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Advocating Dvorak
zeroweb writes "A group of three faithful Dvorak promoters have launched new website at DvZine.org. The big thing here is a Comic (available in print, pdf and html) describing the history of QWERTY and Dvorak, how and why one should make the switch, and real-life stories of the converted.
If you are thinking about making the switch, this could push you over the edge. My favorite line: "It could be the difference between working in your garden at 70 or wearing wrist braces at 40." As someone who started wearing wrist braces at 23, I couldn't agree more - I read this comic, changed my keyboard layout and have been happier ever since."
Dvorak is an awesomekeyboard layout. I changed from QWERTY about 6 months ago, and have never looked back. Once you swap, you can see that the only things QWERTY is good for is: 1) typing QWERTY really quickly; 2) typing the word "typewriter" (all in the top row). But seriously, DVORAK is _so_ much more efficient, and typing actually becomes a pleasure. The world's fastest typist uses it as well. All it takes is one quick switch of your keycaps using a paddlepop stick, and you're away. _Every_ major operating system, be it Linuses, Windows, OS X, BSD or et cetera., includes drivers. I recommend the change- the week or so of painfully slow typing is absolutely worth it!
It's not really funny...but it is interesting. And it makes some good points. The one thing I have to recommend to the /. crowd is taking a flathead screwdriver and popping the keys off your keyboard instead of glancing up at a propped-up layout. For me, it made things much more straightforward.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
Is there any scientifc proof that QWERTY or Dvorak have any advantages over each other?
I don't think so.
I stay away from such keyboards as Dvorak and "Natural". Not because they are a bad idea. Rather, it is because I only want to be able to have to know one keyboard. If I learn Dvorak, I'd still have to frequently use QWERTY due to the other keyboards I have to use that are still QWERTY this. Is it easy to be proficient at both and switch back-and-forth at ease, or does the confusion result in rmmre o erf rree rkjdkc yt wpodcxs?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I'm sure Dvorak is great and everything and I hope it helps people with CTS and whatever other wrist problems they might develop.
I already type about as fast I need to and when typing text (like this), I'm held up more by thinking about what I want to say than the keyboard.
I've been programming for 26 years (and obviously typing that long) and I've never had any wrist problems. I think part of that is because I never learned to type "correctly." I don't hold my hands in awkward positions and make sure they stay centered properly. I don't use certain fingers for certain keys. Whichever finger can get to the key most comfortable is the one that goes. For example, right now, I'm noticing that my right middle finger is doing more typing than any other (except the right thumb which is hitting the space bar), but when I shift my position or rotate my chair a bit, that'll all change.
I think what we need to advocate is that people stop taking typing classes and learning to put their hands in completely unnatural positions. Then it won't matter if you're using QWERTY, Dvorak, or whatever.
My history of typing (all on QWERTY):
First learned to type on my Commodore 64 when I was 10.
My first year of typing class in high school, I typed 70 WPM while my typing teacher typed 65 WPM.
My second year of typing class, I was up to about 90 WPM.
My third year of typing class, I was up to about 110 WPM.
I'm a 33-year old professional programmer with 15 years professional experience and now type over 130 WPM. I've never had a single problem with wrist or hand pain until about 3 months ago. I started having all kinds of numbness in my hand and pain in my wrist. Needless to say, I freaked out. The problem went from nothing to seriously impeding me in a matter of days.
Considering I never believed that carpal tunnel syndrome or other wrist problems existed previously, I was quite surprised. After a few weeks with fiddling with various things (using wrist straps at night, using Microsoft Natural Multimedia keyboard, taking B vitamins, etc.) I'm now symptom free. Pretty much the only thing I do now is use the MS Natural keyboard both at work and home and that seems to keep any problems at bay.
The bottom line is, just because you don't have any symptoms now doesn't mean that you won't sometime soon. Trust me, you'll be quite surprised if it happens.
I'm a big tall mofo.
As someone who does a lot of typing and is willing to spend a lot of time and money on ergonomic stuff (because I'm lazy and stupid), I have typed on a lot of strange things over the years to a pretty high rate of wpm. My findings have been:
1 -- The shift from Dvorak to Qwerty did not greatly increase my speed or accuracy. It made me a bit more comfortable, but learning it was total torture for about 2 months.
2 -- Learning Dvorak does not mean you forget Qwerty. I can flip between them now -- in fact, the varying placement of the shift key gives me more trouble.
3 -- None of these layouts is designed for programming in curly-brace languages
4 -- The difference in using a well-shaped keyboard (KINESIS!) is much greater than that between different letter key layouts.
5 -- Much of the hand strain I have suffered has to do with reaching for nonletter keys (cursor keys, and the backspace key) -- fixed by a Kinesis, but not by Dvorak.
6 -- Habits and posture (not resting hand on the keyboard etc) count for about as much as the ergonomics of the actual keyboard.
My suggestion therefore is: first fix your posture and find a way to stop reaching around for the backspace and arrow keys. If you crave more efficiency, get a kinesis. If you STILL demand utter total perfection, try Dvorak, but by that point you will be putting in a fair bit of work for what you gain.
Other people's mileage may, of course, vary. There's no doubt that Dvorak is more efficient and comfy -- but there's a serious cost/benefit calculation to be made.
P.S. Yay for Kinesis.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
I don't know, though, I have sort of developed (through time and natural, unconscious adaptation i.e. "practice", I suppose) ... a rather high typing rate.
I type about 120 words per minute right now, what I'd like to know from Qwerty turned Dvorak typists is...
How long does it take to get back up to your old speed?
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
Good point. It's not the letters that slow me slow me down, but all the :;{}()*&$"'_=+- etc etc that I need to type when programming. I can understand that Dvorak speeds up regular typing, but I'm highly suspect it also speeds up typing C++ code.
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
I am a firm believer that other indemic flaws in a persons physical makeup are the causes of "CPS" and other WRIST Ailments.
Myself I have been behind a keyboard for nearly 25 years, my Mother 45 years, and my Father some 40 years.
NONE Have any wrist issues, I have even broken mine in both motorcycle and surfing accidents (no no at the same time) so one would THINK that would make me more suceptible ?
I have spoken with 3 doctors about just this issue aws my one son has a genetic and severe bone disease, he is at age 13 suffering osteopenia and rickets and his wrists suffer the worst.
The answer in people who DO NOT have defects like my son ? Its how your wrists are slept on, do you curl your wrists up under your head when you sleep (a question to rep motion sufferers) If you do I would seriously consider not, a coworker compalined about these issues and I told them what doctors had told me , guess what 3 weeks later he thanked me and said his wrists never felt better
Its not from typing its from SLEEPING
Not because it was made with usage of characters in ENGLISH on mind. Okay, that is a problem, say, if you are a Finn and the vovels + k make up 80% of your language. But in many countries the frequency is at least similar to English.
The problem is support. Keymaps with "native" characters. On install you see a whole list of keymaps for different countries, but all of them are variants of QWERTY, be it QWERTZ, AZERTY or similar. A non-US Dvorak is a rare. At one time I thought about switching. In Polish we have a bunch of extra characters that are laid out in pretty obvious manner - all are derivatives of some english characters and pressing the alt+original character produces the extra one, alt+o=ó etc. Pretty simple? Yes, and could be easily ported to Dvorak. But it wasn't. I'm left out in the cold, no Dvorak-PL for me.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
There are two separate Dvorak layouts, one of which maintains the command key shortcuts. So I can "command-j" ("command-c" in Qwerty) to copy, and do similarly to paste.
Also, I still use Qwerty keyboards fine in the labs here. It's not true that Dvorak typists lose every ability to type with Qwerty, as shown by the fact that many of us do both. Typing on multiple keyboard layouts is as feasible as speaking multiple languages, or learning multiple operating systems.
http://www.cato.org/cgi-bin/scripts/printtech.cgi/ pubs/pas/pa324b.pdf
Starting at page 8:
The QWERTY design is reputed to be far inferior to the "scientifically" designed Dvorak keyboard, which allegedly offered a 40 percent increase in typing speed. Supposedly, the Navy conducted experiments during World War II demonstrating that the costs of retraining typists on the new keyboard could be fully recovered within 10 days. The story is claimed to validate path dependence: no typists learn Dvorak because too many others use QWERTY, which increases the value of QWERTY all the more.
That is an ideal example because the number of dimensions of performance is small, and in those dimensions, the Dvorak keyboard appears overwhelmingly superior. Yet upon investigation, the story appears to be based on nothing more than wishful thinking and a shoddy reading of the history of the typewriter keyboard. The QWERTY keyboard, it turns out, is about as good a design as the Dvorak keyboard and was better than most competing designs that existed in the late 1800s when there were many keyboard designs maneuvering for a place in the market.
Ignored in the stories of Dvorak's superiority is a carefully controlled experiment conducted under the auspices of the General Services Administration in the 1950s comparing QWERTY with Dvorak. That experiment contradicted the claims made by advocates of Dvorak and concluded that retraining typists on the Dvorak keyboard made no sense. Modern research in ergonomics also finds little advantage in the Dvorak keyboard layout, confirming the results of the GSA study.
So on what bases were the claims of Dvorak's superiority made? Critical examination shows that most, if not all, of the claims of Dvorak's superiority can be traced to the patent owner, August Dvorak. His book on the relative merits of QWERTY and his own keyboard is about as objective as a television infomercial. The wartime Navy study turns out to have been conducted under the auspices of the Navy's chief expert in time-motion studies--Lt. Comdr. August Dvorak--and the results of that study were clearly fudged. There is far more to the story, but it all leads to the conclusion that the QWERTY story qualifies as no better than a convenient myth.
---
Footnote 11 from the above excerpt:
For a full debunking of the QWERTY myth, see S. J. Liebowitz and S. E. Margolis, "Fable of the Keys," Journal of Law and Economics 33 (1990): 1-25.
- Using the semicolon is very common for programming C, C++, C#, Java, PERL, etc. and it's placed on the bottom row in arguably the most out-of-the-way location (where the 'z' is located on the QWERTY keyboard).
- I have a major gripe with separating important puncuation, so that semi-colon at bottom left and period and comma at top left seem like a horrible design.
- I disagree that it is easier to type alternating hands each time. There are some combinations like "der" and "ead" that are all on the same hand but can be typed much faster once you gain some experience than if separately.
- For me, having the 'e' correspond to my middle finger on my left hand seems like a very poor choice since it is most commonly pressed. I'd say assigning the 'e' to the pointer finger on either hand would make much more sense.
- putting the forward slash very near the back slash (both on upper right) can cause a lot of confusion, even to those who use the keyboard frequently...
So I say stick to the QWERTY, but get a gel wrist rest or elevate your arms to the height of the keyboard and you should be fine. Also, bring a stress ball and exercise your hand sometimes with it as well...This sig donated to Pater. Long live
With the Dvorak layout all vowels are on the home row for one hand. This leads to a natural alternation of hands when typing. This pattern of mixing vowel and consonant sounds is also present in many non-English languages. I use the Dvorak layout to type English, Japanese, and Korean and it is comfortable to use for all of these.
How is dvorak for programming? Programmers use a lot of less frequently used keys, how are those positioned on dvorak?
Maybe someone should do the same distance test with linux source code.
If your troubles went away that quickly you probably just sprained a nerve or something.
That kind of thing has happened to me on occasion, too.
I would argue that your problem is caused by typing the "correct" way. There is no reason for a programmer to need to know how to type.
I type using no particular style. I can only type 70 WPM or so but that's plenty fast for programming which often needs pauses for thought anyway.
I am exactly the same age as you and I started programming at the same time (freaky actually). 1982 on a TI/99-4A for me. I have never once had a problem with hand pain (except from the damn mouse).
However, I have aparently been using a MS Natural keyboard a lot longer than you. I started using it when it first came out (whenever that was, maybe 10 years ago?) and have not used anything else really (save some laptop). I still think touch typing causes the problem. I'm a programmer not a secretary.
Thanks. More stories like yours are needed for some elitists to believe the rest of us. I started using computers when I was 12 - but I got serious RSI problems already at 23 (many years ago now). Nowadays I seldom have problems just because I learnt how to deal with them.
For me, I use different setups at work and at home - change is a good thing. I have a "normal" keyboard at home, and I use the mouse with my left hand (I'm right handed). At work I use a natural keyboard and a symmetric trackball (Kensington Orbital) centered _in front_ of the keyboard.
I cannot use my right hand to control a mouse for more than 5 minutes though - that's the one lasting effect I got.
it's in my head
I'm a 33-year old professional programmer with 15 years professional experience and now type over 130 WPM. I've never had a single problem with wrist or hand pain until about 3 months ago. I started having all kinds of numbness in my hand and pain in my wrist. Needless to say, I freaked out. The problem went from nothing to seriously impeding me in a matter of days.
Before you freak out again, please read this article. Do a search for "sarno tms". Trust me, I've been there (1.5 years of not being able to work), and I now I simply don't worry about it because I understand it was a psychosomatic problem and not a purely physical one. You can also go back and read my posts too, like this one.
Considering I never believed that carpal tunnel syndrome or other wrist problems existed previously
You may still be right about this.
I've never understood how some people can be so vocal about wanting others to STFU.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
It's hard to describe the effortless feeling of typing on a Kinesis with a Dvorak layout once you get used to it. It's so smooth and natural that you hardly feel like you're typing at all. It does take some time to adapt - for me it was about a month for the Dvorak layout and a week or two for the Kinesis. It might be shorter if you try adapting to both at the same time, or it might just be more frustrating.
there are dvorak layouts designed for typing with a single hand (left or right). it's supposed to be quite effective, almost as good as qwerty with both hands. while i'm aware that these were originally designed for the disabled, i've been considering learning the left-handed one so that i could type while doing something else with my right hand (holding a phone, eating drinking etc). has anybody tried using these? what are your experiences?
Agreed, I'm from Sweden, say I want to use dvorak, I would also need ÅÄÖ.
So where is dvorak for me? Well, it's here, here and here. And that's only the first google hits, there might be more ones.
The first ones uses regular dvorak keys + grouped åäö + regular swedish "special keys"(letters,!"#%..) setup. I prefer the middle ones (sv_dvorak) thought since it uses english type special keys setup, which makes it far easier to type ()[]{} among others.
While I am myself kind of lukewarm on Dvorak (as you can see from my other post), I do feel it should be pointed out that Liebowitz and Margolis were market-forces fanatics who were trying to show that market forces are never wrong and that 'path dependance' (ie an inferior solution becoming standard because it has early support) does not exist -- a rather questionable thesis to say the least.
How anyone managed to make a political/ideological discussion out of keyboard ergonomics is beyond me, but apparently at the Cato Institute you can find people who are just _that_ messed up
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
You just need to stick with it. I made the switch about 2 years ago. It was the most about the most frustrating thing I've ever done. I couldn't type more than 10 wpm for a week, and didn't get above 30 for a month.
After hitting about 30 wpm my speed picked up very quickly, and I was back to my old speed of ~80 wpm in around 2 weeks.
Then I sat down at a QWERTY keyboard. I was down to 20 wpm or less! Because I was forced to do it, I switched back and forth every day for months, primarily using Dvorak and very slowly regained my old speed. Now I can switch back and forth between keyborad layouts in an instant... just to test myself to see if I'm exaggerating I've been switching my keyboard layout back and forth while typing this reply. I do have the occasional mistype, especially with vowels and punctuation, but if I slowed down enough to be at 0% errors I'd still be at 60 wpm in QWERTY, and I don't have any problems in Dvorak. After using both layouts for a while it's about as easy as switching languages.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
As a system administrator who switched to Dvorak about 5 years ago (tendinitis), I was curious too. So, I piped my shell history (533 lines worth) to a file and ran it through a finger movement calculator. The results are as follows:
Dvorak: Total strokes are 14613 and total distance is 19593.6341607972.
QWERTY: Total strokes are 14869 and total distance is 26349.32260203948.
So, there you have it. If you're a UNIX admin who uses QWERTY, you are moving your fingers around 34% more than a Dvorak administrator, at least if you're using commands similar to mine.
The curly braces are so far away in Dvorak. It's bizarre. What the heck are we expected to type without basic punctuation?