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Comment by linknoid | Hacker News Reader

So did you switch from Dvorak to Colemak? I just did a typing test on code-like things, and my typing speed is much slower, around 45 wpm, although that's normally accelerated by an IDE. I started learning Colemak for about a day a few years ago, and then decided that it wouldn't actually benefit me over Dvorak, especially because vi keybindings are quite important. Is the big improvement that it leaves {} in their original place instead of the farther reach?

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I just had a quick look at Dvorak, and then picked Colemak instead because of more similar shortcuts. — It took weeks or months to get up to speed in Colemak. But it was a bit fun, fortunately. (How long did it take, with Dvorak?)

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).

Dvorak plays pretty nice with default vi keybindings, for the most part. Both y (yank) and p (put) are on the left hand, as well as x (delete characters), . (repeat last), u (undo), q (record macro), @ (execute macro) and " (choose register). And even though d is technically on the right hand, it's still in easy stretch range of the left. You can do a lot quite quickly with those keys and a mouse. So I don't miss ctrl-c/v too much when I have vi keys available. Whereas the right hand tends to be a lot of movement keys, which are more important when not using a mouse: h (move left) l (move right), b (previous word), f (jump to character), t (jump before character), n (next search result), g (goto top/bottom/line number/etc).

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.

> 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.

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

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