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I switched from Qwerty to Dvorak about 13 years ago, and frankly I don't recommend it. It's not faster, it's only marginally more comfortable, and it's mildly

I switched from Qwerty to Dvorak about 13 years ago, and frankly I don't recommend it. It's not faster, it's only marginally more comfortable, and it's mildly inconvenient. I still type Dvorak, but only because the hassle of switching back is not worth the possible tiny benefit. The initial slowdown lasts only a few weeks if you work on your typing speed. When I first learned Dvorak I lost the ability to touch-type Qwerty, but within the first year I retrained myself and was able to switch back and forth (though I'm still not quite full speed on Qwerty). The only thing I can't do is use Vi keybindings in Qwerty. They seem to be in a different part of my muscle memory, which has never been retrained.

dkarl 17y ago
I switched in 1999, and I agree with mbrubeck. My experience was similar to his, except that I have to look at the keyboard when I type Qwerty and still don't type nearly as fast on Qwerty as I did before switching to Dvorak. Key bindings are the biggest pain point for me. I recently spent some time using the Awesome window manager, and I had to remap a bunch of its key bindings, because they didn't make any sense with a Dvorak layout. I'm sure the default emacs key bindings make less sense to me than they do to a Qwerty typist. I also agree with mbrubeck that using key bindings on a Qwerty keyboard is much harder than just typing. Overall, switching just isn't worth the hassle. In fact, every time the topic comes up, I consider switching back to Qwerty, but I'm too busy to e.an ,cyd yd. ecoypajycrbv