4 ms·

Not to be snarky but I'm curious what you're doing that you need extremely fast typing for? I rarely find that typing is my bottleneck, it's usually my brain.

Not to be snarky but I'm curious what you're doing that you need extremely fast typing for? I rarely find that typing is my bottleneck, it's usually my brain. That said, why not give it a shot for a day or two? At worst, you'll realize it is going to take forever to regain speed - at best, you're well on your way to using the new layout.

jrgnsd 17y ago
It sometimes happen, not often, that my brain needs spurts of speed from my hands, and it's then that I notice that particularly my left hand holds me back. I've taken DVORAK under consideration as it's partly designed to detangle the left hand. I'm not sure that a valid comparison / assessment can be made after a day or two's use.
- mrduncan 17y ago
  Fair enough, I should have first stated that I've never tried DVORAK (so take my advice with a block of salt). What about giving it a week then? I suppose my point was that you won't know how hard it is until you give it a shot for a little while. People all learn differently, the only way to know is to just give it a shot.
DanielStraight 17y ago
Obligatory Yegge link on typing: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/09/programmings-dirtiest-little-secret.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/09/programmings-dirties... Typing is definitely the bottleneck for me in some situations, especially when I'm prototyping something, and I can hit 100 wpm without too much difficulty. As for giving it a several day test drive, I don't think that's going to help at all. The point is that once you know dvorak it is faster than qwerty. It would probably take a least of month of dvorak to be able to make a reasonable evaluation.
mbrubeck 17y ago
I type about 3x faster* than some of my co-workers, and I can tell when I'm working with them that it does make a difference. They don't even try do to exploratory programming. In cases where I would just write some throwaway code for an experiment, or turn to a REPL session to answer a question in a few seconds, they start leafing through documentation or Googling for someone else who knows the answer. I write and re-write code while I'm thinking; once they start writing they are unwilling to change their minds mid-stream. Even in normal "batch" programming, it means that instead of 5 minutes of thought followed by 1 minute of typing, they have 5 minutes of thought followed by 3 minutes of typing - so they take longer to resume their stream of thought, and spend slightly less time thinking overall. *I type about 60wpm which is not especially fast, it's just that I work with some people who are not touch-typists.

jrgnsd 17y ago

It sometimes happen, not often, that my brain needs spurts of speed from my hands, and it's then that I notice that particularly my left hand holds me back. I've taken DVORAK under consideration as it's partly designed to detangle the left hand. I'm not sure that a valid comparison / assessment can be made after a day or two's use.

mrduncan 17y ago
Fair enough, I should have first stated that I've never tried DVORAK (so take my advice with a block of salt). What about giving it a week then? I suppose my point was that you won't know how hard it is until you give it a shot for a little while. People all learn differently, the only way to know is to just give it a shot.

DanielStraight 17y ago

Obligatory Yegge link on typing: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/09/programmings-dirtiest-little-secret.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/09/programmings-dirties... Typing is definitely the bottleneck for me in some situations, especially when I'm prototyping something, and I can hit 100 wpm without too much difficulty. As for giving it a several day test drive, I don't think that's going to help at all. The point is that once you know dvorak it is faster than qwerty. It would probably take a least of month of dvorak to be able to make a reasonable evaluation.

mbrubeck 17y ago

I type about 3x faster* than some of my co-workers, and I can tell when I'm working with them that it does make a difference. They don't even try do to exploratory programming. In cases where I would just write some throwaway code for an experiment, or turn to a REPL session to answer a question in a few seconds, they start leafing through documentation or Googling for someone else who knows the answer. I write and re-write code while I'm thinking; once they start writing they are unwilling to change their minds mid-stream. Even in normal "batch" programming, it means that instead of 5 minutes of thought followed by 1 minute of typing, they have 5 minutes of thought followed by 3 minutes of typing - so they take longer to resume their stream of thought, and spend slightly less time thinking overall. *I type about 60wpm which is not especially fast, it's just that I work with some people who are not touch-typists.