by mikece | Hacker News Reader

Ditto the Dvorak keyboard enthusiasts...

Even less so. Unless you're doing transcription, typing speed is not even close to being the primary limitation on how quickly you work. Thinking of the words is. The difference between a typist who can hit 100 wpm using QWERTY and 110 wpm using DVORAK will only be exposed when playing TypeRacer. Otherwise there's no functional difference.

You have to get down to hunt-and-peck until you see typing ability actually affect productivity (and I have seen those people). If you can touch type using any keyboard layout, though, then typing speed won't be a meaningful limitation for you.

I switched to Dvorak originally because I wanted to learn how to touchtype and using Dvorak meant that I couldn't cheat by looking at the keyboard. We're now almost 15 years later and I don't regret my choice, I don't know if typing in Dvorak is really faster than QWERTY but it definitely feels very comfortable. That's a very significant functional difference, most of the typing in Dvorak occurs around the home row. When you type for hours every day it's well worth the switch IMO. Get a good ergonomic keyboard while you're at it.

That being said if I anybody reading this is tempted to switch away from QWERTY towards a more ergonomic layout I'd suggest looking into Colemak, it's supposed to be at least as ergonomic as Dvorak while being closer to the standard QWERTY layout.

I also endorse the switch to Dvorak -- I find it more comfortable (less finger movement feels calmer). I can also switch between keyboard layouts within a few conscious keystrokes, after that the 'muscle memory' takes over.

I suspect Colemak is better, but it's a much smaller gain going from Dvorak to Colemak than from Qwerty to Dvorak, so I'll stick to what I have. Otherwise I suspect Colemak is better than Dvorak when switching from QWERTY.

>I suspect Colemak is better, but it's a much smaller gain going from Dvorak to Colemak than from Qwerty to Dvorak, so I'll stick to what I have.

Yeah I'm in the same boat, that's why I was mainly aiming my comment at people using QWERTY and looking to switch to a better layout. Even the Colemak people acknowledge that:

https://colemak.com/FAQ#Is_it_worth_switching_from_Dvorak_to...

> The Colemak keyboard layout fixes all the issues mentioned above, and wins in virtually every criterion, but the difference will be less noticeable than the difference between QWERTY and Dvorak. The switch won't be as easy for veteran Dvorak users. If you're generally happy with Dvorak, you should probably stick with it.

The FAQ also has an interesting list of "what's wrong with the Dvorak layout" which might be of interest for people looking to learn it: https://colemak.com/FAQ#What.27s_wrong_with_the_Dvorak_layou...

As someone that can type QWERTY and Colemak pretty equally well, I’m not convinced in my experience that alternative keyboard layouts are significantly more comfortable than QWERTY (speed aside). Comfort greatly is noticeable if you’re transcripting at high speeds frequently (typing tests) but is otherwise questionable.

Layout switchers have some bias here because they don’t type as well in QWERTY anymore or they didn’t touch type QWERTY.

> Comfort greatly is noticeable if you’re transcripting at high speeds frequently (typing tests) but is otherwise questionable.

When I'm writing something that doesn't require a lot of cognitive overhead (typically chatting online, when I may have a lot to say but it's not particularly intellectually demanding and doesn't require a lot of precision or proofreading) I can reach pretty high WPMs.

I'm not convinced that typing speed is always brain-bound outside of typing tests. If I'm telling you about my day at work I'm pretty sure I can just "stream-of-consciousness" directly through the keyboard with very little overhead, especially if I do it in my native French.

I agree with you (though perhaps speed increases become less important after a certain threshold).

I was trying to talk about comfort difference between keyboard layouts anyhow, not the speed difference.

Given the same proficiency level of QWERTY and Dvorak/Colemak, comfort difference would be more noticeable for high intensity / little breaks / long duration activity like typing tests.

Are alternative keyboard layouts significantly more comfortable for practical tasks? I’m skeptical. (Most enthusiasts already agree they aren’t really faster).

I broke my wrist a few years ago, and had to spend a while typing with one hand on a half-qwerty keyboard setup. I took a huge hit to my typing speed, but the rate at which I was getting work done didn't really change.

Noticed the same when I switched to an Alphagrip and could only maintain 50-60wpm.

As a Dvorak and Vim (Spacemacs, really) user, I don't get this argument.

It's not about speed. Sure, some people say it's about speed, on either side of the debate, but I'm not a faster typist, nor a faster editor, nor would it matter in my profession (coding.)

It's about ease of use.

Once you're used to them, these tools save you (cognitive) overhead. Dvorak doesn't tire out my wrists (subjective, but I switched away from Qwerty&Emacs after developing RSI when writing larger technical documentation. Never had the same problem with Vim&Dvorak, even when writing frantically day and night on my thesis.) And Vim allows me to navigate text easily. It's not about speed. It's about intuitively navigating to something quickly, without having to think about it, and to stop and completely upend my current focus because I have to hunt & peck for something with my mouse.

And then you have to work on another computer with a QWERTY layout. Or a colleague comes over for pair programming or to check something.

Oooops!

I've changed my keyboard layouts in the past. My conclusion: there's value in standardization.

It's not an issue to know both keyboard layouts. I know 3.5 layouts (QWERTY, QWERTZ, Dvorak, Bulgarian BDS.)

Colleagues have a switch. setxkbmap -option compose:ralt or whatever your DE wants you to use.

There's really no reason to disagree here.

From the person you replied to

> Never had the same problem with Vim&Dvorak, even when writing frantically day and night on my thesis

Most of the graduate students I've knew spent a lot of time working alone, and had at some point to type a lot of things already clear in their head meaning ease and speed of typing was a very important factor, keyboard sharing not so much.

And then I've observed the same things as you, it's really annoying working at the desktop of my colleagues using non standards keyboards.

So, really, it's all dependent on context, and as usual there's a right tool for a given job. Kudos to both of you for coming to correct conclusions in your given environments :-)

I originally started learning dvorak because I was getting cramps in my hands from typing. Learning dvorak solved that. I run dvorak at home and qwerty at work, and I think switching between them helps out my hands and fingers even more. The only downside is when I first start to type something I sometimes type gibberish until I realize I'm on a different layout. For example, I originally type "G " instead of "I " when I started typing this. As far as I can tell I'm equally fast in either layout. If a friend comes over and needs to use the computer I can click on an icon in the taskbar and they are good to go.

I decided to stay with qwerty at work because I want a colleague to be able to work on my system, and switching keyboard layouts multiple times per day only causes me to type gibberish more often. And as you say, there is value in standardization.

I found the sysadmin in this thread :).

If you switch machines so often you can't keep up with moving your customizations between them, by all means, learn just the defaults (but do learn them - e.g. whatever the "standard" editor IDE, learn the keyboard shortcuts). As for pair programming, switching keyboard layouts and opening a project in a different editor/IDE takes only a small fraction of the time your colleague will spend in front of your machine.

Dvorak doesn't save time, it's not faster than qwerty given equal practice

But given Vim's quirks, is that layout more amenable to working quickly? Given how people gripe about it in QWERTY setups, that's certainly a possibility.

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