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Is DVORAK Gaining Traction Among Coders?
coderpath asks: "At a recent Seattle Ruby Brigade hack night someone asked how many people used the DVORAK keyboard layout. Out of 9 people, 7 used DVORAK and only 2 were using QWERTY. I personally made the switch last Christmas, after 25 years of typing with QWERTY. What do you use? Have you switched to DVORAK? Have you been wanting to make the switch? Has anyone else noticed an increase in adoption of DVORAK lately?"
It's not just Vim, but everything else I do as well. It's hard to imagine going back to being careful where the keys are... I've had plenty of times that I just kept on typing while I was looking at my boss (he was talking) or I got something in my eye and just needed to finish a sentence that was in my head.
On top of that, I've -never- seen a Dvorak keyboard. I'm sure I could find some online if I looked, but I'm -very- happy with the feel of my current keyboard (I own 2 and a wireless version of it now) and don't look forward to trying to find a Dvorak layout one that I like.
There's still just too many reasons not to switch, and only 1 to switch: It's supposedly quicker. (Last I heard, it actually wasn't enough quicker to care.)
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
I find Dvorak a bit tedious. For coding, I prefer Williams, John, not Andy. Sometimes I listen to something light like Bocelli. Moody Blues. But, never metal when I'm coding.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
At one point, I went out looking for a DVORAK keyboard, starting at my local computer shop and expanding to office supply stores and even Wal*Mart, just to see if anyone had one and if not, how much it would be to order one. After prices over $200, I checked online and found the cheapest, most basic, DVORAK keyboard at about $100 + shipping and taxes.
I know I could get a cheap QWERTY and rearrange the keys. But (at least from the pictures I've seen), wouldn't be a true DVORAK layout. If I could cheaply obtain or emulate a DVORAK layout, I would try it. But right now, I have a laptop, so I would only use it when I'm at my desk and I would need to purchase one first. The idea of switching back and forth day after day and the cost just doesn't help...
--Thomas J. Owens
Dvorak is optimized for writing English. Most coders - like most computer users in general - do not use English as their main language, and for us Dvorak is substantially worse than the qwerty layout in every way.
So no, most coders are not switching to Dvorak.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I probably would switch, if there was a simple way to reconfigure my keyboard. Alas, laptops are not exactly amenable to keyboard layout switches.
I started using it because I heard it can reduce wrist stress. I'm not going back; I love the Dvorak layout. Well supported across Mac/Lin/Win, and speeds my typing up significantly. I dunno about the wrist stress part, but it sure does feel like I'm spending less time contorting my hands to type code.
Not only that, but it's a great way to look elitist and pretentious, now that Macs are gaining market share again.
aoeu > asdf!
OMG! Wau!
Every keyboard except DVORAK keyboards that is.
DVORAK is another way to show other people that you're different. Any benefits are minuscule and are outweighed by the incompatibility downsides. It's another symptom of the "geek" disease.
Addressing some myths:
Very few people are switching. Very few people ever did switch. And very few people will switch in the future. I use Qwerty, or a national variant of it, as is 99.99% of everybody else using a computer. I have never switched to Dvorak. I once considered it, and determined it would be a waste of time, as I'm not a secretary, I already type pretty fast, there is no Dvorak for Norwegian, and I like having labels matching output on the keys of my keyboard. Also I'm weird enough as it is, and don't need to type weirdly too. So in conclusion, no I haven't really wanted to make the switch, otherwise I would have done it long ago. I have absolutely not noticed an increase in Dvorak use lately. It's probably the same two people who are still using it now, as it was in 1952.
I chpngyd to thp Dvprak kehboxc ank thp qualxpy og my coginq chamgbd drabaciralle.
I have been using Dvorak for years. It has been an interesting mental exercise...but I would not say it is more productive. It's just different.
Some things you should consider before taking the plunge:I also had some unforeseen side-effects occur using Dvorak. When I had first started becoming proficient in it, my QWERTY skill practically disappeared from lack of use. When I had gotten my first web design job, my boss thought I was a computer newbie at first because I was typing so slow and with so little confidence. I didn't want to go mucking changing his keyboard layout so I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Thank God keyboards have the QWERTY letters on them. (I never thought I would say that.)
On the other hand, my computer is an impenetrable fortress of solitude nowadays. I run a desktop with no icons, Dvorak keyboard layout, Left handed mouse setup, all on top of Japanese Linux. You just try and touch my computer. I recommend you use a 6 foot stick.
To wrap up, I want to say you're a sissy if you actually buy a Dvorak keyboard or dare rearrange the keys. Thank you.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
I'm not a gamer. I like it better than Qwerty, my wrists don't hurt anymore. However, I used to touch type Qwerty, now I can't. This isn't a big deal but would someone point me if a USB device exists that could be plug in between the keyboard and the computer that could translate qwerty signals into dvorak ones? I would find this helpful on computers other than my own.
m l
If you want to learn Dvorak, like a foreign language I would suggest to plunge in and stop using qwerty. Your muscle memory needs to get accustomed to the new system and changing in between is not helpful. I initially tried learning dvorak by taking online lessons in small doses. After six months, I wasn't getting anywhere. I switch cold turkey one weekend, and by Monday morning, was a touch typist again (I spent roughly 6 hours on online lessons that weekend and did all my other computer stuff in Dvorak).
There are potentially better layouts designed recently but I want to ask anyone with experience with the "Neo" Tastatur/Layout - is it better in your experience?
Neo Layout:
(German - has useful visual comparison to QWERTY, DVORAK, and other layouts)
http://pebbles.schattenlauf.de/layout.php
If you never have heard of it:
English:
http://pebbles.schattenlauf.de/layout/index_us.ht
The complaints about there not being many Dvorak keyboards for sale are just silly.
Why would you change layouts without bothering to learn how to touch-type??? If you don't touch-type, you will never type fast, regardless of which layout you use. It doesn't matter what the keys on your keyboard say if you are touch-typing.
The best thing to do when learning a new layout is to have a copy of it on paper taped to your monitor. You want to get out of the habit of looking at the keyboard, not perpetuate it.
I learnt VIM with Qwerty, and now I use VIM with Dvorak, a lot better and more skilfully than before. There's no reason to remap VIM's layout (and plenty of reasons not to). It will probably take a while to get used to it, but once you are you might find you use hjkl a lot more: in particular, I've found the hj (up/down ... or is it down/up? i just use them, i don't think about them) to be much better placed on dvorak than qwerty (they're on the left hand, so you have a choice: use hj with left hand, or cursor keys with right hand).
:)
Once you're used to VIM+dvorak, it's absolutely no harder than VIM+qwerty. I would expect it'll take you longer to get used to VIM+dvorak than anything else+dvorak, but if you love vi as much as I do, it'll only motivate you to learn faster
On the other hand: Although I can touchtype fluently in qwerty and dvorak, my VIM+qwerty skills are almost entirely gone. I have to stop and think about just about everything; it's painful and the only time I ever regret switching. If you're going to be bouncing around on computers whose keyboard layouts you can't control, and you use VIM, consider this before switching. Maybe just remap some keys so up/down are where god (not Bill Joy) intended.
Look out!
I took an old keyboard and rearranged the key caps so they said "FUCKBILGATES".
Oddly enough, none of the Windows users could type with it - even after years of computer use, they're not touch typists ...
It's not just Vim, but everything else I do as well. It's hard to imagine going back to being careful where the keys are... I've had plenty of times that I just kept on typing while I was looking at my boss (he was talking) or I got something in my eye and just needed to finish a sentence that was in my head.
I was like that before I switched. I'm like that after I switched. I wasn't like that for about a month in between. And I'm better at vi for it, too.
On top of that, I've -never- seen a Dvorak keyboard.
Fancy that, neither have I. You (i.e. I) touchtype dvorak. The only value you'll ever get out of looking at the keyboard is because it's fun to look at yourself typing on a keyboard with the keys marked wrong, and you can't do that with a dvorak keyboard.
There's still just too many reasons not to switch, and only 1 to switch: It's supposedly quicker.
Most reasons against switching are false; about the only one worth listening to is that lots of people use your computer and/or you use lots of computers. A very good reason, certainly, but still only one.
And the purported benefit of dvorak is that it's more ergonomic. This results in it being a little faster, but it's not the point. That's why if you do want to buy a dvorak keyboard, you'll find that almost none of them have the standard physical arrangement. But I do certainly notice the benefits of dvorak with my regular-format keyboards.
Look out!
My home computer is a Macintosh. I use Windows computers at school. My Macintosh has been setup to use Dvorak for a while. I find it interesting that my fingers trip if I try to type on a Mac in QWERTY or a PC in Dvorak. Something about the OS theme makes my muscle memory choose one or the other like the machines have nothing in common.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
Now if only I could figure out how to make vim map CAPS LOCK to CONTROL when it starts up, I'd have it made...
Just junk food for thought...
That's odd. Most of the Windows users I know can hit Ctrl-Alt-Del without looking at the keyboard. Usually they are too busy cussing to look at anything.
People should not fear their government. Governments should fear their people.
"I hope you don't screw like you type."
Sometimes when I'm working on projects things disappear, I suspect gremlins.
Everytime. Every single time.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
I switched to Dvorak. However:
1) I hated switching the hotkeys of every app I touched.
2) After a month was still significantly faster at QWERTY and doubted I could catch up to a lifetime of QWERTY in less than a year.
3) Knew the world would always be qwerty and I usually wouldn't be able to switch it over, so I would have to switch back and forth at work, on a co-workers computer, on my blackberry, etc etc etc.
so I gave up.
I'm not going to carry around a config file for the 10,000 applications I use every week on multiple computers because I want to type a bit faster. That's a false optimization in my opinion.
Is it faster than two fingered touch typing?
Never got the hang of proper touch typing.
I can type with two fingers at ridiculous speeds with pinpoint accuracy.
No I dont need to look at my keyboard or even my monitor. I can stare out the window and still type fine (including backspacing).
I use the Colemak layout, which has a custom mapping for vim.
Colemak is much better than QWERTY, from a research paper listed the Colemak site:
"All things considered, I believe Colemak is better than Dvorak and the best alternative to QWERTY."
The layout is similar to QWERTY in some ways QWZXCVBM stay in the same place, but everything else moves.
CAPS becomes BACKSPACE. Colemak was entered in the CAPSoff competition (a contest for keyboards with CAPS lock), which it won.
Colemak was designed by Shai Colemak after considering the most common digraphs (two letter combinations).
When you start to type quickly, your brain works on it's memory of key combinations, not key locations, so you'll start typing in QWERTY while you're learning, as you speed up.
It took me 3x 10 hour days using ktouch to learn the layout well enough to use it well and about 2 months to equal my QWERTY speed. All progress from there.
In other words, Dvorak gets you the same result with 39% less effort.
"Good news, everyone!"
That's a really big sample!
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Dude, how the hell can you misspell "qwerty"?
Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
He was probably using a DVORAK keyboard!
I'm 31, I've been typing since I got my first Commodore-64 in about 1980, and I am in the same boat as you; I am a ridiculously fast two-finger touch-typist. Now, I don't literally use two fingers; I actually type with all my fingers (although the pinkie fingers get very little use).
People who are touch-typists often are impressed with my typing speed. Everyone assumes I am a touch-typist. Then I invite them to watch my hands when I type.
I will never forget my typing class in high school; I could type faster than the instructor, but he would have to make me down because I didn't do it the right way.