
I’ve used Dvorak for 10 years, and it’s not all that - Tomte
https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/17/18223384/dvorak-qwerty-keyboard-layout-10-years-speed-ergonomics
======
cecilpl2
I've been typing dvorak primarily for about 20 years, also since I was in high
school, and I _highly_ recommend it.

I agree that switching is a pain in the ass. It will make you essentially
unable to type for about 2-4 weeks.

Ctrl-C/V/X is a valid concern. I fixed it by mapping mouse buttons to
copy/paste, and also getting an Advantage2 Kinesis into which I've programming
custom keybinding for Undo/Redo/Copy/Cut/Paste.

I can still touch type qwerty and often do at work on co-workers' keyboards.
I'm pretty slow though, about 40wpm (100 on dvorak), and I usually have to
look at the keyboard.

I also use qwerty on my phone - I tried dvorak and also found it to be a
hindrance there. That makes sense, since dvorak is designed specifically for
ten-fingered typing.

The primary benefit that the author of this post completely overlooked is
comfort. It just feels... easy and comfortable, in a way that Qwerty doesn't
even come close to. Whenever I am forced to type Qwerty I feel like I am doing
finger calisthenics. It's _tiring_. My wrists never hurt after full days of
typing, and I'm hopeful that the reduced motion and strain will help me avoid
carpal tunnel or other hand/finger issues.

I plan to spend my entire career and much of my free time in front of a
computer. Why on earth would I subject myself to anything less than the best
interface system possible? That would be like a professional chef using the
$20 knife block from the grocery store, or your doctor using WebMD to try and
diagnose you.

~~~
busterarm
I've been on a computer pretty much 12-16 hours a day for 30 years now. Dvorak
only makes sense to me if you only have to use a single keyboard/workstation
for all of your computing time consistently. On my own I have four different
machines/OS and I frequently have to type at other peoples'.

I spent 10 years in Dvorak, Colemak and a variety of modified Colemak layouts
before settling back on qwerty. I never noticed much difference in typing
speed between it and dvorak (~104wpm) and I am still without RSI.

Using vim with dvorak is a real pain.

~~~
maskros
"Using vim with dvorak is a real pain."

That is not my experience, at all.

Then again, I don't use Vim like notepad with "hjkl" instead of arrow keys...
All the powerful movement and editing commands (b, w, $, 0, /foo, *, #, %, cw,
dd, ^], ^t, cib, ., etc.) work just as well with dvorak as with qwerty.

~~~
dietr1ch
There's people that remap those on vim, but I found that doing so may force
you to start remapping all the keys on every vim-inspired application and plug
in.

It happens that "J" and "K" are next to each other and easily reachable, and
that "H" and "L" still are 2 columns away and "h" is on the left, so using
them in their new position it's not that bad.

------
coldtea
It's not yes. It was non-scientifically created and self-promoted to hell from
the inventor in the early 20th century, for commercial interests. And there
are a lot of myths about Qwerty too:

[https://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html](https://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html)

Not to mention that for programmers it's even more complicated. Most of our
symbols we use most of the time (e.g. { } ; -, _) have nothing to do with
DVORAK vs QWERTY, and the distribution of most common letters isn't even the
same as English (e.g. C and the use of i).

Add OS keyboard shortcuts (and things like Vim and Emacs special keys) to the
mix, and it gets even more complicated soon.

Oh, and since this is not 1970 anymore, consider that computer users come from
all other the world, and type in their native languages, where QWERTY vs
DVORAK means even less.

That said, there are better researched layouts that DVORAK, with actual modern
research behind them.

~~~
coldtea
On a sidenote: we worry about "singularity AI" and expect "SAE level 5 driving
cars"...

How about we solve the much easier problem of "typing much fewer words"?

We don't even have a good auto-complete story yet in most IDEs, even less so a
general purpose predictor that puts whole worlds at our disposal as we type.

~~~
blunte
I'm not convinced that auto-complete will ever become more useful than the
costs it imposes on the user. Even when the suggestion is correct, it still
causes a mental interrupt to shift from thinking about whatever virtual
problem you were solving to validating some UI behavior. To me it's just
another source of distraction.

If auto-complete could reach the point where it was near perfect, then it
should probably be able to write entire paragraphs or functions based on
context and some minor cues. But that's not going to happen.

Where auto-complete becomes valuable is on limited keyboards, such as phones.
Even there (on Android), I find it so sub-par that quite often the variant of
the word I want is simply not offered to me until I have typed all but the
last character. This is maddening.

~~~
melling
I’m quite capable of dealing with the mental breaks and prefer an editor that
can save me some typing. The only improvement for me would be able to say
“switch statement (3 cases, no default)”

swi<TAB>

switch <cursor> {

case <tab location>:

    
    
      <tab location>
    

default:

    
    
      <tab location>
    

}

Actually, if I could say “switch on enum X” then have all cases generated,
that would be a huge productivity gain.

~~~
Foivos
You are describing code snippets. This feature is available at least in vs
code [1], but I think other editors have similar features.

[1]
[https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/userdefinedsnippet...](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/userdefinedsnippets)

------
jamestomasino
It doesn't look like anyone has yet addressed my biggest PRO for switching to
Dvorak. It has pretty much healed my RSI. QWERTY had caused a huge drain on my
ability to type. I was at risk for being unable to continue my work if the
pain progressed.

I made the admittedly-difficult switch to Dvorak and that went away almost
immediately. My typing speed is on-par with what it was with QWERTY. I can
type out conversational English in real time, and that's about my functional
limit. I don't consider that a selling point, but for those of you with wrist
pain I can wholeheartedly recommond Dvorak.

~~~
___alt
Imho, this is were alternative layouts really shine: comfort, health.

Typing speed is an overrated fad (and in the worst cases an e-penis length
contest) as in most cases when writing stuff (be it fiction, reports, code)
your throughput isn't limited by typing speed.

Avoiding injuries on the other hand is invaluable.

~~~
kkarakk
saying it doesn't affect code writing speed is incorrect imo- after you've
laid out your algorithm in pseudo code being able to quickly type it out is
invaluable time savings. even if you try and automate it all away with
shortcuts and refactors it still takes time to press those shortcuts for
someone who's familiar with the keys and able to maximise their APM(actions
per minute)

------
rhn_mk1
I'm disappointed that this article is no different from all the other articles
on keyboard layouts that I've ever encountered and ignores non-English uses.

Obviously, a post written in English has no good reason describing a
Norwegian-specific alternative to QWERTY, but it still manages to ignore half
of the population of English-speaking people by not taking into account using
multiple languages on the same keyboard.

I'm slowly losing hope that someone will mention whether there are any
accommodations in Dvorak for French accents, how it affects writing German or
whether it is worth the effort to learn and switch to Dvorak for English while
using the Estonian layout for other purposes.

~~~
jamestomasino
My experience isn't much, but as a Dvorak user I can say that I haven't had
any issues with Icelandic. I'm on linux which has great compose-key
combinations. I haven't used anything but default Dvorak on an American layout
or ortholinear keyboard. Hope that helps a bit.

~~~
rhn_mk1
Why did you decide to switch? Are you typing much more of English than
Icelandic? Are the two languages similar enough that what works for one is
likely to work for another? Or was there an unrelated reason?

Do you think it made your life better? Would you recommend it to others, not
necessarily using Icelandic? Are you using compose combinations to enter non-
English letters (there's 8 [0], a significant number)?

Thank you for speaking up, your experience is so rare I consider it
invaluable.

[0]
[https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Icelandic/Alphabet_and_Pronunc...](https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Icelandic/Alphabet_and_Pronunciation)

------
blunte
Considering the author did not begin the Dvorak journey as a touch typist,
their experience doesn't carry much weight with me.

I took the time to learn Dvorak (years ago), and I found it very much nicer
for typing prose. However, I couldn't code with it (and I didn't try a code-
focused version). Perhaps I should have tried different Dvorak variations to
find one that was still better than QWERTY for writing while also being usable
for coding.

I also tried a chorded keyboard (the BAT). With only a little practice I got
to 60+ WPM (which isn't bad considering it's a one hand keyboard)... but it
was just too laborious to code with since modifier keys and symbols took so
much extra effort.

I'm still waiting for a neural interface... although if you give me a neural
typing interface, then I'll want a neural visual interface so I'm not limited
by monitors.

As an aside, why why why do people use the international keyboard layout?
There is no possible way that it is more efficient given that two of the most
used keys - left shift and (right) return are reduced in size and pushed
further out of reach from home position. Worse yet, their lost space is taken
by less frequently used keys. I cannot fathom why that design has remained
popular outside the US.

~~~
Kiro
> As an aside, why why why do people use the international keyboard layout?

That's like saying "why do characters outside standard English exist?". I
honestly don't understand what you're complaining about. People use
international keyboard layouts because they want to write another language
than English.

~~~
blunte
UK and Netherlands use an international keyboard with a tilda ~ key where the
return key should be, and a backslash key where the left shift should be.

To hit return requires actually moving the right hand to reach return. How
often is that tilda needed? That is a poor trade.

Moving the shift key away is even worse, because it's a modifier key. Now you
cannot press shift with your left pinky finger while also reaching several of
the left hand keys.

~~~
heavenlyblue
>> How often is that tilda needed? That is a poor trade.

That tilda is needed every time I need to access my home directory on Linux,
and the backslash key is also a pipe key when you press shift - so I can use a
pipe in command line using a single hand.

I actually come from a country with US keyboard by-default. Now, whenever
possible - I switch to UK layout even on MacBooks. UK layout is actually
wonderful for development.

I can obviously see though why one can ask why is it this way.

~~~
blunte
Seriously, are you suggesting that you reference your home directory so often
that it is a more frequent need than hitting Return?

Every single command you type ends with return. Unless you are typing long
paragraphs in a word processor with line wrapping, you will be hitting return
once every 80 characters or less on average (much less in the case of
commands). Do you really need to reference a unix home directory once every 80
characters you type?

~~~
heavenlyblue
But I do have a return key, don't I? I don't particularly care about the size
of the keys since I will remember their placement anyway, by a certain time.

I do care about their placement, however - since that's where my fingers are
physically limited.

------
saltcod
Disagree with a lot here. I could touch type before switching to Dvorak, but
it’s still been very much worthwhile.

Just trying out a single sentence in QWERTY now the difference is stark to me.
My fingers move so much. With Dvorak I find there is much much less finger
movement.

It’s not painless, but I’d recommend it to anyone who types for 8+ hrs a day.
It’s not a small optimizations imo.

~~~
esrauch
I switched about 10 years ago and can still touch type qwerty as well (and
need to do so fairly often). I haven't seriously considered going back, but I
don't know that there is even any ergonomic advantages much less speed ones.

I think the most relevant thing is that it might actually be worse for
programming, both from the symbols and from qwerty-optimized hotkeys.

I use vim with most of the regular bindings which is designed as a combination
of mnemonics (which are still fine) and qwerty layout (which obviously just
end up in a random spot, though j and k happen to still be together but not in
the home row).

~~~
dnautics
It's certainly worse for programming if you use a semicolon rich language.

------
jlg23
The author was literally not the target audience. Unless you are already
touch-typing, there won't be much of a benefit:

* all keys are equally easy to reach when you hover your finger 10cm above the keyboard while searching for a key

* you are moving fingers, hands and arms much more and with much more variety than when touch-typing, the risk of repetitive strain injuries is therefore lower

* you are typing much, much slower. Switching to dvorak is like buying an expensive pair of hiking boots for your daily 1 minute walk to the kiosk.

Last but not least, I know much more people who use a dvorak-like layout (as
do I) - they adapt it to their needs (e.g.: as a lisp programmer I don't care
about curly or square brackets, when I have to hack on other languages, I
adapt my layout to make required special characters more easily accessible)

~~~
sovietmudkipz
> as a lisp programmer I don't care about curly or square brackets, when I
> have to hack on other languages, I adapt my layout to make required special
> characters more easily accessible

I find it fascinating that people change their keyboard layouts frequently.

For me, there seems to be plenty of mental complexity to contend with that
adding n > 1 keyboard interfaces would overload my ability to work
efficiently.

I’m also worried about having to set up something complex just to get to work.

What are your thoughts? I’m just curious how you think about these issues

~~~
jlg23
It's just a few keys that change. If you stick to _one_ layout per
task/language, muscle memory will take care of that.

------
secure
I’ve been using [https://neo-layout.org/](https://neo-layout.org/) for about
10 years, which is a keyboard layout optimized for German, English,
Programming, Maths, in that order. It has many layers with conveniently
located “special” keys.

Dvorak only rearranges the main layer. NEO introduces a bunch of useful ones.

Adopting an ergonomic keyboard layout doesn’t typically make you a faster
typist, but it makes typing more pleasant.

~~~
vaylian
It seems that most non US keyboard layouts suck really hard for programming,
because the special symbols are in hard to reach places. Neo really fixes this
by having a layer 3 that gives easy access to all important programming
symbols. And with the layout it is also reasonably simple to write texts in
various western languages beyond German and English.

Because Neo repurposes CAPS LOCK it is adviseable to have a ISO keyboard with
105 keys and not a ANSI keyboard without the second CAPS LOCK key. But I've
also used Neo with ANSI keyboards in the past...

------
sleepydog
I used Dvorak for 5+ years. I eventually stopped for a number of reasons:

* Occasionally coworkers or friends will need to type on my keyboards and I grew tired of having to switch back and forth.

* Similarly, using someone else's computer would require me to type QWERTY anyway.

* I've been trying to reduce the amount of custom configuration I have to maintain and backup to the bare minimum.

* It didn't make a difference for me ergonomically. Typing for a long time still took a toll. I saw a much better improvement simply by occasionally changing my sitting position.

~~~
dnautics
One time a coworker tried to prank me by posting a silly message to slack on
my terminal (I don't usually use my work Mac so I forgot to log it off), and
he was thwart d by Dvorak.

------
alexandernst
I never really understood the obsession about WPM that some programmers have.

You're a programmer, not a court reporter. You don't need +200 WPM. You need
to think before/during/after writing each one of the characters you type. And
more often than not, you actually spend +5min of 20 lines of code, so your
+200 WPM ability doesn't matter at all.

~~~
zokier
I type normally below 50wpm (just did a test which scored 54, but that is
above my normal day-to-day rate), and I _do_ feel constrained by my typing
ability. More specifically not the rate I can spew up finished code, but the
way I can't efficiently and naturally use computer (via typing) for sketching
out ideas and overall as _a tool of thought_ or an extension of my mind.
Indeed I do often resort to pen and paper for that purpose which, in addition
to being just plain quaint, simply locks me out of vast arrays of capabilities
and tools I'd have on computer (org-mode etc).

There are also other ways I think faster typing speed can transform the way
computers are used, for example being more comfortable in the cli, being more
willing to write small _simple_ throw-away code snippets, less reliance on
tools like autocorrect and autocomplete, which in turn can give more freedom
to experiment with more niche tools, and so on.

~~~
jamestomasino
There's also the personal enjoyment factor. People that run long distances
rarely need that skill level. People that sing for fun don't need to do it.
It's great to push your abilities just for its own sake. Lots of us just enjoy
it.

------
whack
On a similar note, let me say something which is sure to be
controversial/unpopular on HN. I type with 2-3 fingers, and I can tell you
that the "peckers" like me aren't missing out on much either. I can
consistently type at 60-70 wpm, and that's after adjusting for typos. A big
part of that comes down to me having memorized the keyboard layout, and not
having to look at the keyboard at all while typing. I've also never suffered
from RSI, and that might be a positive side effect of my hands being more
mobile.

And I'm not an exception either:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typing#Hybrid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typing#Hybrid)

 _" The number of fingers does not determine typing speed... People using
self-taught typing strategies were found to be as fast as trained typists...
instead of the number of fingers, there are other factors that predict typing
speed... fast typists... keep their hands fixed on one position, instead of
moving them over the keyboard, and more consistently use the same finger to
type a certain letter."_

Would it be great to be able to type 100+ wpm? Sure. But if I have to dedicate
all that time and effort, I'd much rather spend it on something else. Like
learning a new technology or taking time off to pursue other interests.
Besides, the amount of time I spend typing is a fraction of the amount of time
I spend thinking. I honestly doubt that my 60+ wpm has held me back in any
significant way.

~~~
xiii1408
I can type at 120 WPM, and it's not all that useful. I'd gladly halve my
typing speed if it meant avoiding the occasional bout of RSI.

~~~
Pimpus
> RSI

Read the Mind-Body Prescription, you might be surprised at what you learn. RSI
is not something we should be afraid of in this day and age, with everything
we know about the human organism.

~~~
kkarakk
>Mind-Body Prescription

In this acclaimed volume, Dr. Sarno reveals how many painful conditions-
including most neck and back pain, migraine, repetitive stress injuries,
whiplash, and tendonitises-are rooted in _repressed emotions_ (book
description from amazon)

Excuse me while i chuckle heartily

~~~
tomhoward
Half-jokingly: it's repressed emotions that usually cause reactions like that
:)

I haven't read Sarno's book but I've read the books by another prominent
author in this genre, after battling stubborn health conditions for years
without respite.

Addressing repressed emotions has been the thing that made the difference for
me, without doubt.

Other things have been important too (diet, exercise, sleep, etc) - but none
of that made a persistent difference without addressing the emotions, and none
of those things were possible to adhere to consistently without also
addressing emotional issues.

I know several people who have gone through a similar journey and all found
that the emotional approach was the one that worked when others didn't.

And yep, we all know a lot about the placebo effect, thanks.

~~~
kkarakk
just goto a doctor and leave this newage stuff in the bin where it belongs.
pain management is a different thing from pain alleviation.

~~~
tomhoward
Sarno was a conventional physician.

Nothing about his theories are "newage" or anti-scientific. Indeed, theories
around pain must surely be less scientific if they rely on a dualistic notion
of the mind and body being seperate entities.

Plenty of people visit mainstream doctors for pain conditions and are told
that nothing can be done other than pain medication, which as we're now
witnessing, can too often lead to addiction and death.

Whereas people who adopt the Sarno approach can and do achieve complete
healing of the emotional and physical aspects of their illness.

If you actually have any expertise to add to the discussion please share it,
otherwise, please step aside and allow grown adults to make their own
judgements about what works for them.

~~~
kkarakk
you've gone into ad hominem territory and are claiming to be a grown adult,
i'll let you go about your business but trying to claim it's not quackery will
get you shot down in any forum. linking your medical and mental condition
breaks down very quickly

~~~
tomhoward
There was no ad-hom. My point was that you're denying the judgements of grown
adults about what is effective for them, and you haven't provided any insights
with any expert backing but rather are just contemptuously arguing for
adherence to what you consider to be mainstream orthodoxy.

Recall that this whole subthread began with your mockery of a method developed
by a mainstream-qualified doctor that has helped thousands of people over many
years.

The thing is, what you're arguing for is not even part of mainstream medical
orthodoxy.

Mainstream medical literature linking chronic muscle-tension and pain to
mental health is plentiful, along with the effectiveness of mainstream
psychiatric treatments like CBT, and less-mainstream-accepted practices like
mindfulness and meditation.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4526658/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4526658/)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3237294/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3237294/)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4914381/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4914381/)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3200134/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3200134/)

[https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-
matters/meditat...](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-
matters/meditation-cognitive-behavioral-therapy-ease-low-back-pain)

And here's a specific study on Sarno's technique:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2955480/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2955480/)

I'm the first to concede that none of these studies are a home run. Human
physiology is vastly complex and the factors leading to chronic illness and
pain will inevitably be hard to isolate and different from one person to
another.

But the plentiful supply of both anecdotal and clinical evidence warrants far
more open-minded consideration than you're allowing for with your contemptuous
dismissals.

------
fouric
I learned to touch-type in QWERTY first, and then Dvorak.

Currently, my speed with the latter is significantly higher (~60 WPM vs. ~90
WPM), but as DSK is my primry layout, that's possibly just due to the relative
amount of time that I spend using them.

However, subjectively, using Dvorak _feels_ nicer for me than QWERTY -
temporarily using the latter feels like going back to a modeless editor after
years of using a modal one (vim and emacs+evil).

Does anyone else get this feeling?

~~~
lmilcin
I feel the same. I don't have the memory of typing qwerty before I learned
dvorak but I remember, after I learned Dvorak, how much more fluid it felt.
Now it just feels normal. I don't currently touchtype qwerty so I don't have
comparison.

------
zokier
I find it surprising that a person who does not know touch typing would be
interested of Dvorak in the first place; I mean for hunt'n'peck the layout
does not really matter that much so they could have not understood the
relative benefit of Dvorak all that well, and on the other hand learning touch
typing (in any layout) would be the obvious first step. But I guess there is
all sorts of people.

If you are interested in something not QWERTY, Dvorak is not the only game in
town, and indeed many more modern alternatives (such as Colemak-DH) are
supposed to be better by almost any metric. Of course that also means you are
going deeper in to the niche, and there will be even less support out of the
box for those.

If you are European programmer and want a quick easy ergonomics win, consider
modifying your layout to put punctuation etc to more US aligned positions, or
wherever they would be convenient. I do recommend following the US layout
though. The punctuation crazyness in European layouts is one of my pet peeves.

~~~
toyg
I was actually surprised by the level of support for Colemak, when I switched
two years ago. OSX and Windows support it out of the box, even my Kinesis
Freestyle Edge has a preset layout available on the website. The only real
annoyance from the software side is videogames defaulting keyboard controls to
WASD, but that’s hardly a significant issue. The real problems are on the
hardware side; one has to either use blank keys or to hack something up. Even
in the mechanical-keyboard communities there is no real attention for non-
Qwerty users.

Colemak is awesome, btw. My hands and wrists feel even more relaxed than they
did when I first switched to “split keyboards”.

------
urbanriv
I have been using Dvorak for a few years. I think learning the skill was one
of the weirdest experiences I have had. I went all in and switched the keys on
my Macbook to dvorak, and went all in.

It can be frustrating in a way comparable to recovering from a stroke. Emails
which normally take 2 min take 10+.

Eventually, it gets better, you start to gain speed and typing becomes normal
again. I do like it, it definitely seems easier/efficient to touch type.

Using other computers is not weird, I can easily switch the layout if I plan
on spending any significant time on them. The worst part is standard keyboard
shortcuts sometimes lose their intuitiveness. Like scrolling with 'j' or 'k',
on dvorak they are not close.

Overall, it is a fun challenge. If you commit you can become proficient in
about a month, and it's more comfy to type in. But if you think it will be a
'lifechanging efficiency hack' you will be disappointed.

~~~
tom_
J and K are next to one another? QJKXBMWVZ...

------
melling
There are lots of keyboard layouts:

[https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes/blob/master/keyboa...](https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes/blob/master/keyboards.org#alternate-
keyboard-layouts)

Isn’t the idea that your fingers travel less so it’s healthier for your hands?

If you end up with RSI, you might find you’re using your nose for input:

[http://www.looknohands.me](http://www.looknohands.me)

------
buu700
I've used Dvorak for ~10.5 years (currently on my MacBook, Model M, and
Android) and I definitely don't regret it at all. Couldn't tell you my WPM
offhand from either now or 10 years ago, but I type pretty quickly and have no
issues touch typing.

I might not necessarily recommend it to anyone else unless you're bored or
have a good reason to invest in typing more quickly, but I don't recall the
adjustment being very painful aside from a week or two of slow typing at the
end of the summer break before my sophomore year of high school.

The only real downside is that writing code on someone else's machine is a
PITA. On the other hand, it's a good deterrent to others asking to borrow my
laptop (no one ever does more than once).

------
huntie
I've been using Colemak for about 3.5 years. I think I was at 80wpm with
qwerty and within 2 weeks I was up to 40wpm with colemak. Probably within a
month or two I was back to 80wpm. I started using it for RSI reasons, but I'm
not sure if it helped; I don't have RSI issues much anymore though. Biggest
thing preventing me from switching again is VIM, I learned VIM right after I
switched.

It took a really long time before my spelling adapted to colemak, I think
2-3years.

One of the nice things about colemak is that cxv are in the same position as
qwerty so cut/copy/paste work the same, and the only special key that's moved
is the semicolon.

------
nwah1
I've been a colemak user for a number of years, which has similar pros and
cons.

I would say that it is not worth it for most people to change. You could get a
lot of the benefit of colemak, with none of the pain, by converting your caps
lock key into a second backspace.

The benefits are that it is slightly more comfortable, and you'll have less
people trying to use your computer. Also, prior to learning colemak, I had not
been typing fully correctly, and learning it forced me to realize that I had
been using the wrong fingers for certain keys.

The downsides are the pain of switching, and the likelihood that you'll
actually forget how to touch type on QWERTY.

And unless you buy expensive new keyboards with native colemak support, then
things like BIOS screens, virtual machines, and so on will likely switch back
to QWERTY on you, without much warning.

But on the other hand, buying a quality keyboard is actually a solid
investment, considering how much time people spend at the computer.
Personally, I recommend a heavy mechanical tenkeyless board. Heavy so that it
won't move around. Tenkeyless to save desk space and so you don't need to
reach your arm far just to use the mouse. And mechanical because it is much
nicer to type on.

~~~
lstamour
I’ve spent more years of my life now typing in Colemak than I ever did typing
in QWERTY: I switched in about 2004 or so when I was touch-typing full
sentences in the dark playing video games and my fingers started hurting even
with a natural keyboard. After the switch, the hurt went away and hasn’t
returned. I can still touch-type in QWERTY, but oddly enough it depends on the
keyboard make and model and my familiarity with it. I often use Mac so on a
Apple keyboard my brain expects Colemak, but on touch screens and Dell/OEM
keyboards I expect QWERTY. It helps that if I’m having trouble remembering the
QWERTY layout I can just look at the keys to remind myself, then I can pick it
up again. As FYI, Colemak is now natively supported on Mac, Linux, mobile,
but... strangely has never made it to Windows almost two decades later...

~~~
toyg
Uhm, last I checked Colemak was available in Windows, but maybe I
misremember...?

~~~
nwah1
Yes, but you have to download it.

------
avindroth
I’ve been typing dvorak for the past three years. I can touch type and switch
between dvorak and qwerty.

I program in dvorak (vim), but my typing is much faster on qwerty(80 wpm on
dvorak and 100 wpm on qwerty).

I also need to type in korean from time to time.

Trying to fit this configuration onto any specific new machine has been a
pain. I’ve used karabiner, ukulele and what not for mac, and autohotkey for
pc. I forget what I used for linux, but that was also a pita.

So dvorak was useful in speeding up my qwerty, but tbh most of that time was
not really for utility that I experience now, but rather for the enjoyment of
honing my tools. (The work never ended up getting done :)

So take what you will, I just think thinking about things you take for granted
and taking the time to reprogram your mind (and sadistically challenge
yourself) is not such a horrible use of your time...!

~~~
amelius
Perhaps someone could develop a USB dongle that can convert between keyboard
layouts.

~~~
james_s_tayler
There are keyboards you can buy which have a switch on them that can toggle
between QWERTY, Colemak and Dvorak

------
IndrekR
I used Dvorak for about 5 years. Switch to it was hard. Stopped in 2008 when I
got a nice Dell XPS laptop at work without approval to mod the keyboard. Soon
after that switched back to QWERTY with all the other computers as well.

Main issues during this _brief_ encounter:

\- there was not a really big difference in speed, even after the _training
period_ ;

\- nobody was able to use my computer, having half of the keys blank also
helped;

\- it was very hard to use normal QWERTY that happened to be... everywhere;
every coworker had it; or laptop you had for taking random notes.

------
dgellow
On the same topic, but not with dvorak. I'm using a custom version of bépo[0]
(kind of french dvorak, see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#B%C3%89PO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#B%C3%89PO))
since ~2009/2010, and don't plan to switch to something else anytime soon, but
I wouldn't recommend anyone else to do switch if not to satisfy their
curiosity (learning to create custom layout for windows, macos, and linux can
be quite interesting).

> Dvorak was different. It forced me to learn to type properly, and eventually
> I did.

That was for me the main benefits. When I started with bépo I couldn't look at
my keyboard, and even if I thought at the time that I wasn't looking when
typing, as soon as a tried a different layout I could see how often I was
really doing it.

But bépo isn't great for english and programming, so I had to do some
modifications to have a good way to access [], {}, (), <>, =, w, etc. And now
I spent so much time using this layout that I don't see myself moving to
anything else. It just feels natural, and very comfortable, and I only
remember that I'm using something special when I try to use a coworker
keyboard or play some games that require keyboard shortcuts (which isn't
something I do that often).

Also, there is one really cool, fancy benefit: I have a very quick access to
weird characters such as «» (french quotes), … ("..." character), — (long
dash), ÷, ×, and a bunch of other weird accents, greek characters, symbols,
etc :)

[0]: if you're curious, see
[https://gist.github.com/dgellow/5915994](https://gist.github.com/dgellow/5915994)
to see an xkb version. Config commented in french.

PS: I also have macos and windows version of the layout if someone is
interested.

------
tracker1
I switched back to mechanical keyboards (actual buckling spring from unicomp)
at home, and a cherry mx brown (real cherry switches) at work. The only reason
for the browns at work is it's slightly less noisy.

I hate every laptop keyboard I've ever worked on. The least annoying beyond
the early 2010's macbook keyboards before they reduced travel. Now they're a
bit worse imho.

I'd have a horrible time switching, and have tried a number of alternates.
Ergonomic options, etc. What made the rsi stuff better was a simple,
mechanical keyboard and being able to register a click without always
bottoming out.

The layout of different options is from bad to horrible. Especially arrow keys
on some keyboards. Worst was one where the up arrow was left of the right
shift key. Changing is hard and the difficulty cannot be understated.

------
mherrmann
Dvorak reduces effort 25% over QWERTY [1]. I'm using QFMLWY, which reduces
effort by 43% [2]. Unlike op, I'm very happy with my switch. It feels a lot
more efficient and has greatly helped reduce wrist pains for me. The drawbacks
are that it's difficult for other people to use my computer and that I've
basically forgotten how to touch type in QWERTY, so am much slower there on
the 1x/yr occasion where I have to use it.

1:
[http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?dvorak](http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?dvorak)

2:
[http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization](http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization)

~~~
edpichler
They have metrics of how good it is, but does it depends on the language being
used?

~~~
wodenokoto
Yes, it does.

------
DavidVoid
If you want to learn how to touch type without changing your layout I can
recommend getting blank keycaps, that very quickly got rid of my bad habit of
looking at the keyboard to "make sure" the keys were actually where I thought
they were when typing.

Also I think it's worth mentioning that the QWERTY layout was likely designed
for transcribing Morse code which explains some parts of its layout.

[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fact-of-
fiction-...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fact-of-fiction-the-
legend-of-the-qwerty-keyboard-49863249/)

------
hannob
Both the article and most of the comments here don't seem to touch the
elephant in the room: There's no reliable scientific evidence for Dvorak or
any other keyboard being any better.

Here's an article covering the flimsy evidence:
[https://www.economist.com/finance-and-
economics/1999/04/01/t...](https://www.economist.com/finance-and-
economics/1999/04/01/the-qwerty-myth)

Is there a place for better keyboard layouts? Maybe. Show me properly
controlled studies and I'll take it seriously.

~~~
JdeBP
Actually, the elephant in the room is that rearranging the keyboard map whilst
still retaining the ISO 9995 parallelogram physical positioning is to entirely
miss a major factor. (-:

------
lmilcin
I've used Dvorak for the past 15 years.

I have learned to touchtype qwerty at school and then regularly trained it for
couple of years without much improvement at around 60wpm (yeah, I'm not very
agile). Then one day I red a book (I believe it was Bill Gates "Business at
the speed of thought") and decided to switch to Dvorak and use same methods I
used to learn it at school. It took me a weekend and Monday but on Tuesday I
was able to type Dvorak and couple of weeks later I plateaued at around 80wpm.

What I like about Dvorak layout is not that I can type faster but the feeling.

------
audunw
I've used Dvorak for 10 years or so. Dvorak has no benefits when it comes to
speed. It's all about comfort, and there IS a very big difference. I use
Qwerty too now and then, and you really feel your fingers darting all over the
place to a much higher degree.

I'm not sure I would recommend it unless you convert sometime during your high
school or student years. I converted in the last year of high school. I have a
colleague that converted just a year ago though, so it is possible after
starting work as well

~~~
tass
I learnt Dvorak well after school years. The hardest part was sticking to it
during the first couple of weeks of horrible typing speeds.

I mainly use QWERTY now because it’s convenient, but can easily switch back
and forth.

------
james_s_tayler
I tried Dvorak last year and the theory was great but it was a right pain in
the ass for programming and using programs keyboard shortcuts in general.

Then I tried Colemak and all was good in the world.

------
GolDDranks
I have been using Dvorak for 10 years and I love it. I also type in three
languages regurarily (English, Finnish and Japanese), and that would make it
pain in the arse for anyone who doesn't have the energy to define their own
layout.

Btw. I use a layout based on the Dvorak-⌘qwerty on Mac, which reverts the
layout to QWERTY when the command button is pressed. That makes the keyboard
shortcuts work better. On the other hand, it messes up some non-native apps,
especially Java-based ones.

------
cray0000
For some reason noone mentioned the best Dvorak variation for programmers -
Programmer Dvorak.

It has symbols instead of numbers. And it's just perfect for writing both code
and regular text.

If you are a programmer and want to learn to touch type - that would be the
best thing to learn.

[https://www.kaufmann.no/roland/dvorak/](https://www.kaufmann.no/roland/dvorak/)

------
Pimpus
Cool article, I like honest reviews like this. I think a lot of people who
learned Dvorak won't admit to themselves that it hasn't been worth it, because
of the sunk cost (?) fallacy hindering objective self-reporting.

The thing with Dvorak is that putting all the vowels on the homerow for one
hand actually turns out to be a bad idea. It's a classic example of a
technical person trying to optimize something and actually making the thing
worse. In Dvorak, one hand is flying all around the keyboard and making a wide
variety of motions while the other is stuck in place, stiff as a board, typing
at the homerow like a machine. You really can feel the difference after a day
of typing like this -- the consonant hand feeling healthy with the vowel hand
feeling cramped. If RSI were a real phenomenon then learning Dvorak would
surely make it worse, but fortunately RSI is psychological so Dvorak and the
expectation effect actually make it better usually.

QWERTY turns out to be a pretty good layout because of the mostly random
location of the keys. It's actually a good thing. You want your hands to be
moving, not staying in one place or they'll stiff up. Learning alternate
layouts has negative net benefits and the worst thing is that because of human
psychology, people who undertake the difficult (but useless) endeavor of
switching layouts can't look at the results objectively.

------
miguelrochefort
I switched to Dvorak in 2009, so effectively 10 years ago.

I don't generally recommend it to people, but I don't regret switching. It's
never been a problem, other than discouraging me from learning Vim.

I learned to touch-type while learning Dvorak, and I can't type in QWERTY
anymore, so I can't really tell how much of the benefits can be attributed to
Dvorak vs touch-typing.

------
saagarjha
> Dvorak isn’t perfect, mainly because most computer interfaces have been
> designed around a QWERTY interface since their inception. For example, while
> on a QWERTY keyboard the adjacent shortcuts for Cut, Copy, and Paste can all
> be pressed with a single hand, Dvorak turns most of them into a two-handed
> affair.

In macOS, you can use the “Dvorak-QWERTY” layout to solve this.

~~~
james_s_tayler
Why not use Colemak to solve it?

------
h1d
There's a great site to compare how the typing spreads against keyboard
layouts.

[https://www.patrick-wied.at/projects/heatmap-keyboard/](https://www.patrick-
wied.at/projects/heatmap-keyboard/)

Personally I'm excited to try out Colemak and it's already supported on macOS
by default too.

------
Foober223
I tried dvorak for a little while. Had the same impression as most. It feels
good and many letter combos flow smoothy off the fingers. But no significant
gains in speed.

I switched back to qwerty for the ubiquity. Despite having no grand design
behind it, qwerty gets many things right by accident. Many common letter
combos bang out nicely under qwerty too.

------
chengiz
His gist is Dvorak is faster than Qwerty _only_ because touch typing is faster
than hunt and peck. He cannot touch type in Qwerty so he has no grounds to
make any claim as to their relative merits at all, and the only reason he
seems to have written this article is to brag he can touch type Dvorak on a
Qwerty keyboard.

------
1337shadow
Dvorak fixed my RSI, and works very well for polyglot hackers after a few
simple key swaps: [https://blog.yourlabs.org/post/168827162258/dvorak-intl-
code...](https://blog.yourlabs.org/post/168827162258/dvorak-intl-code-
keyboard-layout-update)

------
Reason077
Forget Dvorak. I have enough trouble going back and forth between the US and
UK/Euro QWERTY layouts!

------
SamReidHughes
For computer programming, a rarely mentioned advantage of Dvorak is that it
makes typing underscores much easier. For lisping, hyphens. That's a great
choice of a home row punctuation key.

~~~
thecreamedcorn
I used to dread snake case before I switched to dvorak

------
SquishyPanda23
I've used Dvorak for over ten years, but I think if you're concerned that
typing speed is the bottleneck in 2019 then maybe you should re-evaluate your
work. :-P

~~~
james_s_tayler
It's not about speed. The real story is in the comfort it provides long term.

------
dsego
Anyone try the workman layout?

[https://workmanlayout.org/](https://workmanlayout.org/)

------
edpichler
I switched to Dvorak 6 years ago and my hands (mainly the external part) never
hurt again.

~~~
edpichler
I also created a layout to use my Apple keyboard on Windows.
[https://github.com/edpichler/Apple-Dvorak-on-
Windows](https://github.com/edpichler/Apple-Dvorak-on-Windows)

------
justAlittleCom
I have a very similar experience with bépo (french dvorak-like layout).

------
creese
Try typing "ls -l" on Dvorak. Not fun.

------
doktrin
isn't colemak the new hotness anyhow?

------
pinouchon
Same journey for me. I went from using AZERTY without touch typing to QGMLWY
with touch typing
([http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization](http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization)).
I practised with [https://thetypingcat.com/](https://thetypingcat.com/) and
zty.pe. It took ~3 months@30m/day to get to 60wpm, then I made the switch and
it took about a week to get comfortable using it everyday.

Some takeways:

\- the keyboard layout doesn't matter _that_ much, what matters most is touch
typing vs not touch typing

\- I still cannot touch type with azerty. The touch typing skill does not
transfer to the other layout surprisingly. On mobile I use qwerty, but I don't
type that much on mobile.

\- On OSx, I use this horror of a script:
[https://github.com/pinouchon/keybest/blob/master/rewrite_c/a...](https://github.com/pinouchon/keybest/blob/master/rewrite_c/alterkeys.c).
It works fine, except that some password inputs use the mapping, some don't,
which is slightly annoying. On ubuntu, I use XKB. I made it work through days
of digging the documentation, XKB is the most confusing thing ever.

\- The QGMLWY mapping preserves ctrl-x, c, v, z so cutting and pasting is not
an issue

\- I re-learned ctrl+letter and cmd+letter hotkeys. I like them better with
the new layout.

\- I created a custom layer called 'gamma' for coding with the modifier on the
'm' key: with the following layers: "top: #[({<>})]^ middle: ;=:"'/_-! bottom:
~?$\&+*.,". For coding this is invaluable. For example, to type underscore, my
fingers don't move, it's just simultaneous pinky+index while staying in home-
row position. On traditional layouts or not-so traditional layouts (qwerty,
dvorak, colemak), modifiers are all over the place and don't take into account
special character frequency.

\- I also have a 'alpha' layer for movement that I do use. I moved the shift
and tab keys. I also tried moving backspace and enter keys but ended up
keeping their original positions.

\- One added benefit with messing so much with the keyboard is that when I
need a new hotkey or a special mapping for a game (where the default bindings
are stupid), I can jump to my script and create a special mapping for that
game.

\- One big downside is that whenever I switch OS, I have to redo my keyboard
setup otherwise I cannot use the keyboard

\- Like others have mentioned, a neural interface would be better

~~~
dgellow
> On OSx, I use this horror of a script:
> [https://github.com/pinouchon/keybest/blob/master/rewrite_c/a...](https://github.com/pinouchon/keybest/blob/master/rewrite_c/a...).
> It works fine, except that some password inputs use the mapping, some don't,
> which is slightly annoying.

For macOS you can use Ukulele to create your own layout.

[https://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id...](https://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=ukelele)

