I'm using dvorak for english, spanish, and french. It is really obvious that dvorak CAN'T be optimized for EVERY European language, but if you want 1 keymap for European languages, I don't think QWERTY is the best choice, unless you can prove it to me. For my part, there is no need to switch between keymaps because I use ALT-GR to cumulate accents and chars. You can nearly build everything you want, let apart the use of Unicode.
For other families of languages, you can't type japanese/korean/chinese with dvorak, thus, switching from DVORAK to 2bul or 3bul or Yetgul (example for korean) is IMHO as hard as switching from QWERTY to [2bul | 3bul | Yetgul].
Like you said for QWERTY, DVORAK may not be best-optimized to any single language, but I prefer NOT switching at all for latin-based (mostly European) languages, that's my (personal) advantage of using DVORAK... apart from not getting RSI in some years:D (I really find dvorak more comfortable than azerty/qwerty).
The point is not to replace QWERTY with DVORAK, but to replace QWERTY with DVORAK(en), AZERTY w/ DVORAK(fr), [...]
I totally agree with the fact that replacing QWERTY with DVORAK while using multiple european keymaps is really not comfortable... I chose to use only standard DVORAK, which isn't a problem for me.
You're learning on an alphabetic keyboard, and you're typing faster and faster. Now you're being told that to continue typing faster you have to change the keymap to qwerty, dvorak, whatever.
Question is simple : NOW, are you willing to learn typing with a really stupid keymap (speed-wise, comfort-wise) ? Answer is no because it's just some kind of regression.
So, don't even think on giving such keyboard to your children, because they'll just hate you afterwards for not having learnt on a correct (qwerty, dvorak...) keyboard.
The tables just show how many words you can type with only some set of fingers. You can see that with main fingers and home-row only keys, you can type far less words with alphabetic keyboard than with dvorak (or even qwerty) keyboards...
First, it's not really Xen that doesn't support Windows, but Windows not supporting Xen :
In order to use some OS with Xen, this OS has to be modified. Several patches exist for many OSes in order to be run with Xen. Windows Longhorn could be the only one to allow running with Xen because older Windows would have to be patched (Microsoft won't plan such thing, afaik).
Using it's own hypervisor for Windows Longhorn, Microsoft could "forbid" running it with Xen. I could hear such claims as : "Xen won't have the needed features to be able to run Longhorn..."
Remember the AARD code for Windows 3.1 which failed to boot Windows on anything but MS-DOS...
(artificial boot failure on Novel DR-DOS)
I don't feel good about this home-made hypervisor... Microsoft could just ignore Xen, and you would have to be using THEIR hypervisor to run Windows. That's unacceptable.
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I'm using dvorak for english, spanish, and french. It is really obvious that dvorak CAN'T be optimized for EVERY European language, but if you want 1 keymap for European languages, I don't think QWERTY is the best choice, unless you can prove it to me. For my part, there is no need to switch between keymaps because I use ALT-GR to cumulate accents and chars. You can nearly build everything you want, let apart the use of Unicode.
:D
For other families of languages, you can't type japanese/korean/chinese with dvorak, thus, switching from DVORAK to 2bul or 3bul or Yetgul (example for korean) is IMHO as hard as switching from QWERTY to [2bul | 3bul | Yetgul].
Like you said for QWERTY, DVORAK may not be best-optimized to any single language, but I prefer NOT switching at all for latin-based (mostly European) languages, that's my (personal) advantage of using DVORAK... apart from not getting RSI in some years
(I really find dvorak more comfortable than azerty/qwerty).
The point is not to replace QWERTY with DVORAK, but to replace QWERTY with DVORAK(en), AZERTY w/ DVORAK(fr), [...]
I totally agree with the fact that replacing QWERTY with DVORAK while using multiple european keymaps is really not comfortable... I chose to use only standard DVORAK, which isn't a problem for me.
Imagine you're a child learning how to type.
You're learning on an alphabetic keyboard, and you're typing faster and faster. Now you're being told that to continue typing faster you have to change the keymap to qwerty, dvorak, whatever.
Question is simple : NOW, are you willing to learn typing with a really stupid keymap (speed-wise, comfort-wise) ?
Answer is no because it's just some kind of regression.
So, don't even think on giving such keyboard to your children, because they'll just hate you afterwards for not having learnt on a correct (qwerty, dvorak...) keyboard.
For your info, check the TABLES which help comparing QWERTY, DVORAK and ALPHABETIC keyboards on
http://www.shiar.org/happy/txts/dvorak.php
The tables just show how many words you can type with only some set of fingers.
You can see that with main fingers and home-row only keys, you can type far less words with alphabetic keyboard than with dvorak (or even qwerty) keyboards...
A bon entendeur...
First, it's not really Xen that doesn't support Windows, but Windows not supporting Xen :
In order to use some OS with Xen, this OS has to be modified. Several patches exist for many OSes in order to be run with Xen. Windows Longhorn could be the only one to allow running with Xen because older Windows would have to be patched (Microsoft won't plan such thing, afaik).
Using it's own hypervisor for Windows Longhorn, Microsoft could "forbid" running it with Xen. I could hear such claims as : "Xen won't have the needed features to be able to run Longhorn..."
Remember the AARD code for Windows 3.1 which failed to boot Windows on anything but MS-DOS...
(artificial boot failure on Novel DR-DOS)
I don't feel good about this home-made hypervisor... Microsoft could just ignore Xen, and you would have to be using THEIR hypervisor to run Windows. That's unacceptable.