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Why is Everyone Still Stuck in QWERTY?
theWrkncacnter asks: "I was recently giving some instructions over IRC to a long time QWERTY keyboard user who wanted to switch to the Dvorak layout, mostly because a good majority of the people in channel had made the switch and were all talking it up, myself included, about how our speeds had increased and how its much more comfortable. This made me think, why don't more people use the Dvorak layout? Searching around I found an older topic on the subject, but that didn't answer too many questions, as most people in the comment section seemed to think that Dvorak vs. QWERTY was a hardware issue, when it is really a matter simply changing the layout on your particular OS. I took the time to pry off and remap my powerbook keyboard's keys but I have no problem typing in Dvorak on a physically QWERTY mapped keyboard, and I know many others who don't have a problem doing so either. So given all of this, why don't more people switch? Is it that most people just can't be bothered to make the change, even when its more efficient and more comfortable?" Is it mostly due to the fact that most people learn to type first on QWERTY due to its popularity, and hence don't bother to learn anything else?
Anyone who uses the Dvorak layout is a communist, plain and simple.
First, everyone learns on QWERTY. Why? See reason two.
You are more likely to find a QWERTY attached to any particular PC or terminal than anything else. Switching back and forth is a pain.
Thirdly, unlike you, it seems, not everyone is a touch typist.
I tried to switch... but the letters written in Sharpie ink rubbed off to quickly =(
~foooo
I hunt and peck faster than I need. I can hit the keys with my index finger without looking and I'm not going to learn to touch type ever, although I type for a living.
Changing keyboard layouts would reduce my typing speed with no benefit. The fact is that most people can't think faster than they can type, and only a fractiion of the population need to type very fast and would benefit from a change to Dvorak.
Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
1. See the post above me (Everyone learns QWERTY)
2. Users don't like having to learn new input methods (partly the reason why soft (ie software) keyboards on PDAs are in the QWERTY layout, despite the fact that the skills related to tapping the keyboard with a stylus are completely different to those found in touch typing.)
"I won't mod you down - I feel the need to call you a twit explicitly, rather than by implication."
Slashdot had an article a long time ago about going beyond the efficiency of Dvorak and determining what is better through genetic algorithms. You can read the Slashdot article here.
I took the time to pry off and remap my powerbook keyboard's keys but I have no problem typing in Dvorak on a physically QWERTY mapped keyboard, and I know many others who don't have a problem doing so either
Guess I know a different crowd. I don't know anyone who wants take the time to rearrange their keyboard.
Is it mostly due to the fact that most people learn to type first on QWERTY due to its popularity, and hence don't bother to learn anything else?
Yes.
QWERTY works good enough, and most people are familiar with it. Isn't that reason enough?
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
I use QWERTY because it's the standard. I know it's not as efficient as DVORAK, but it's more than fast enough for my needs (and I spend all day writing code and emails), so why go through the hassle of relearning typing skills and using DVORAK? Especially in an office environment where I have to keep constantly swapping over to my co-workers keyboards - I really don't want to have to deal with swapping contexts all day long.
Then there's the fact that most apps come with keyboard layouts configured for QWERTY keyboards.
Dull answers to your question, but were you expecting anything else? People aren't going to inconvenience themselves unless the benefits FAR outweigh the problems. I'm sure it's the same reason why many people don't use Linux.
QWERTY keyboard from Taiwan is so cheap it's nearly free. I wouldn't know where to start looking if I wanted an alternative keyboard layout.
Also, how many readers are concerned with WPM ? The quality of my code tends to take a sharp nosedive when I type quickly. Lots of thinking, slow typing, a good editor with syntax highlighting that notices when I don't have enough close braces, etc. Why don't more people use smart editors ?
Now wash your hands.
and you'll have qwerty, go to your friends and you'll have qwerty, you get the drift..
;), it's what people learn in school at typing class too.
it's not evil like ms and it's 'standard'
seriously though would i be able to type with one hand at the same speed i type now with two hands? because that would be enough reason to switch but otherwise i type fast enough with qwerty for my brains to spill out useful information to type.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Oh god. This is like a bad Twilight Zone episode.
...to the Twilight Zone.
<voice style="serling">
Limekiller. Reader of Slashdot and sometimes typist. He thinks he's seen every rant devised by man. He also believes that he has come to grips with the Slashdot editor's penchant for beating the proverbial dead horse. It is with this jaded approach that he will begin his evening routine with a bookmark. A bookmark that leads
</voice>
Dear sweet Christ would you let the qwerty debate die! Hath you no shame!?
My
Limekiller
"So given all of this, why don't more people switch? Is it that most people just can't be bothered to make the change, even when its more efficient and more comfortable?" Is it mostly due to the fact that most people learn to type first on QWERTY due to its popularity, and hence don't bother to learn anything else?"
It's because nobody cares. It creates more problems than it solves. Do you really want to retrain your fingers just so you can type a little faster? Is your keyboard really your bottleneck? (Linux masochists excluded from that question.) Do you really want to move your keyboard shortcuts around? Do you really want to use a non-standard keyboard? What do you tell friends that come over and use your computer?
There may be benefits to it, but we're not excatly talking about a live issue here. I mean if we're going to discuss this, why don't we discuss why people should use Procomm instead of Telemate for visiting BBS's.
"Derp de derp."
Here come the Dvorak Hordes!
Danke tres mucho, tovarishch.
Too many toys to change: Laptop, Sharp Zaurus, Psion Revo, Mandrake Box - and about 20 or more *BSD servers that still have a keyboard hooked up to them.
After growing up with a TRS-80, it took me years to forget thay Shift 2 doesen't give me a quote anymore.
And unless you're writing a novel - a good programer types suprisingly little to worry about.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
It's what the computer came with.
I basically use hunt-n-peck modified for speed, up to 50 wpm if I don't have to hit the backspace key every three strokes. I've written novels this way, and the speed problem was never an issue. Mostly you sit around thinking what to type rather than worrying about how fast to type. Maybe if I was taking dictation the Dvorak keyboard would make sense. As it is, Qwerty is fine for everyday use.
Basically, VHS vs. Beta, on keyboards.
Danke tres mucho, tovarishch.
A) Actual research does not support the efficiency gains of the Dvorak layout. The most-commonly-cited study in favor of the Dvorak layout was published by ... guess who ... Mr. Dvorak himself, and the science behind that study is deeply questionable.
The data entry industry did their own studies, which do not support the claimed efficiency boost of the Dvorak keyboard. Since they make more money if their data entry personnel type faster, they had every reason to conduct a fair and honest study of the two formats. They stuck with QWERTY.
B) QWERTY is actually pretty damned good. The common urban legend about QWERTY being designed to slow typists down is just that, an urban legend. It is true that QWERTY was designed to reduce jamming on mechanical typewriters, but it did not do this by intentionally slowing typists down, as the legend claims.
Instead, it does this by ensuring that commonly-pressed pairs of keys are not next to one another (and in the days of mechanical hammers, this would also mean that the hammers were not next to one another). Conveniently, this means that successive keystrokes are likely to be pressed by alternate hands, which actually makes typing faster instead of slower.
C) Your own anecdotal stories are, I'm sorry to say, worthless.
This is for two reasons: first, you probably didn't do a formal study of your typing speed before and after the test, and you also didn't have a control group of people who remained with the QWERTY layout but put an equal amount of effort into attempting to improve their speed.
Second, even if it is true that you really do type faster with Dvorak, that's not conclusive. Some people can do math faster with an abacus than they can with a calculator, but that doesn't conclusively prove that the abacus is a better tool. It just proves that there are some people for whom the abacus is a better tool. Unless you do a large-scale test and find both the positive cases (you) as well as the negatives (people who tried the Dvorak layout and don't like it), you really have no clue which is better.
Again, these sorts of studies have been done. Every one I am familiar with concluded that the benefits of the Dvorak layout were minimal at best.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
I can't believe this submission beat my "Why did some people prefer Gobots to Transformers?" story.
"Derp de derp."
Game, set, match... QWERTY.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Why don't you drive on the other side of the road? There's less traffic going in your direction. You get there the same way. The cops running radar won't be facing in that direction. Duh, it's a standard, stoopid. There are few, if any, benefits of the Dvorak layout. Some anecdotal evidence here and there. But enough to replace every keyboard in every high school and trade school? Nope. Not by a long shot.
Maybe if everyone had the 733+ skillz you do, they could type Dvorak on a qwerty keyboard. But then they'd be so cool that they don't get laid, just like you.
What a moronic fucking question, and posed from the wrong direction. 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'. qwerty, if broken, is so insignificantly broken as to not justify its replacement. Next you'll ask why we don't all use AM stereo. IOW, why should the world switch to Dvorak? Including all international users.
Why am I wasting the time posting here, when I could be posting in what could possibly be the first JE to wind up in the HOF?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I used Dvorak for a while.. but there were a couple things that made me switch back to Qwerty:
/rant
1. public computers: internet cafes, computer labs, libraries, or even helping my girlfriend out with her computer required me to un-wire and switch back to qwerty for a while.
2. Vi: Vi was made for the qwerty layout, with the home row movement keys (hjkl). Remapping the keyboard is possible, but not without breaking all of the memnomics (sp?) that I had previously had. i.e., that row becomes "dhtn", 3 of which have other (non-movement) meanings (d = delete, t = to, n = next). What now becomes my delete/to/next keys? And what are the memnomics?
3. I was never taught to type correctly. My hands are not on the home row, my fingers are extended, and my form is a mess.. I basicly use like 3 fingers on each hand to type, moving my hands a lot. I get decent speed doing this (~60 wpm, I would guess), but it isn't accurate and doesn't translate to dvorak. When I learned dvorak, I realized it was designed for touch typists with the standard home row configuration. To this day, whenever I use dvorak, I change to the home-row stance. I am not as comfortable or as confident in this position and it makes my typing slow.
So, I found myself constantly switching back and forth between qwerty and dvorak.. my bad typing habits were created for qwerty.. and after months on dvorak, I still found qwety to be faster. That is why i reverted to qwerty. I wish I was better at dvorak, i really do, but damnit, i want Vim to work the way it should.
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
I learned Dvorak a few years ago. At the time I learned it on a physically QWERTY keyboard, which helped enforce proper finger positioning. I ended up being about 15WPM faster in Dvorak (85WPM overall), which certainly wasn't bad - however, I was also typing "correctly", while my QWERTY was an ad-hoc mess that I'd learned as I went along. Spending less time just forcing myself to learn QWERTY properly would probably have resulted in much the same speed increase.
Nowadays my desktop machines have IBM keyboards with removable keycaps, so they're all physically Dvorak - on the other hand, my laptop is both physically and logically QWERTY because other people want to use it occasionally. Switching takes a few seconds, but isn't a major problem.
How hard is it to jump between QWERTY and Dvorak layouts? I've thought many times about switching to Dvorak, and I'm pretty certain that I could be back up to speed in only a few months, but there's no way that I can be restricted to using *only* the Dvorak layout, so the ability to remain moderately productive on a QWERTY keyboard is a prerequisite.
So, how hard is it to jump back and forth? Is it like having two separate modes, each equally capable, or do the two sets of muscle memories stomp on each other? I've known people who spend enough time on telephone and adding machine keypads to develop excellent "touch-typing" skills on both, and they could bounce between them flawlessly, never missing a single stroke even at high speed, in spite of the different layouts. OTOH, there are fewer keys and more "environmental" clues to distinguish between them.
I notice that (spoken) languages often seem to create the same sort of "modality", whereby a person fluent in two languages can trivially jump between the two with little risk of accidentally mixing them. OTOH, I find that I have a strong tendency to mix keywords and syntax across multiple programming languages, particularly if I'm not using different development environments (my theory is that the different IDEs provide some context that helps).
So, how does it work?
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
QWERTY is here to stay. we'll switch to DVORAK when the USA switches to metric (i.e. never!)
i can type approximately 110 wpm on a qwerty keyboard, why do i want to retrain, remove the key caps on all seven of my keyboards and piss off people using my systems?
this seems like an argument from the camp of people who want everyone, including their elderly grandmother, to use linux because "it's right," with no regard for the user's preference.
I don't think switching from qwerty would do much good for me. I already type about 155wpm, i can't imagine wanting to type much faster. Although... i thought of giving it a try before becuase i read that it reduces some of the carpel-tunnel (sp?). Dunno how much of a difference it could be though.
How many people have actually tried switching to Dvorak? I did once. Researched the necessary stuff, learned why it was better, then remapped my keys and reconfigured my keyboard. To put it simply, the three days I tried it, it was PAINFUL. I'm a 100 wpm typist under QWERTY.. And going to around 10 WPM in about five minutes is a complete system shock. Though, it did open my eyes to one thing.. I know how my mom feels when she needs to write something.
This statement is false.
...but I have to use public computers a lot at school (commute, can't afford a laptop). Switching back and forth was horrible. I went from being a decently fast QWERTY typist to a crappy QWERTY typist on public computers and an almost decent Dvorak typist at home. It wasn't worth the hastle of switching back and forth on a regular basis, I'd never be able to make myself more efficient without being able to focus on one or the other. Since QWERTY is more common, I decided to just use it at this point.
I will admit that I miss having the semicolon where the Z is on a QWERTY keyboard.
I'm starting to think this isn't the best place to promote my Anti-Sig Campaign.
check it out http://www.users.one.se/liket/svorak/
For Windows 95/98/nt/2k, Linux and BeOS r4.
People have been trained in QWERTY. It is going to be a pain in the ass to switch. Not to mention, you'll be all fucked up when you go to a normal keyboard.
It's like me in Descent 2. I learned to play Descent 2 with a keyboard. I was pretty damn good. People told me that if i got a joystick, I could be better. So I got one. I became very frustrated and never spent the time to learn how to use it in Descent 2.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Why is everybody so angry about this? (as I sit here and type this on a Dvorak keyboard)
Why did I switch? Because I hit that point in my career where the wrist pain was so great that the only option was to stop typing alltogether or type much more slowly for several months. It was a great opportunity to switch to Dvorak, and I've never gone back.
After 7+ years, I can still touch type Qwerty, and have no problem using "guest" computers. It takes about 2 seconds to do the mental "context switch" back to the old ways. Grated, when you "switch" you have to commit for the time being, because you'll never absorb Dvorak if you don't type exclusive Dvorak for a half year or so.
I also don't understand why people ignore what they call "anecdotal" evidence. I've never met a Dvorak user who didn't think they could type faster, more accurately, "smoother", and most of all with less wrist pain.
Its also funny to see all the Qwerty-files talking about how terrible it would be to switch, when they haven't actually gone through the process themselves. They should listen to the people who actually type Dvorak for information about that kind of stuff, and don't jump to conclusions. Just because it took you 15 years to get to typing 100wpm doesn't mean it'll take you that long to get up to speed on Dvorak.
- It's the standard. I moved to a position where I had to use many different computers that were used by other people. I found it difficult to switch back and forth.
- You can type dvorak on almost any computer. But the keycaps will be wrong, and newer contoured keyboards make it difficult to change.
- It's difficult to get correct keycaps on unusual computers, such as sun workstations or laptops.
Nothing major, but enough to keep me on qwerty."He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
The last time I wanted to switch to Dvorak, many years ago in college when one does things like that, I went all out. Switched keyboard layouts, actually physically swapped the keys on the keyboard, etc.
The problem is that some programs used command-keys that were based on keyboard position, and some were based on actual letter (so command-o on the dvorak layout might be either command-o, because they were using the letter, or command-s, because that is the key in the same space on the qwerty layout). So I never knew from program to program which keyboard shortcut I'd be using.
It might not be as much of an issue now, with a more modern OS. On the other hand, now I really don't care.
=Brian
---
There is nothing so good that someone, somewhere, will not hate it.
I get 50 WPM on a QWERTY keyboard. That's enough to type an essay every several weeks or so. That's all I need. I tried DVORAK for a few weeks, and I just couldn't grasp it. It's just too hard for a person that studied QWERTY for 5 years (in a horrendous computer class in elementary school).
Everyone is still stuck in windows
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
My passwords wouldn't be as easy as "asdf" anymore.
i've used a DVORAK mapping on my keyboard for a while. in fact, i became a touch-typist for that time. i got used to switching layouts on the fly for whatever reason, and eventually, i came to this end result:
:(
i can't make DVORAK the default like i want to because all of my games are mapped to QWERTY by default.
i've always wanted to try left- and right-handed DVORAK layouts, but i'm just too damned lazy.
grey wolf
LET FORTRAN DIE!
It's jsut like switching to the metric system...sure it's easier...but everyone is just too set in their ways and too lazy to switch.
One more time, based on my own research,
Dvorak - about 70% of all keys you will ever press are on the home row.
Qwerty - About 35% of all keys you will press are on the home row.
Conclusion,
You won't be moving as much. It is so much more comfortable for me to use Dvorak. The only way I can describe it, it feels like your fingers are flowing over the keys. It looks strange to watch someone with a Qwerty keyboard type because you see how much more movement and funny hand positions that they have to make.
It's not THAT much faster, but it is noticable.
Two disadvantage that I have to admit that I've found from my experience are:
1. On cold nights, your hands tend to stiffen more *because* of the lack of movement.
2. It's harder to type with one hand. Since the keys are placed so that the hands alternate for most keystrokes. Oh no!
But as a left handed person, my reasons for not switching to Dvorak are pretty specific: one of the supposed benefits of Dvorak is that it puts the most frequently used letters on the right, under the "dominant" hand. But that ain't my dominant hand :-)
So if the Dvorak proponents are correct, the layout would actually be an impediment to me, and if they're wrong, then what's the point? As it is, I can touch type pretty rapidly on any (American) keyboard I'm likely to come across -- any PC, Mac, or Unix workstation I find is going to have essentially the same standard layout. I have nothing to gain by switching to a new layout at this point, and much to lose by trying, whether or not I succeed.
Just to give one example, I'll be damned if I'm going to learn vi all over again, or a new arrangement for my emacs / bash / pine / readline keybindings. I don't know where the "jump to line start" keychord is, I just know that my left pinky holds down the control key and my ring finger twitches just above it, and magically the cursor jumps where I wanted it. Isn't that magical? Isn't it foolish to rewire that beauty after all the work went in to learn it once?
Aren't there more interesting things to be learning than a whole new keyboard arrangement?
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Back in university, my roomates and I had a go at leaning dvorak. In our case, the most compelling reason was reduced risk of RSI, not typing speed. As an added bonus, it was also an opportunity for me to learn proper touch typing (which I never did with Qwerty... still haven't).
We never pulled it off.
We got all our X11 keyboards remapped. We changed the keycaps on my PS/2. We downloaded some tutor apps from the net. We even spent quite a bit of time actually practicing. Results were promising... But then reality kicked in.
At university labs, I was routinely using about 5 different keyboards a day, some X, some tty. Remapping all of them wasn't an option, so I was trying to learn Dvorak while still blasting out assignments in Qwerty. Then there's situations during the transition from Qwerty to Dvorak where there's no feedback... Trying to enter a password on a keyboard with Dvorak keycaps but a Qwerty layout is, uh, hard.
What killed the whole thing, however, is that I'm a vi user. vi at the best of times can be a disaster for bad typists. Just trying to navigate via ijkl in vi on Dvorak is futile, much less handling complex ingrained key patterns like df' or 'ay}. After years of vi use, I've got these patterns burned into my fingers. Learning a new keyboard without learning a new editor at the same time won't happen.
Yet another problem is that too much emphasis is placed on the letters. C/C++ programmers need a good symbol layout too and we make at least as much use of the symbols as the letters. Dvorak is, I found, a bit weaker in the symbol layout than Qwerty. {}[];()= are, I think, the most commonly used C symbols... This choice of symbols and the convenient placement on Qwerty is probably not accidental.
c.
Log in or piss off.
cause i use azerty now, i was forced to switch when i moved to europe, and i love it. im faster now than i ever was in querty.
I want 2D games back.
I'll switch from QWERTY keyboards if you'll switch from imperial measurements.
...just as soon as we convert to the metric system.
Well, theres my two pennies.
These statements are incorrect. Two of the significant benefits of Dvorak are:
Thus there is no disadvantage for either right-handed or left-handed typists. It doesn't matter that all of the vowels are on the left hand and most of the consonants are on the right. Most of the time when typing in English, letters of words alternate between the five vowels and all of the other letters. The layout could be mirrored horizontally without favoring either dominant hand.
Qwerty is garbage, plain and simple. I don't have kids yet, but if I do, they will learn to type efficiently from the beginning using Dvorak. That's one way to implant the superior standard more firmly.
Here is my ergonomic typing page, on which I chronicle my experiences with Dvorak and the Kinesis contoured keyboard.
So, Linux is becoming mainstream, and insecure geeks need another way to feel l33t. You have two choices:
1) Pop all the keys off your keyboard, rearrange them, then sit around for a day, or a week, getting used to the new key layout, get up to 10 WPM, then brag on slashdot about how much more quickly you can type.
2) Go out, drink, talk to the opposite sex, get laid, read a book, photosynthesize, LIVE LIFE.
Get a grip people!
You misspelled "lazy" in your subject.
I'm not being insulting, but it's my experience that whenever people say they're too "busy", it just means they don't want to put in the effort.
Which is fine, I still use QWERTY, I don't really want to put in the effort to learn Dvorak either. But you should at least admit to the real reason.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
The only statistic worth debating is typing speed. Not hand movement or anything else.
Reducing hand movement can reduce repetitive strain injuries. Do you claim that RSIs are not worth debating?
Will I retire or break 10K?
The maker of Transformers has bought the Go Bots line. How ironic can it get?
Will I retire or break 10K?
why is their an overwhelming number of posts claiming that changing from QWERTY is stupid because its non-conformist!
The majority of computer users use windows, does that make us Linux guys stupid bacause we are non-conformist!?
they could be as easy as "htns" (right hand home keys) :)
grey wolf
LET FORTRAN DIE!
And learning Kanji would let us fit so much more information in a smaller space, save trees, etc, etc.
Why doesn't everyone go out and learn it?
Oh, yeah, because it's hard to learn, and hard to find in most of the world.
Also, english doesn't limit me, and the inefficiencies are worthy of my time to speak to more people on the planet.
Same thing with QWERTY. 75 WPM+ is enough speed for me.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
do something useful with the Caps Lock key. I mean, come on, how many people need a big button like that for caps lock? I don't know why more people don't remap it. For a while I used it as backspace. Currently, its escape (I'm a vi user). For emacs users, you can remap it to control, (where control should have always been anyways).
-Stype
Bus error -- driver executed.
Coming from a hard-core Dvorak user....
Who cares what the world uses anymore? The whole QWERTY/Dvorak debate made some sense back in the days of typewriters, or even in the days of hardcoded keymaps. What everyone used, everyone had to use. Everyone used QWERTY, so there was no room for anything else, because all the typewriters and computers used it.
But now, everything is remappable. If you're on a Windows or OS X machine, it takes about two seconds to switch to Dvorak, and about two more to switch back to QWERTY for the next guy. It's similarly easy to switch under X11. We as individuals are no longer constrained to go with the use of the world, because we can change our own equipment, and that of others, at will. So the question is pointless. The fact that QWERTY is the standard no longer prevents you from switching.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
I switched to dvorak after I injured my neck (possibly due in part to RSI from over-using QWERTY layouts, but that's another story). so I swapped caps lock for control and spent a few out-of-work weeks learning dvorak.
(These are a few concrete issues that are incredibly annoying, but since I've only used software to re-map keys, some of these issues will not impact folks that buy a bona fide dvorak keyboard.)
- since I was learning from scratch, I was able to learn to touch-type from the start. this makes it easy to type things that you type a lot, like "import com.foo.bar", but extremely hard to type abstract things like good passwords like 5165D0+ or whatever (which you can't see as you type) :)
- some software does not work with dvorak at all. I can't get any windows login screen to use dvorak. cygwin's X also seems to be hard-coded to use QWERTY
- some software seems to double-dvorak your input. I seem to remember ssh'ing from a dvorak-set OSX box to a dvorak-set solaris box and I got QWERTY output. wierd, and annoying.
- no one will be able to use your computer (this may be a pro to some folks.)
- some apps (mostly bad, in-house apps) have non-OS methods of determining what key you typed
- I still can't always find "f"
All in all, it's been great for me. I type signifigantly faster, fell less pain from typing a lot, shortcuts are generely easier to type with dvorak, plus it's 133t to add an xmodmap to your .bash_profile...
There aint no pancake so thin it doesn't have two sides.
It wasn't worth it.
Let me back up... in many aspects, learning Dvorak is not a huge deal: you just force yourself to use it exclusively and... 4 weeks later, you've got the hang of it. The first two weeks are really frustrating, as it takes you forever to type out the simplest messages. I suspect that *nix users who know a lot of keystrokes by heart would find this an extremely frustrating (and dangerous) time period. But you get past it.
Going back and forth between Qwerty and Dvorak doesn't take a lot of effort either. If you use both regularly, you develop a sort of duality of thought (as another poster suggested), though sometimes it takes a moment to switch between the two. However, if you religiously avoid Qwerty (like I do), you'll find that your skills become somewhat rusty... it would probably take me several minutes of use before I could get the hang of Qwerty again, and perhaps hours of use before I could nail complex Emacs keystrokes correctly.
So what makes Dvorak a pain? Several things:
First, there's no good way to relabel your keyboard to Dvorak. You might be able to buy a new keyboard, you might be able to buy an overlay, you might be able to swap keys around, you might be able to affix little labels. But these all have their problems, and they generally aren't practical when you deal with several keyboards (many of which belong to your employer). So you learn to type "in-the-blind" on a Qwerty keyboard that the OS remaps to Dvorak.
This causes the second frustration: one-fingered typing becomes impossible. Forget eating pizza while jabbing out a short IM to your friend... you'll have to wipe your hands and put both hands on the keyboard because you can't see the right key... you have to feel it. To prove this to yourself, try typing with one finger in Qwerty while look away from the keyboard or squinting your eyes to blur out the labels. Without proper labels, you lose this multitasking ability.
Gaming also becomes more complicated. I'm not familiar with the DirectX API's, but apparently games can access the raw keystrokes or the translated keystrokes. Ideally, the game (1) uses raw keystrokes for (a) game input and (b) the key configuration screen and (2) uses translated keystrokes for in-game messaging. In other words, pressing a key on the keyboard should send the literal character through whatever engine maps keys to game actions (e.g.: space-->jump, left mouse-->fire primary). And when you type a message to send to other players (or the in-game console), the game should be smart enough to know that you're typing in Dvorak instead of Qwerty. Many games get this wrong... some use raw input for the messaging, which means you have to try and type in qwerty during the heat of the action. Even more frustrating, some use the translated input for the key-configuration screen and the raw input for the game (so on the key-config screen, you have to press Qwerty-X to get a Qwerty-Q in the game). If that makes you dizzy, you've started to get the idea...
Using Dvorak has negative social consequences as well. Coworkers/friends/family get annoyed when they try to use your PC and look up to see that they've typed an entire sentece in gibberish. You end up awkardly leaning over their shoulder typing stuff in for them. Sometimes it can be funny, but people tend to be derisive when they don't understand something strange, at least until you tell them that it prevents excruciating wrist pain. (RSI is the reason I adopted Dvorak in the first place, but I'm not really sure that it has helped as much as Ibprofen + following good ergonomic advice.)
I could go on, but the bottom line is that Dvorak will sometimes bring you awkward and frustrating situations. It may be somewhat better, but it's not a typing Nirvana. This is a clear case where the cost of converting doesn't pay off quickly enough. (Kinda like the Gnome people who put the "OK" button on the right hand side of the dialog box... theoretically better, but frustrating to real users.)
As soon as I get over my fear of relearning all the Emacs/Bash/KDE shortcuts I know, I'll switch back to Qwerty. But I'm not in a rush... it's not that big of a difference either way.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
I was going to switch to a Dvorak layout, but I *like* the layout of Qwerty since all the hotkeys/mnemonics I use for games are in the proper place.
Upping my words per min is NOT going to make me more effective/productive. I'm a programmer - the problems are logical and logistical. I'm "hampered" by brain speed, not input speed.
From one of the pages :
:-).
"for which OWERTY is often cited as an example"
That's the kind of typo you get if you use a Dvorak layout
I tried to learn Dvorak, yet it would not be very useful to me, since I'm German. I don't know of a Dvorak layout with umlauts.
As a total hunt+peck typist I'll do anything to speed things up.
...even if logic tells me it'll be fine and it's worth the effort. The truth is hard, it looks like I'm lazy. ((learning to write after using a computer seemed a bit odd, as did mental math with a calc on my watch, luckily I trusted))
I've looked at Dvorak hard and tried flicking the light switches on and off Kevin-Mitnik-Hackers2 style but I'm never gonna get quicker than 50wpm.
I learnt to type before I could write, so any changing is as daunting a propect as learning to write with my right hand
I keep telling myself that one day I'll sort it out and learn touch typing but like more than a few readers here I never have got round to it, you know who you are!
I'd certainly take interest in the hard-wired Dvorak keyboards you can get; can then plug-and-pray as you go.
It seems the hard truth is - You got to learn to touch type if you want to go any faster, undoing and wasting all your previous work and ability beforehand. Dvorak isn't going to help.
Must learn to touch type then...
Bah, I'll do it tommorrow.
A blog I run for the wealth
I just switched a few minutes ago on my Windows 2000 box:
start->settings->control panel->regional options.
Go to "input locals tab" and hit ADD. Now add US Dvorak (or whatever other type of keyboard you want)
At the bottom, you'll see the key combination to toggle between QWERTY and Dvorak--*left alt+shift*.
I can type using one, hit *left alt+shift*, and then the keyboard switches to the other. When I have problems figuring out the keyboard, I simply look at this layout.
I'd rather learn left handed dvorak. The biggest slowdown to my productivity is moving my right hand between mouse and keys. I know most of the keyboard shortcuts, but not every application supplies these for every command. Being able to do most of my typing with one hand would help a lot.
However, if I look at the amount of time I wish I could type faster at all (probably an hour a month when I'm in a hurry ["Stupid hands!"]) versus the cost of entry (2 months at an average speed of 50%, so the 100 hours a month I spend actually typing is now 200 hours) I think it's not worth it at all. Admittedly, I'm manually doing an analysis of what an automatic gut reaction, but I think they're pretty honest ... anyway, if I save five minutes a month wishing I could type faster, it'll take 100 years (100 hours [cost] / 5 minutes per month [gain]) to recover my investment.
I tell you what ... when I'm 132, I'll call and let you know I would have broken even if I switched to DVORAK.
--- Jason Olshefsky
Karma: Poser (mostly affected by adding this line long after everyone else did)
My reason for not using it is that I now use a datahand, but that's beside the point.
Before I tried switching, but found the following, very, very annoying obstacle:
Some software uses scancodes for hotkeys, others use the keymapped values. Some even use both types within the same problem.
This was under windows, and it made the switch unbearable, so I eventually decided that I needed to get a hardware dvorak, or drop it.
I looked for a hardware dvorak, but it only existed in an english version. I used a danish keyboard at the time.
Then I found the datahand, and I decided that was a superior piece of hardware.
Give me liberty or give me kill -s 9
Maybe you need the alphaboard.
According to their site, it can help you finish that hollywood screenplay you've wanted to write, but put off because of bad keyboard layouts. Yeah, that's what was stopping me.
My speed on QWERTY is limited primarily by vendors' differing key pitches.
:)
At one point I purchased three loud old IBM keyboards with identical key-spacings. I installed them on my home machine and two work machines. This worked great, and for two years I was in heaven. I could bang out code and letters faster than ever before.
Then, I got assigned part-time admin duty, and had to work on about 20 different machines. At the end of the day, I'd go back to my home machine, and my fingers had been retrained to whatever idiot's keybaord I'd been working on that day.
Since then, I've just given up. But what I really would like from a keyboard is an ISO standard key size and pitch, and laws forcing compliance.
Why do geeks want to turn everything into Planet Purple?
the vast majority of dvorak's work is lofty, overcomplicated solutions to problems that don't really exist. personally, I think he's a moron and a whiner.
creating a new keyboard layout for no other reason than having a new vehicle for fame doesn't do any of us any good. qwerty is successful and the mainstay of layouts for keyboards for the simple reason that it works and is pre-existing.
ziff-davis's poster boy is no visionary. may his crummy keyboard layout die.
The World's Worst Webcomic!
Unless you just like being different to buck the system.
The NBT (Next Big Thing) better be good voice recognition anyway.
"Tactile input, how quaint"
-- Scotty
I like that app that takes 30mins to run on a monday morning, it stops me from getting too drained and prevents me turning into a faster-faster board zombi.
qwerty slow, good.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
If I had infinite time and energy, I might devote some of it to learning to type on a Dvorak layout.
As it is, given limited resources and the time I already burn on creating poetry and music, learning shiatsu, teaching karate, fixing up my house, enjoying the company of friends, gettting enough sleep and exercise to stay healthy, beating dead horses on /. - and oh yeah, working for a living - messing around with Dvorak current ranks somewhere below "take a bartending class" (but above "learn to play guitar with my toes") on my list of things to do.
If you want to call that "lazy" rather than "busy", well, it's still a more-or-less free country in that respect.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Qwerty was used because the typewriters could not keep up with the speed of the people using dvorack layout. Then no one bothered to switch back.
Brett Favre rates better.
_ ru nnersup.html
That sentence won the NPR Challenge for 12/22 and 12/29/2002. The object of the contest was to devise the most interesting sentence that can be typed with only one hand in normal position on a QWERTY keyboard.
Successive keystrokes likely to be pressed by alternate hands, eh?
http://www.npr.org/programs/wesun/puzzle/puzzle
I tried to switch to switch to Dvorak back in my mudding days (pre-web time...) and failed. I relabelled my keys, spent time on exercises, everything. The whole point was that I couldn't type as fast as I wanted to on the MUD. The problem was that I was slower at first with dvorak ... much slower. After an hour or so I'd get fed up and switch back to QWERTY (wow that's easy to type...) for the instant speed kick. Eventually, I gave up.
simon
home page
I just discovered that OS X comes with a keyboard layout that uses Dvorak but when you hold down Command (apple) key, uses QWERTY. That's great, because I'd hate to have to relearn all my keyboard shortcuts!
simon
home page
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I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
... we're using computers. All the special keys like question marks and the like are in the wrong places for modern keyboard usage. DVORAK is ideal for a touch typist, but having to do strange gyrations each time I want to type something used alot on a modern keyboard like a question mark, is not my idea of fun.
By the way, you don't need spend alot of money to get a Dvorak keyboard, just taking your Qwerty keyboard apart and re-placing the keys works fine.
If someone has a tool that works fine, why should they take time away from doing something useless or something they enjoy for a minimal gain? It reminds me of someone I worked with in some college classes that was obsessed with ViM. He'd sit there tweaking it all day and clamor "Why don't you use vim! Can't you see it's superior?"
The reason I don't? Because I want to get work done. I want to do the things I like to do and not have people tell me "You have to do it my way because it's a little better." If dvorak was twice as fast as qwerty, then sure, I'd consider it. But the gain just doesn't seem worth the time I'd waste getting used to the new layout.
On top of that, for people who use multiple computers, dvorak is pretty worthless. The time you spend switching the settings on EVERY SINGLE computer you probably takes up the time you saved using the faster layout.
And finally, I (and a lot of other qwerty typists I know), type at roughly the speed we talk. A little slower, but close enough. I tend to think along when I type as if I'm reading/talking, so if I could hypothetically type faster than what I do now, I could see it causing a lot of issues with finishing a word before I've really read it and making tons more typos.
So to answer your question, I stick with qwerty because I just plain don't care enough to spend my life learning a tool that just isn't important enough to make a difference. Understand that people tend to find ways of doing things they like, even if they're a little less efficient. Qwerty is easy enough for me, while I still have issues when I try using dvorak (usually I think some of the vowels should be switched).
I have a sort of question for the keyboard layout gurus around here though - Do the keyboard layouts have any right-handed preference? Has anyone tried designing a left-handed keyboard layout? I think that could be really interesting.
I'm a Dvorak user. I made the switch about three years ago at both home and work. And while I found many of the usual benifits (increaded typing speed, better hand comfort, a decrease in typos), I discovered one very important additional benifit...
Nobody ever wanted to use my computer anymore!
At the time I mad ethe switch, I had one of the most powerful systems in my development group. People routinely wanted to use it for one thing or another, but all of that dried up soon after remapping all my keys to Dvorak. Joy! :)
At home, I have a number of systems that I run without monitor, keyboard, or mouse -- so I tend to have extra keyboards laying around. On the rare occassions where a guest needs to use a computer, I'll typically swap keyboards for them.
Some of us are geeky enough to use things that are based on sound research and engineering, and because of their degree of optimality, and couldn't care less about "what everyone else uses". It's why I use a Dvorak keyboard, why I don't run Windows at all, and why I learned to speak Esperanto.
Yaz.
because there's no point to change. people already know qwerty and every keyboard they sit at will be qwerty. switching to anything else right now is absurd.
Moderators should check out the definition of sarcasm and maybe try to purchase a sense humour.
The ONLY trollish part of this post is the moderation.
If VISTA is the answer, you didn't understand the question
If there were reasonably priced Dvorak keyboards, as compared to the qwerty keyboards, then I would change even if it meant relearning the layout. My previous attempts at keycap switches and keyboard remapping have failed miserably, when it came to actually using Alt-xxx, Ctrl-xxx sequences, they were still mapping to the hardwired key locations. Maybe that has all changed, but now I am in a Mac OS X environment as opposed to Win, and I still haven't found where to map the home/end key to go to the start/end of a line instead of Apple-arrowkeys. Let alone figure out how to remap almost the whole keyboard to Dvorak.
Regards,
Ryan Pritchard
Fun Extends All Basic Life Expectancies
Most people in the US are lazy, or don't know how to do much more than email, chain mail, and word process and are probably half scared of their computer in the first place. That and poor Marketing. I think if the most keyboard makers would push Dvorak, or even offer a hardware keyboard, you'd see more people trying and using it. I know I am, this is the first I've heard about it. I'm going to either get a keyboard or labels, but I don't like to get crappy keyboards, so I'm leary in what I buy, mainly Logitech, but they only offer QWERTY, from what I see. Another good question, Why don't we use the Metric system?
Remember growing up in the 70's and 80's, all through school, "We will soon be transitioning to the Metric System, so we are going to teach you measurements in both formats and confuse the hell out of you". What happened? We ended up not going to the metric system. Why not? The whole world uses metrics except us. (excuse me, US = the United States)
Maybe it is because, as shitty as the empirical system of measures is, it works and we know it.
What chance does Dvorak have in a world where such a small number of people use it currently, if we can't even get to the metric system in a world where pretty much everyone uses it except for the US?
Dvorak is niche and always will be.
If this article confuses you, don't worry. It was posted yesterday in a much clearer fashion.
I'm using QWERTZ, you insensitive clod!
Karma
...you insensitive clod!
Why have none of you zealots yet blamed microsoft for this fact !!!!!???!!? I'm sure someone will !!!!
As a coder, I've found that many of the keys that slow me down the most are shifted keys away from the home row (e.g. {} () #$*&+|, etc. ).
These go no faster with a dvorak keyboard.