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Comment by alexvitkov | Hacker News Reader

Is it worth learning Dvorak? Sure it makes sense on paper, I see the rationale behind it, but I've already been typing on QWERTY all my life and I'm pretty fast at it. Kakoune is the same thing for me - the things changed from Vim make sense, but I don't see it as good enough to offset the facts that:

1. Vim is muscle memory for a lot of us. Something that is so similar but not quite the same just fucks with my brain. I have an easier time using stock Emacs bindings than Kakoune, as my brain is not in Vim mode while using it.

2. VS Code, Fat Visual Studio, IntelliJ, Emacs, most IDEs/text editors, fuck even Compiler Explorer have Vim plugins that range in quality from acceptable to fantastic. You can get a fix for your vim needs even in a disgusting corporate Windows crackhouse environment.

3. If you're a purist, Vim itself has a great ecosystem, and can be reasonably used for a lot of tasks.

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I come out of the woodworks every now and again whenever I see Dvorak mentioned in any context. I really despise its popularity as an alternative keyboard layout because I feel it wasted a good year of my life.

1) Few people will have benefit of learning Dvorak. What benefits they see comes from learning how to properly touch type by forcefully breaking bad habits with their original (usually QWERTY) keyboard layout.

2) Switch to Colemak or any more modern layout that takes advantage of bigrams/trigrams better. Colemak is genuinely superior to QWERTY beyond just learning to touch type.

I used to type 170~ WPM on QWERTY. Sustained. By all means an accomplished typist. I learned Dvorak well enough to get back up to 120~ WPM but saw no real benefits of using it: I already knew how to touch type. But QWERTY was causing my hands to cramp up over time and so I was on the search for improving that. I gave Colemak a try and it was a great relief. I only type 150~ WPM on Colemak after some years of using it but the lack of pain from typing for long periods of time is worth the small hit to my typing speed.

Almost every single person I see who touts benefits of learning Dvorak was typing <60WPM in QWERTY and did not know how to properly touch type. The benefits they see weren't from using Dvorak: it was from finally learning how to touch type properly.

Apologies as I know Dvorak wasn't really the focus of your post here. But in an attempt to perhaps make it still relevant: change every now and then is good. It can break you out of bad habits you didn't know you had learned and sometimes open you up to new ways of accomplishing something. As other replies have mentioned - I'm a big fan of Helix and gave up Neovim for it.

Eh, I'd say it kinda depends, Colemak focuses more on rolls while Dvorak focuses more on alternating between hands. Though I think that Workman is a superior alternative to Colemak when it comes to ergonomic rolls.

Xah Lee wrote an analysis on why he believes Dvorak is better than Colemak: <http://xahlee.info/kbd/dvorak_vs_colemak.html> and he brings up the frequency of the "th" digram, which on Colemak is a bit of an issue due to the finger travel.

> I used to type 170~ WPM on QWERTY.

That's an absurd speed.

I can touch type on QWERTY, and last I measured I hovered at around 100 WPM on my best efforts. But TBH typing speed is really not something I'm concerned about. When I'm programming, accuracy is more important than speed, and I spend much more time thinking than actually typing. And when I'm writing prose, I also make pauses to rethink what I'm writing, and go back and forth, refining the text to match my thoughts. So even if I typed much faster, my overall speed of communication or programming wouldn't improve.

I also haven't had any discomfort after decades of typing on QWERTY keyboards. I find it hard to believe that a different layout would reduce discomfort more than using an ergonomic keyboard, with proper wrist support and posture.

Typing on a traditional keyboard using the Workman layout is - in my experience - significantly more comfortable.

Typing on an actually ergonomic keyboard (currently a Keyboardio Model01) is a much more significant comfort difference.

Both together scratches an itch that I recognize not everyone has, but if you do have that itch, scratching it feels damn good.

I understand that Dvorak hasn’t been great for you, but I don’t think it’s fair to attribute all of its success and merits to touch typing. The distribution of keys is obviously more optimal than than of QWERTY, and even if your analysis holds true for some Dvorak typists, I doubt it does for a majority (or even a significant portion) of them.

Speaking from my own personal experience, I learned to touch type (properly) on QWERTY first, but after a while I switched to Colemak. After yet another while, I switched to Dvorak, and have been using it for several years now. For me, Dvorak has been slightly more comfortable than Colemak (which, in turn, was much more comfortable than QWERTY); though I have to admit I’ve never experienced significant pain or cramps just from typing. In any case, I find both layouts to be a great improvement over QWERTY, and certainly not only because of touch typing.

The primary difference is rolling vs alternating (as someone else mentioned) and slight left vs right hand biases (I don't think anyone brought this up yet) and there is some definitely enough room for preference of one over the other there. I prefer rolling over alternating and I'm left-hand dominant. For finger alternation I'd recommend any of the CarpalX layouts (Qgmlwb specifically). If I knew about CarpalX before learning Colemak I probably would have learned it instead but I also don't want to relearn typing for a 4th time.

There's always a handful of exceptions to every rule but by and large from my experiences in the altkey layout communities the people who touted Dvorak the loudest largely didn't know how to type properly before learning Dvorak and it was their first alternative layout learned. So it's colored my view a bit.

I have regularly typed for >8 hours/day - nearly every day - since age 8. The hand pains didn't really start until I was in my 20's.

> What benefits they see comes from learning how to properly touch type by forcefully breaking bad habits with their original (usually QWERTY) keyboard layout.

With that I fully agree, but then again - in my mind that exactly is the value proposition of any non-QWERTY-layout.

I also agree that ergonomics is more important than peek throughput.

But you neglect the cost. The cost of ruining shortcuts in many applications and/or complex OS settings just to be able to type. There are workarounds and solutions for most but I haven't been convinced it is a net gain.

So in my opinion, stay and invest in QWERTY instead. Regarding ergonomics use a split ortholinear keyboard. I am in doubt any layout will be as liberating as that and orders of magnitude less investment in time.

Everytime I use or think of a staggered keyboard I'm amazed at the design. Put your right hand over the right hand of the keyboard as if to type, the columns kind of naturally go with your fingers - not bad at all really. Then do the same with your left hand and it is just a clusterfuck.

Though I do have to acknowledge two things, you can of course use and benefit from an alternative layout on an ortholinear keyboard as well. And the cost of only feeling at home on a bespoke keyboard (not that it is different enough for you to not be able to use a normal keyboard) isn't negligible depending on your situation either.

One even bigger problem with Dvorak isn't the speed, which is actually very hard (next to improssible) to objectively measure; it's that you lose the ability to write on somebody else's computer, or phone, depending on where you're using Dvorak.

I am intensively envious of people who type this fast; I get up to 100 words per minute on a good day. Time to get a new pair of hands?

Especially when programming. A lot of key shortcuts are specifically designed for QWERTY. And if you believe that the keyboard should be re-arranged to better fit the language then shouldn't a programming layout have more easily reachable symbol characters? (and varying depending on the language).

Take a look at https://helix-editor.com/. It is basically a continuation of the ideas behind Kakoune but with a primary focus on modern day programming with a language-server. I use it for most of my programming today, because the language server support out of the box is just so much better than anything I managed do with Neovim.

This project looks amazing, thanks for sharing. Unfortunately, I'm not willing to give up Copilot for a better editor. But I'll keep this on my radar.

yeah, the lack of a plugin ecosystem and consequently, copilot support, is the hardest pill to swallow with Helix right now. that said, its an amazing editor. excluding the plugin stuff, its batteries-included and is so refreshing to not have to mess with configuration files just to get it to a useable state.

Maybe it's just me, but a TUI-only editor is a non-starter for me, for a number of reasons, first being that my terminals are set up for maximum readability for shorter sessions, not eye comfort over hours.

What about setting up a dedicated terminal for your editor? I think a GUI version is in the works, but that's probably what it will end up as.

My editor stack has been Zellij, Helix and gitui as of late, and, there's still a few important things missing for me, but still working on it...

I have other reasons… I a lot of searching across field and work in huge monolith with tens of thousand of files.

exploring large codebases is hard in tui editors for me too. there are certainly times when i switch to vscode when i’m working in a monorepo for the graphical file tree.

Same setup as me! I do miss out on the AI integrations (copilot etc), that I find a shame.

The second point is the biggest reason why I haven't switch to Kakoune or Helix yet. I've used vim for just over a year now and I'm still annoyed at how unintuitive some things are, I still can't remember half of the shortcuts. I tried out Helix and it's great! I especially love the multiple cursors.

But I never use vim by itself, I use it in other apps. And there's a perfectly good Helix plugin for VSCode, but I also use vim mode in Obsidian (since I'm constantly switching back and forth between Obsidian and VSCode) and there is currently no plugin for anything else. I need my code editor and my note editor to have the same controls, otherwise my brain gets confused.

Once a Helix or Kakoune plugin is created for Obsidian, I am switching straight away.

> I need my code editor and my note editor to have the same controls, otherwise my brain gets confused.

I fully agree – but why use two separate editors, then? (Full disclosure – I'm a long-time Emacs user, making most of my notes in Org-mode.)

> Helix plugin for VSCode

Which one?

Vi-style binds are moderately unintuitive, but they are the lingua franca of keybind languages, and knowing them has value in and of itself. I'm glad I learned vi-style binds just before Kakoune and Helix gained popularity, as I use them in dozens of contexts other than my text editor.

> Vi-style binds are moderately unintuitive,

Oh... For my part, other binds are weird and less ergonomic from far. I'm vey used to vi-style: I mostly work in text mode (no GUI, no mouse) and I like to talk to my editor what I want...

Dendron is an Obsidian-alike plugin for VS Code.

https://www.dendron.so/

Roughly how many shortcuts in other apps like Obsidian would you need to rebind to avoid the annoyance?

If you do it, do it for comfort not speed.

And also consider Colemak-DH over Dvorak.

If you're worried about having to relearn Vim commands, it's not a big deal. You're not remembering the key positions but the mnemonics, so "dta" means "delete to a" not some key positions. You'll be fine.

> If you're worried about having to relearn Vim commands, it's not a big deal. You're not remembering the key positions but the mnemonics, so "dta" means "delete to a" not some key positions. You'll be fine.

Oh man, this was so difficult for me with a split ortho keyboard. I realized that most of my bindings now i don't actually "know". It's 100% muscle memory.

I had to keep a keyboard handy to "do the thing i want on the unplugged keyboard" to see what the bind was. Kinda mind blowing to me hah.

That's interesting. I had zero problems moving from a regular qwerty layout to a split 34 key keyboard.

I did switch to a BEAKL layout, and then to my own layout.

So maybe we learn things differently?

I used Dvorak for awhile. It's okay, at least better than QWERTY. But it's super old, and keyboard layouts post-Colemak take advantage of rolling bigrams and trigrams, unlike Dvorak. I use Hands Down now. https://sites.google.com/alanreiser.com/handsdown

Its a funny thing. I swapped to Colemak, was definitely worth it. I am pretty sure there are better layouts, but also I'm so wary of falling into a sort of productivity-tool/gear-acquisition-syndrome where I can never settle on one that is "perfect".

Swapping wasn't hard, but it sure wasn't easy. Did you find going from B -> C (-> D?) easier than A -> B?

> Swapping wasn't hard, but it sure wasn't easy. Did you find going from B -> C (-> D?) easier than A -> B?

For me, going from B -> C and C -> D (and then a long period of tweaking) was significantly easier than from A -> B.

It's worth getting a physical keyboard that's actually ergonomic, like a Keyboardio, ergodox, dactyl, or whatever. Just pick the one you are most excited about using.

It's significantly less valuable, but still worth learning an alternative keyboard layout, though Dvorak specifically isn't nearly as good as modern alternative like Colemak or Workman.

Vim is incredible for every reason except its keybinds. Technically, you can remap them, but that quickly devolves into dependency hell... learning to type using the Workman layout is why I'm an Emacs user today. One of these days I'll get around to making a truly configurable modular editor...that will most likely be an Emacs config.

ThePrimeAgen uses Dvorak and for raw typing speed has said it’s probably not worth. Fast typists on qwerty and Dvorak seem to be in line.

Stress on the good ol wrists and digits though? Not really sure. If there is a reason to switch, it’d be based on that.

I think quality of keyboard probably plays an order of magnitude bigger difference.

I have at various times in my life tried to use vim or emacs. Each time I get comfortable enough in them to appreciate them but I run into the same problem every single time: it is annoying to switch back out of them.

I had an acquaintance that told how he had spent years investing in Dvorak. He came back to QWERTY because he got a job where he had to jump onto others computers on occasion. The friction he felt fighting against his muscle memory was more annoying than any benefit he got from the supposed better Dvorak layout.

I now use VSCode for 90% of my stuff and I use vim whenever I ssh into boxes or if I really need a quick edit from the CLI. But I keep vim totally stock, not a single thing in my dot file. There are aspects of my previous highly-customized and personalized vim setup that I miss - but I am free from the frustration of them not being there.

As I get older, freedom from frustration has become more important than the marginal improvements of customization for efficiency.

Funny, you use VSCode for the same reason I use Emacs -- so I can keep vim totally stock, so I'll retain the muscle memory / not be shocked on other systems, and so that it remains completely reliable and fast on my own.

I'm incredibly skeptical, however, that VSCode has as-good of a vim emulation layer as evil-mode. Evil-mode is just fantastic. Customized Emacs w/ evil-mode gives me everything I'd get from a fancy IDE, and keeps my vim muscle memory intact for those times when I am using regular vim.

This has been my pattern for a decade and it's glorious. GLORIOUS, I tell you! Few things give me joy in computing like the balance in the Force that I've managed to strike between Emacs and vim

For sure, Emacs with evil-mode is the best of both worlds: deep customization and sane configuration language of Emacs, with the arguably superior modal interface of Vim.

Using mnemonic key bindings is much friendlier than dozens of random key combinations. There's a popular key-chord package[1] that minimizes this discomfort, but without editing modes, users need to be concerned with the chords clashing with their actual text, which is absurd. Modes address this issue gracefully.

I still use some basic combinations like M-x, but I would be completely lost in Emacs if it weren't for evil-mode. <3

The thing with modal UIs is that you want to use them everywhere. So I also enable vi-mode in my shells, and in any application that uses readline.

[1]: https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/KeyChord

Honestly, configuring Neovim with Lua felt more sane than elisp for me.

This is pretty close to how steno [https://www.openstenoproject.org/] works in practice and worth learning IMO if you are going to go this far. In fact I have a few emacs-specific chords, but not as many as you might think. The whole experience is a bit like if emacs is now your keyboard, so it happens to go great with emacs.

[1]

There's two VSCode vim plugins, one a native one and the other actually uses neovim. They're both pretty good. The main downside is that VSCode plugin can take some time to startup.

I use the native one as it's a little less "pure" about VIM and integrates better with VSCode things. Overall it's less evil than evil. ;)

I never understood the logic of not using something because it's difficult to switch away from it.

If I need to program, I just copy my Emacs configuration to that machine. I have never encountered a situation where I'm forced to use stock Emacs, or someone else's Emacs configuration. If I need to make a quick edit from the CLI, using plain Vim is fine, but I feel more "at home" with my own tweaks. None of these things are hurdles that would make me settle for an editor that someone else has preconfigured for me.

At the end of the day, this will depend on how important you find customizing your working environment to your liking. If you're fine with someone else making that decision for you, you'd probably find the stock configuration, or someone else's configuration, acceptable. If OTOH you have strong opinions about the way you want to use your editor, then the time and effort invested in configuring it and managing that configuration is not an issue.

This goes beyond just text editors, and applies to computing in general. Some people are fine with using stock software as it comes from the manufacturer. Most software, in fact, is not deeply configurable. Apple devices and software are wildly popular despite lacking configuration. But the reason we choose operating systems like Linux, and text editors like Vim and Emacs is precisely because they give us the freedom to use our computers in the way we want to use them, not as someone else thinks we ought to.

The theories behind newer layouts are solid I think, but I’ve avoided adopting them simply because if I don’t regularly use QWERTY, my capacity for using machines other than my own suddenly takes a steep nosedive.

My preferred layout is HHKB/Tsangan, a minor variant on QWERTY that replaces Caps Lock with Control, moves Esc to the number row, collapses F-keys into a number row layer, and moves Backspace down where backslash/pipe are and even with that standard keyboards can be frustrating (you don’t realize how hard standard Esc and Backspace positions are to reach until you’ve tried this layout). I can’t imagine what it’d be like if I were using DVORAK or something.

Regarding (1), I used Vim for 19 years, and I had strong muscle memory. However, I found it took only about a week to get comfortable with Kakoune. Its multiple-selection-oriented editing just mapped really well onto how I was already using Vim, which is to say, making extensive use of visual mode and highlightsearch. I have met Vim purists who tell me this is missing the point of Vim. If so, all the more reason to make the switch. But if verb-motion works better for you than selection-verb, by all means continue using Vim; it's a great editor.

sure, but that's the same argument against any form of incompatible change.

it was used against the fish shell for example. yet eventually it started getting acceptance. the same may happen with kakoune. i tried using it myself. i wasn't so much bothered by the changes. i had different issues. i got burned by kakoune overwriting a file without warning me. vim would not have done that. and i couldn't get over the fact that kak means shit in some languages. it will take some more effort to overcome that and give it another try.

I switched from a standard split ergo keyboard to a split orthographic with curved rows (Glove80 specifically). I'm still questioning my move. I was pretty damn fast with the standard split, and I'm still struggling with special characters on the Glove80. It feels like it's coming though, and at least it's fun. And perhaps it will reduce wrist and finger strain as I get older.

Every other keyboard you may need to use; for family, work, friends, is QWERTY. That is enough reason for me to stick with the norm. I already type 120wpm, which is only useful for a speed typing test. I never code, or even write documentation, at 120wpm.

I have similar reasoning for not bothering to learn an FP language (I have dabbled though) and stick with imperative.

This was exactly my thought process before switching to vim.

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