Dvorak vs Colemak (2010-2020)
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For those who are afraid that it will somehow affect QWERTY typing speed, such fears are totally unfounded, I can type QWERTY as easily as I could before, just with some more strain compared to Dvorak.
That said:
- for developers, the typing speed is not the productivity bottleneck, so you are unlikely to see any real gains
- hotkeys are generally a MESS, especially if you use 2 languages on a system. More so on Windows. Less so on Ubuntu.
So maybe GP was that good
The only exception to this is typing on my mobile device, which is configured to qwerty.
Also happened with language learning. I speak English and Spanish natively. Learned Italian (very similar to Spanish) in high school. After college learned Chinese in China. One day I ran into an Italian person in China and tried to talk to them in Italian. I kept jumbling Italian and Chinese, even though on paper Italian is so much easier for me than Chinese. It was like my brain only had space for all native languages, and just one foreign language. I’m sure with practice I could speak both Italian and Chinese, but that’s the whole point of this comment. It takes practice to maintain them all.
If your speed did not fall it means you did not learn well.
I actually learned to type at school (yeah, funny business school my parents sent me to). We had an actual specialist teacher to teach us to type on electric typewriters using pretty nice methodology.
To learn to type well is to train "muscle memory". This means you think the letter and your body does it for you, automatically, without any part of your conscious brain involved.
I don't know where keys are on my keyboard. It is unmarked, so I can't look it up. If somebody asks me, I need to lay my hands on it and think the letter and see which finger "wants to" press the button. In that regard I am a passenger and once I think a word or sentence I don't have any further control -- it is some uncontrollable part of my brain that takes over and does it for me.
Even when typing at speed I am still free to think about anything else. Just as when you walk you don't need to think about walking itself and can concentrate on whatever else you want.
I learned to type on Dvorak 20 years ago and my ability to type on QWERTY still did not recover to even 1/5th of my previous speed.
It is pretty embarrassing sometimes.
On the other hand I use completely unmarked keyboard which coupled with Dvorak makes me largely invulnerable to pranking by coworkers by writing mail in my name (assuming I forget to lock my workstation which happens about twice in a decade).
I use qwerty on mobile just fine. I don't think dvorak on mobile would be of any help since I type with thumbs.
One place that really sticks out is job interviews. Asking your interviewer to change keyboard layouts is a bit intrusive. It's not a huge deal on a Mac, but it's a challenge on Windows since Colemak isn't built in.
Besides, why would you need to use qwerty other than occasionally?
Reminder: sharing keyboard with other people is really bad for hygiene, due to the shape of the keys preventing any deep cleaning.
To me, this is the best setup. Only pain point is that it required me to configure the 2 PC games I play to fit with my Dvorak configuration, since the PC sees it as me typing on a QWERTY keyboard with alien hands.
One time I had an interview where they handed me a Windows laptop on QWERTY to code some problem and I looked like I could barely use a computer :D
I switched to Colemak in September (2020) and have been using it solely ever since. I started at 110 WPM QWERTY and am currently at 85 WPM Colemak.
Emacs with dvorak was... interesting.
Hotkeys are this bizarre mix of positional _and_ semantic locations. That is, some are the keys they are because of where the keys are placed (most notably z-x-c-v but also j-k-l-o and many others in various apps), while others are what they are because of their mnemonics. Neither preserving Qwerty locations for them nor using Dvorak everywhere is right.
I could type around 90 WPM in QWERTY and now I hunt and pick at it. I'm at that speed in Dvorak now so it doesn't really matter. If you play games at all it kind of sucks having to switch back and forth, but that's a small price to pay to not have career ending RSI.
So you have collisions. ("Does Y mean "yank"? Or does it now mean "to"? Well "to" can't be T anymore, because that's now the motion up command.")
So you have to either remap everything back to qwerty positions, and learn the new mnemonics, or keep the letter associations the same, and give up on the clustered motion commands.
I'm thinking it's probably better to do the latter, but I'd love to hear from vimmers that use non-qwerty layouts.
I find that remapping shortcuts is generally not worth it. Yeah, undo/cut/copy/paste are weird and that sucks, but it's better than fighting every application you ever use, on every machine, including machines you SSH into, until you die.
For gaming, on the other hand, mixed up keybinds are intolerable. I just switch back to QWERTY for that.
So even if I ever did make the jump to Colemack or Dvorak, I'd probably keep those mappings to the same physical keys. Working in vim, I'd just use my "arrow" keys rather than the native motion keymappings.
I also try to avoid using them in the first place (instead using w/b/f/t/n/etc), but sometimes it's faster to just tap the key a few times rather than "formulate a plan" to reach my target
A 60% (no arrow keys) has 61 keys (ANSI) and the next “bigger” one, a 65% has 67 keys and usually already arrow keys.
Is it some non-standard ergo mech build?
Basically this. Not really ergo, other than being ortholinear and having space between the resting positions of my hands.
Here's a photo: https://imgur.com/0UBSi74
I would definitely advise against remapping vim bindings. The first is because if you ever has to use vim on a non-colemak machine, figuring out the keys will be very painful. Secondly because vim has influenced a lot of other programs (man, less, gvim, etc) and most of them are much harder to rebind if they even support it at all.
What! :- ) Well founded fears, I'd say: I've been typing in Colemak for 10+ years and if I switch to QWERTY I'm significantly slower than before I started using Colemak. — But I'm still glad I made the switch.
> the typing speed is not the productivity bottleneck
Yes agreed. I'd only recommend a software person to switch, if they think the learning process seems fun. But maybe if one writes novels, it's nice to type faster? Or someone who writes a lot here at HN :- )
> hotkeys are generally a MESS
Colemak: Hotkeys = fine :- )
I'm not a Colemak user, but from my experiences with Dvorak, I have a theory on why this happens. Precisely because it shares many keys with QWERTY!
Explanation: when I type in Dvorak or QWERTY, the only hesitation is when I type the first letter of a text I need to type. Then, a muscle memory kicks in and I type without thinking. The only exception: words starting with letter "A". This letter is special, because it is the only key that has the same position in both Dvorak and QWERTY!
So when I type words starting with "A", my muscle memory kicks in not on first typed letter, but on second! With Colemak, I guess this effect might be in full swing for almost every letter you type, and THAT would be a significant problem. So what is sold as being Colemak's advantage is probably a disadvantage if you need to type on different types of keyboards.
Also, if I have two passwords AA and AB that are similar to each other, then, if I use only AA for a while, I easily forget AB, or start including parts of AA in AB. — Is there a word for this? For forgetting and messing/mixing up things, because they are too similar to each other
> But when I'm ready to code, my typing speed is the single biggest factor
Especially when writing docs / comments for that code, then it's mostly English words (rather than `(){};!+-,[]` things)
When the typing speed difference between Dvorak and Colemak is so small (it is?), I would say to myself that any of them is better than good enough and be happy :- )
There's also tools like tmux and fzf / skim, don't know if you're using them already; if not, I'd guess they'd save more time than learning Colemak.
> especially because vi keybindings are quite important
Oh I have nice Vi keybindings in Colemak — I use Vi always: VSCode, IntelliJ etc.
On the keyboard, I've mapped the N physical key to down, H to up, and left is Backspace (and Y which I never use), and right is Space and U. So I don't use the HJKL keys for navigation (well, H but it means Up for me).
This leaves the J K L keys available to do their usual things, in Vi — they map to N E I in Colemak (apparently you've noticed this :- )) which I use all the time.
> Is the big improvement that it leaves {} in their original place
I don't think so. I'd say, it's probably the shortcuts, and that many shortcuts continue working with the left hand only (e.g. using the mouse to select text, then the left hand to CTRL+C +V copy-paste).
The worst thing I've experienced with Dvorak is typing "ls<enter>" repeatedly. It's really painful on the pinky. Putting L on the right pinky stretch was a really bad decision.
One advantage Dvorak has over Colemak is that it's included with every OS and easy to switch to, whereas Colemak often requires a download and an install to use. And some games include Dvorak keybindings, but I haven't seen one with Colemak keybindings yet.
I learned Dvorak back in college, and got fast by playing muds. Type fast, or you're dead. Took a few months to get up to speed.
What about `alias s=ls`, a way to avoid the bad decision :- )
> Both y (yank) and p (put) are on the left hand ... right hand .. movement keys, which are more important when not using a mouse ...
Oh I didn't know. That sounds nice. Hmm makes me wonder if maybe I'd preferred Dvorak instead.
> I learned Dvorak back in college, and got fast by playing muds. Type fast, or you're dead
Hmm I wonder if type fast MUDs and spell correctly and the right grammar, or you're dead, could be a fun way to learn languages in high school :- )
Turns out there's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD#Educational_MUDs — but seems the last ones are from the 90's
It's just like knowing a different language, there's some switch somewhere in my brain I can flip and type in either layout. If I use one for a long period of time, the other one gets slower and less easily recalled, but it takes on the order of minutes to come back to 90% speed.
Agree that the main annoyances are hotkeys and what layer of the software you're mapping things in.
The answer is to use a meta key to add a layer dedicated to those - CapsLock is great for that. I did that last year [0], although I now wish I had that meta-key available on the right side too (I don't want to mess with the traditional Ctrl and Alt, too many programs have shortcuts hard-bound to those). With that extra layer, you can go to town and use the home row for the stuff you really need in your preferred language(s).
As for simple text layouts, I never warmed to Dvorak but picked up Colemak very quickly, and now I just can't look back.
[0] http://blog.pythonaro.com/2020/06/better-access-to-special-c...
https://github.com/Syzygies/log_folders/blob/master/keyboard...
A really affordable entry into this that I've found is Epomaker keyboards. I struggled to find the exact layout I wanted in an affordable QMK keyboard. Their software sucks but it works and profiles are stored to the keyboard so it can come with you wherever. They also have split space-bar and 3 space-bar options which is really nice for adding modifier keys beyond Caps-lock or rebinding backspace or escape into a more comfortable position.
I realize this is starting to sound like an ad, but my biggest challenge getting into fully reprogrammable keyboards was the huge price tag once you start narrowing features. In my case, a 60% keyboard that retained arrow keys would have been $200+ for a QMK supported model. The Epomaker I picked up was $65 or so.
The best part is that most Linux distros already include it! Yes, it's intended to type German, but it should work for English as well since these languages are so similar. Also, it has many dead keys that should help composing accented characters.
It is so great for programming! Also although I'm German, probably 90% of what I type is English. Works perfectly for English as well.
Also being able to type Greek letters is great as a physicist, hehe.
Specifically about Emacs, I'm facing a tough choice between mapping Caps Lock to Mod3 or Ctrl. The latter is a common choice as Emacs shortcuts hail from an era when the Ctrl key was located there.
I settled on Mod3 as it is just way more frequently used and I seem to not be able to consistently hit the other Mod3. Remapping LCtrl-Super-LAlt to Super-Alt-Ctrl kinda works though as I can now use my thumbs for it. Swapping Ctrl and Tab could also work as there is a tab key on Level 4, but it's way more involved to do that.
I also found it necessary to replace Ctrl-X with Ctrl-V because on Bone the X is just too far away and I would have to twist my hand to reach it. Using RCtrl is also a possibility, most Emacs commands are intended to be performed with LCtrl though...
I switched to Dvorak because of wrist strain/RSI issues. I was in pretty serious wrist pain and now I rarely have any. It probably wouldn't have been worth it otherwise, but that was a huge benefit to me. I'm not sure if other things would've helped since I didn't try a lot of other approaches first.
I did the same with Colemak, and had the same effect. I think the main thing really is just to not use qwerty - that layout is just extrarodinarily unergonomic.
It probably also helped that, around the same time I switched to Colemak, I took an interest in overall keyboard ergonomics, and invested in a split keyboard.
He’s had some RSI issues, and the real problem is simply typing in any form.
I remember reading several of his articles thinking that surely within a decade, we’d have better voice assist for programming.
Tavis Rudd’s demo looked promising in 2013:
I’m not sure what’s the best solution. Here are a few that I known of:
It's 5 intermediate layouts to transition from QWERTY to Colemak. Each only changes a few keys. So, rather than 1 big change (where you basically can't touch-type for a month) you have 5 little changes that you can learn over a weekend each.
[1] https://forum.colemak.com/topic/1858-learn-colemak-in-steps-...
The fact that initially steps are the highest impact really helps too.
Aside from less overall movement while typing, Colemak keeps many common keyboard shortcuts the same. The first few hours are very frustrating, but the overall time-to-competence is short. There's a lot of upside and little downside.
I wrote about the process of learning Colemak in my book on skill acquisition, and posted a summary of the process and the tools/techniques I used on the book's website. [2]
[1] https://twitter.com/joshkaufman/status/1334632614368583680
For those chiding the practice, it's not for beginners-still-learning, it's for actual-years-running-users trying to type one-handed once in a while.
As for looking at a qwerty keyboard from a dvorak mindset, I'd say dvorak "wins" in my head like my right eye's image wins over my left. I look down and "see" aoeui .. pyf .. dhtns. But it's still confusing.
The programmer in me wants a numpad for () [] {} +-/*^% &c. (Do any exist, off the shelf, I wonder?)
If you have some kind of RSI and it helps then it would make sense but at least for me it doesn't make sense for the way I type.
This comes up in every HN post.
I think it makes way more sense to consider the risk and the odds of getting a RSI from qwerty vs. dvorak and take preventative action. You don't want to suffer a learning curve on the rehab side of an RSI, while also kicking yourself in the posterior for something that was avoidable.
I've been using QWERTY for decades now, and for years have used a ThinkPad keyboard with a TrackPoint instead of a mouse, use a mostly hotkey-driven workflow, and a wrist rest even on a laptop. Anecdotal, but I've rarely experienced strain and can type comfortably for hours.
I know QWERTY is demonstrably worse, but so far I haven't had the need to try another layout. The downsides of losing my current muscle memory, having to remap hotkeys and not being productive on other computers don't seem worth it to me.
This analysis finds that Dvorak and Colemak are both substantially better than QWERTY, but Colemak has the edge.
I have used Colemak for the last 12 years and have never looked back. I started learning Dvorak, but at the time I was using the ctrl+Z/C/V quite much and Colemak became my compromise. Now that I use Vim, the argument about the Z/C/V is not as important anymore. EDIT: Oh, I also used the Q/W (quit, close window) quite much back then because I was using a mac. Still use these in Sway to this day.
I also really like that there is a Norwegian Colemak-layout available in Linux by default. Not sure if this is the case in Windows or macOS these days, but it wasn't 12 years ago.
I used the Dvorak-Command-QWERTY layout on macOS for a long time, it's Dvorak but flips back to QWERTY when you hold Command so that most shortcuts are in the same physical position.
After getting a programmable split keyboard it became too much work to get a similar thing to work so I decided to switch shortcuts to where they should be.
It's been... ok. The positions of shortcuts definitely encode something that you lose, copy/paste not being next to each other is slightly annoying, and not to mention that some shortcuts move in such a way that the failure mode of getting the shortcut wrong is really bad (e.g. Cmd+, for preferences, get it wrong and you Cmd+W which closes the active window).
I'm glad I've switched, but I'm also glad that I didn't switch my shortcuts at the same time that I switched to Dvorak, I think it could have been enough to put me off. Or I guess it might have been easier to do it all at once!
One thing that is annoying with the hybrid approach is some software just doesn't support it (I'm looking at you JetBrains, with your 10 year old issue on your issue tracker).
Dvorak and Colemak would both solve a huge problem for me. Qwerty requires a lot of extreme row movements that were causing me a lot of hand pain. Both Dvorak and Colemak move a significant amount of typing to the home row and eliminate a lot of the movement directly between the extremes of the rows. Choosing an extreme, anecdote, a word like minimum alternates between the top and bottom row between every letter on Qwerty. On Colemak, minimum there's only one extreme jump u => m. I've found that this tends to hold true for much of what I type.
I personally choose Colemak because I liked the transition process a bit easier. The base layout is closer to Qwerty and you can pick a few keys to transition at a time.
What’s is important for me is drinking water sufficiently, regular exercise, a good posture, a good keyboard then finally the layout.
I picked up Dvorak for no real reason 10 years ago; I kept up with it but would not really recommend it, specially because of its intense reliance on the right pinky.
I don’t know much about Colemak.
For programming, though, the best decision I’ve made was to add a numpad and common symbols [2] under a second “shift” key to keep my hands on the home row.
[1]: https://github.com/MadRabbit/halmak
[2]: https://andrew.kvalhe.im/+qit9y6o8uodxpiqezpxcaw7css6gtfkp
Now I'm a couple months into using workman, which notably has a very balanced hand usage. About 50/50, unlike qwerty which is mostly left, or dvorak which is mostly right. IIRC colemak and qgmlwb are similarly unbalanced, as it's not a goal of theirs to fix that.
My best speed in qwerty was about 160, I got to the 140s in dvorak, and I'm 100-110 in workman at the moment.
I'm not sure if I'll switch again. The balanced hand usage is a rare trait. If not for that issue, I was thinking of trying the halmak layout.
I'm a little sad that workman is qwerty-like since I'd already bothered to unlearn that with dvorak, and so I had no qualms about most keys being different. I actually get some weird typos now, like typing "sad" instead of "saw" because of similar placement to qwerty on the left.
I also change the layout on my phone with anysoftkeyboard. I've had at least 3 people tell me it's pointless on a touchscreen, but I like the consistency, and the layouts were already made and easy to switch to.
If you use colemak, I hear the mod-dh variant is better, but workman solves the same problem, so I'd recommend just using it if you aren't already years into colemak.
One new point that I haven't worked into the article is the fact that many keyboard shortcuts require a Right Ctrl key or else they can't be done on one hand. At the same time, many laptops on the market omit the Right Ctrl key, to my utter frustration. Manufacturers need to stop messing with keyboard layouts! Even my humble 13-inch Lenovo ThinkPad X220 from year 2012 had a pretty good layout while being compact, while newer machines keep making keyboards worse despite having the same physical dimensions.
In addition to what you mention, it's got a big fat Escape key that's nice for vi users. This keys has shrunk on newer and competing laptop keyboards, so I've since resorted to exchanging Caps Lock for Escape.
The blatant Qwerty-centrism of Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+X, Ctrl+C, and Ctrl+V is quite annoying for many Dvorak users. In my case, I was looking to cure more than RSI, so before learning Dvorak I incidentally also learned to use a left hand mouse. Combined with Dvorak, theses shortcuts are easier. They're also doubly easier with a left-hand trackball mouse, because you can hold Ctrl down with your left thumb while you control the trackball with your left index/middle fingers, and hit Z/X/C/V, all simultaneously.
Regarding the QWERTY-centrism of Ctrl+ZXCV, I have absolutely no problem with their Dvorak equivalents and can touch-type these shortcuts without looking at the keyboard. But I must, must, must have a Right Ctrl key to do this effectively. Just for reference for QWERTY people out there, Dvorak ZXCV is equivalent to QWERTY Slash,B,I,Period. For example, Ctrl+C in Dvorak has the same position as Ctrl+I in QWERTY. I would put my left pinky on I and left thumb (or index finger) on Right Ctrl. And I would put my right hand on the mouse to select text or files or draw.
(I find hitting the enter key on an ANSI keyboard to be irritating enough that I'm frankly impressed that anyone tolerates ISO keyboards.)
I'm currently giving an ultra-minimalist keyboard, the Atreus, a shot. I'm still in the adjustment period, but it seems to be promising, and a much smaller adjustment than abandoning QWERTY entirely. Bonus points for not being the size of an aircraft carrier, like most ergo keyboards are.
I use a 46-key Mitosis (non-split custom version) with Dvorak and greatly enjoy how little I need to reach with my fingers.
For example, on a standard QWERTY keyboard, I find the number keys, the Y key, and the brackets to be a reach. Dvorak actually makes that situation a bit worse for me. It moves a somewhat more frequent letter, F, into the Y key's position, and it moves the brackets further away in order to put keys that I use less often in a more accessible position.
But that's me. I'd guess that this sort of thing varies a lot from person to person, because we all have different hands.
That's where I want to "go next", but I've not yet seen anything on the market equivalent to the average Kinesis (solid, programmable, not horribly expensive, not requiring soldering).
The Mitosis that CarVac mentioned is another interesting option along similar lines, though I can't personally vouch for it.
I'd expect it to be marginal.
If you are under 30 I suggest you give an alt keyboard layout a shot. Older than that and the time to learn Colemak/Dvorak vs just improving your QWERTY speed/accuracy might not be worth it.
If it only takes a few weeks then wouldn’t people of almost any age benefit if they type 4-5 hours a day?
It takes much longer to both break old habits and form new ones from older ages. If you have been typing for 20+ years in QWERTY and use a keyboard everyday professionally learning a new layout will likely be a very hard and frustrating task. Every time you switch back to QWERTY you are basically reversing the practice you have put in. If you are typing for a profession you likely won't want to suffer months of half your former typing speed or less until you catch up.
My journey went:
1. Qwerty
2. Dvorak (liked the left right alternation, the fact its available on all OS’s, disliked the common keys on weaker fingers)
2. Colemak mod dk (don’t like rolling, alternating is just more natural, easy to go faster)
3. Halmak - favourite of the lot
4. Halmak + home row mod keys
5. Qwerty + gacs
6. Qwerty + gasc - just worked better than gacs for me
The bad news is that it’s all been for naught. I’m back to touch typing qwerty on a g915.
I am using AHK and mimicing Xah Lee’s external keypad idea with the num lock toggle - undo, redo, cut copy paste, all single key actions rather than chords.
However, Colemak was much easier for me to learn though (I tried Dvorak first), and the ZXVC in same spot without tweaking shortcuts is a plus.
- The `h` problem is purely about moving your index finger, so I don't think it makes sense to talk about the bigram being popular. The relevant number is just how many `h`s people have to type in general
- Shortcuts staying the same: saying that there exists a variant of Dvorak created to do this too is a huge point in favour of Colemak. The point is so good that people modified a 70 year old layout to match it! How popular is this variant?
- Saying that Colemak is bad because of Vim, then saying it's good because of CapsLock/Backspace BUT that doesn't really count because you can also do this reprogramming with Dvorak: can you not also change Vim? Maybe this is much harder
Much more tricky are applications that have hardcoded hotkeys, or who listen to an unholy mix of keys and scancodes. Uncommon nowadays (many games are not great at this), but still sucks if it happens.
I use Colemak with my Kinesis split keyboards but that's irrelevant.
You might move the punctuation even more central to really keep it 4-columned.
Keeping the C-c/x/v keys the same is great on a split layout, assuming you're right handed. I avoid using the mouse as much as possible, but when I do use it there's a good chance I'm copying or pasting something. With Dvorak you can't use those keys with your hand on the mouse.
What makes it such a good fit, in my opinion, is that the modifiers can be placed on the thumb clusters, and even layers 5 and 6 that otherwise require a combination of modifiers can have their own keys. On the other hand, having all control characters already mapped means you needn't find a good location for them anywhere. I still have 5 keys unmapped.
That said, getting used to the Moonlander took almost no effort at all for me, I was back up to speed in a few days.
In general, however, it is not a problem. Just remember, that adjusting yourself to a new keyboard is similar to learning layout and takes some time. If it is your first ortholinear split with a thumb cluster give yourself a week or two and then switch to other layout.
Why is that? Is it the productivity hit? Frustration?
At least for me, this will be at home personal keyboard, and I'll continue to use the work QWERTY keyboard for the foreseeable future. I might switch the work keyboard once I'm comfortable, but it's not a priority right now.
I also have another warning, based on my experience: it is for many people difficult to keep proficiency in QWERTY after they completely switch to Colemak or Dvorak. It is hard to describe: like you've been touch-typing on QWERTY for 18 years, and you know where the keys are, because if you look down, you immediately find them... but something is blocking you from finding them while typing. If you switch completely at work, find a week or two without much stress. New layout can be infuriating enough :)
I guess I'm a hybrid typist - I generally type only with my index & middle finders, but I can type moderately fast without looking at the keyboard. I had mild RSI issues but it might be the mouse usage.
I write small amounts of python code within an academic setting, so a week or two with low productivity is ... typical :)
I just switched back to Dvorak, and while it's been a solid six years, it's coming back reasonably quickly :) I forgot how much I enjoyed this layout.
I wonder how much of the benefit from using these alternate layouts is due solely to the layout, as opposed to some combination of the layout and better awareness of correct ergonomics, using stretching and warmup techniques, etc.
Hard to quantify of course. Would love to hear from anyone that switched to one of these layouts but didn't make any other changes in their wrist health otherwise.
Picked Dvorak up again about a year ago after getting one of those fancy ortholinear keyboards.
My qwerty was a quick 'undisciplined' hunt-and-peck. (e.g. typing the 'y' in 'your' with the left hand finger). Dvorak was trained with the 'discipline' of each finger being assigned to a column.
Qwerty feels somewhat disorganised and chaotic compared do Dvorak (even on the same keyboard). Dvorak feels more comfortable.
I use Dvorak on keyboards and QWERTY on touch screens.
I find QWERTY difficult to touch for all the obvious reasons but actually pretty good for 2 to 4 fingers typing on a iPhone / iPad. I have seen people typing faster than I do with only 4 fingers and their thumbs, usually with a machine gun style.
Dvorak is (great for | forcing you into) touch typing, except that right pinky overuse. It feels good but you don’t really have a choice.
My wife doesn’t touch type and is bent over the keyboard, looking down at the keys. Dvorak would not help her until she relaxes down on her chair, and type with more fingers and without looking.
One disadvantage though is, now I have trouble typing on QWERTY.
One area where dictation does not work well is writing code.
Question: Is there a keyboard optimized for typing programming languages rather than for typing English?
Dvorak moves several punctuation keys onto the left hand, which is great, but unfortunately it also moves braces and brackets farther away from the home row, which I found bad enough by itself to prompt me to look elsewhere.
There's a variant called "Programmer Dvorak" which is somehow even worse. Aside from moving the numerals into ridiculous positions, now all the paired delimiters are on number keys but not in any consistent way. Both braces are on the left hand. Brackets and parentheses are on opposing hands, but, depending on how you slide your right hand up to the number row (7 and 8 are both natural resting places for the index finger), one pair will not be on corresponding fingers! And in general, I have a hard time touch-typing the middle part of the number row, so I don't like anything that puts common characters there.
I've come to the conclusion that no, every common keyboard layout is bad for programming (for me). Eventually I gave up trying to find something suitable and made my own custom layout, which I've been using for a few years now.
This is not accurate really. This used to be the default but at least with Ubuntu/Debian you need 3rd part software. Which means this statement holds true for windows also.
I also was learning piano so that may have been a factor.
Personally, I have been learning to touch type and used the opportunity to use an optimized layout. I have recovered almost all the speed of non-blind Qwerty within a month and plan to stay.
Not being able to use it everywhere is not a drawback to me. For those rare events where I cannot use it, I still have more than enough muscle memory for Qwerty.
Not readily having the preferred layout available is a non-issue. Either I'm using a keyboard for less than ten minutes, in which case I hunt-and-peck on QWERTY, or I'm using it for longer, in which case I switch to Dvorak using the OS keyboard settings. It's never been a problem on Windows or Linux. I don't think I've used a Mac during that period but I imagine it's equally easy.
As I recall the awkward learning period was between a week and a month. Twenty years later I've never regretted the time invested.