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I switched to Dvorak a couple of years before I learned VIM. I made the decision not to remap anything in VIM, because it seemed like every key already had a job, and I was afraid of upsetting the balance. I'm still a Dvorak/VIM user 10 years later. My directional navigation keys are in strange places, but it's just muscle memory at this point.

If I had learned VIM first, I'm not sure how the switch to Dvorak would have gone. My fear of breaking an unfamiliar editor may have accidentally steered me into success.

I learned vim first then switched to Colemak and made the mistake of first trying a very heavily remapped vim layout. Eventually it was reminded to Vim's layout other than its directional keys is very heavily mnemonic and eventually I was convinced to use fewer to no remaps and the classic vim mnemonics. I probably could have used that advice sooner to avoid the years of a very custom map and the confusion that still sometimes accidentally triggers.

VIM is a fun one, in this regard. True, the arrow keys are no longer on the home row. For the most part, you can just use the arrow keys, of course. Keeping your hand exactly at home position is largely over sold on that regard, and physically grounding your hand between the arrows and home is easy to flip between.

The nice thing, though, is most of the other key choices are mnemonic. "C" for change, etc. Such that you really can keep moving fairly well by sticking with the conversation you are having with VIM.

> Keeping your hand exactly at home position is largely over sold on that regard...

It's a marginal benefit, but it's still a benefit.

The more significant factor than "qwerty vs colemak" is that the thumbs aren't able to achieve much with the hands rested on home row. They can hit spacebar; and to be useful for anything else, the hands have to move.

Whereas, with keyboards like the Moonlander, the thumbs can reach 2-3 keys each.

Albeit, regarding vim's 'hjkl', vim makes it very easy to quickly move around a single line, so h/l shouldn't be very common. For rapid vertical movement, 'easy motion'-style stuff is neat.

My keyboard has a split spacebar, that I think is intended to let you do two different things with the thumb...

I just don't see it being that beneficial. Is like thinking you could be a better pianist if only the keyboard was arranged in a different way. Almost certainly true at a very technical level. Hard to think that is the actual limiting factor for most people, though. Even on the piano, I found that I am better with certain fingers than others, but that it just doesn't make too much sense to worry about that at the beginning.

For example, without having to move my hand, my thumbs can reach Esc, Tab, Backspace, and Enter as well as having to push space. That's a benefit from the thumbs being able to hit 2-3 keys each.

I think that's much nicer than having to move the hand or stretch with the pinky in order to hit backspace.

Whereas with the standard keyboard layout, you can't keep your hands rested on home row & reach those keys.

Certainly don't let some rando on the internet tell you that this isn't worth doing. I just also don't expect folks to believe that you get measurable gains from this. Outside of the joy it brings having set this up. Which is huge and not to be discarded.

Ah, I'm not necessarily arguing that "having a better keyboard will make you a more effective typist". I'm suggesting that "for keeping your hands on home row, it's much nicer if your thumbs are able to reach 2-3 keys each, than if your thumbs are only able to reach the spacebar".

Maybe "whether it's worth having such a keyboard" is down to personal preference or whatever, sure.

As a vim-first dvorak-second person, remapping vim is a mistake. You try it at first, then you realize it's a pointless battle. The defaults in dvorak are actually great.

11 year dvorak user.

I stopped caring about typing when I realized I could already type twice as fast as I can think.

In my mind, a more ergonomic keyboard layout isn't about typing faster -- it's about putting less stress on your fingers.

What is your WPM? I am about 80 and still feel like my brain is running ahead of my fingers.

100ish is I really push it. I tend to edit in my head before typing, so raw wpm mostly isn't all that useful to me past a fairly low bar.

Yep, very similar experience here.

I learned Dvorak around age 12, a year or so after I learned to touch-type QWERTY. I completely lost the ability to touch-type QWERTY after switching to Dvorak until I took a CS class in high school that was on ancient computers running Win98, where I had no ability to change the layout.

I have gradually built back my ability to touch-type on QWERTY now, acceptably quickly (probably 50WPM?) but my error rate is atrocious. I find it a little embarrassing to be a computing professional and not be able to type competently when I sit down at someone else's computer.

> I just couldn't type on qwerty anymore

I went through that, and got there eventually. It was probably harder to become bikeyboardal than it was to switch in the first place. But now I type in qwerty at work and dvorak at home. I originally switched to dvorak because I was getting pain in the sides of my hands for some reason, but that went away with dvorak and didn't come back. So I figure it's best for me to keep both layouts in my muscle memory.

> Some people just seem to have knack on being able to switch between layouts, but I just couldn't.

Did you put in serious deliberate practice time and still find that? If yes, what sort of time?

I suspect those people just did that sort of practice (even if maybe not really attending much to the fact they were doing so - I don't think that's a contradiction!)

I had a co-worker that could switch between qwerty and Dvorak instantly, it was amazing. And type very quickly in both.

I can switch between Dvorak and Qwerty quicky if it is a physically different keyboard. I type with Dvorak on my Kenisis keyboard and Qwerty on my laptop without any effort in switching between the two. But as soon as I try it vice versa I feel like I am typing for the first time.

Some sort of context-aware muscle memory

I subconsciously switch to qwerty when using someone else's computer, and it really throws me off if they use Dvorak. I still have an account on my parents' old computer, and it takes me a moment to remind myself to use Dvorak while using it.

Same exact thing here. If it's split and tented, I type Dvorak. If it's flat, I type Qwerty. Full speed, no thought.

Exactly the same for me. And the great thing with keyboards like Kinesis is that the key map is in the board itself so moving between computers is as easy as moving the keyboard. I’ve been doing this now for over 23 years.