4 ms·

I think the problem with most of the layouts is that they are typist-oriented (e.g. people who enter mostly English text), so they mainly focus on the letters.

by bbojan 8y ago

I think the problem with most of the layouts is that they are typist-oriented (e.g. people who enter mostly English text), so they mainly focus on the letters. Programmers' workflow is different. I'm in the process of switching to an Ergodox keyboard and I logged all my keystrokes (on a regular QWERTY keyboard) for about a week. My work was maybe 80% writing code and 20% writing emails, Slack messages etc. Here are the top 10 most frequently used keys: Key # % ---------+------+--- Down 14139 11.3 Up 11514 9.2 Backspace 6748 5.3 Right 6529 5.2 Space 5409 4.3 Left 4908 3.9 Tab 4847 3.8 R Ctrl 4665 3.7 E 3937 3.1 L Shift 3824 3.0 There's only one letter there! The rest of the keys are pretty much in the same position in all the layouts discussed here. Therefore I think significant speed improvements for programmers can only come with a more radical re-think of a keyboard layout.

Symbiote 8y ago
I wouldn't encourage anyone to switch for speed. Switch for comfort. Repeating in full a comment I made 5 months ago [0] I learnt during the summer after the first year of university, when I was working on a small summer project at the university. It can't have been more than two months, probably more like one. I didn't touchtype Qwerty, although I could type fairly fast while looking at the keyboard. I made the "tent" showing the keyboard layout, as described at [1]. It's simply more comfortable to use Dvorak. The clearest way I have to show that is by tapping fingers on the table: it's much easier to go small-to-large than large-to-small. On Dvorak, that means typing digraphs like sn, st, sh, nt, nh, th is optimized (Qwerty equivalent: ;l ;k ;j lk lj kj — what a waste of easy-to-type combinations!). The reverse combinations are rarer in English: ht, hn, hs, tn, ts, ns. All the rare letters are on the bottom row, so the most awkward movement — bottom row then top row — is minimized. Added to that, hand alternation is much better, which is also more comfortable. Taking my first sentence, "after" and "was" are all on one hand, and trigrams like "ear" (learnt), "rst" (first), "ect" (project) are common, yet ugly to type on Qwerty. If you can touchtype Qwerty, type this to simulate typing the first two sentences: G pdaolk hfoglu kjd ;fmmdo aykdo kjd ygo;k tdao sy flg.do;gktw ,jdl G ,a; ,sovglu sl a ;mapp ;fmmdo roscdik ak kjd flg.do;gkte Gk ialqk ja.d nddl msod kjal k,s mslkj;w rosnanpt msod pgvd slde To remain closer to the defaults of the world, I've never bothered with Colemak or similar. I can add Dvorak to any computer I use, which I will occasionally do if someone asks me to use their computer to take minutes in a meeting or similar. [1] http://www.dvzine.org/zine/20-21.html http://www.dvzine.org/zine/20-21.html [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16568867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16568867
- limeblack 8y ago
  Dvorak is preinstalled on every modern computer. For that reason I agree it only takes a minute to enable.
taeric 8y ago
You could also look to use the direction keys less. Jump to search shortcuts work amazing once you get used to them. That said, I would guess actual improvements to be slim. I am learning a new layout to make me happy.

by bbojan 8y ago

Symbiote 8y ago

I wouldn't encourage anyone to switch for speed. Switch for comfort. Repeating in full a comment I made 5 months ago [0] I learnt during the summer after the first year of university, when I was working on a small summer project at the university. It can't have been more than two months, probably more like one. I didn't touchtype Qwerty, although I could type fairly fast while looking at the keyboard. I made the "tent" showing the keyboard layout, as described at [1]. It's simply more comfortable to use Dvorak. The clearest way I have to show that is by tapping fingers on the table: it's much easier to go small-to-large than large-to-small. On Dvorak, that means typing digraphs like sn, st, sh, nt, nh, th is optimized (Qwerty equivalent: ;l ;k ;j lk lj kj — what a waste of easy-to-type combinations!). The reverse combinations are rarer in English: ht, hn, hs, tn, ts, ns. All the rare letters are on the bottom row, so the most awkward movement — bottom row then top row — is minimized. Added to that, hand alternation is much better, which is also more comfortable. Taking my first sentence, "after" and "was" are all on one hand, and trigrams like "ear" (learnt), "rst" (first), "ect" (project) are common, yet ugly to type on Qwerty. If you can touchtype Qwerty, type this to simulate typing the first two sentences: G pdaolk hfoglu kjd ;fmmdo aykdo kjd ygo;k tdao sy flg.do;gktw ,jdl G ,a; ,sovglu sl a ;mapp ;fmmdo roscdik ak kjd flg.do;gkte Gk ialqk ja.d nddl msod kjal k,s mslkj;w rosnanpt msod pgvd slde To remain closer to the defaults of the world, I've never bothered with Colemak or similar. I can add Dvorak to any computer I use, which I will occasionally do if someone asks me to use their computer to take minutes in a meeting or similar. [1] http://www.dvzine.org/zine/20-21.html http://www.dvzine.org/zine/20-21.html [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16568867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16568867

limeblack 8y ago
Dvorak is preinstalled on every modern computer. For that reason I agree it only takes a minute to enable.

taeric 8y ago

You could also look to use the direction keys less. Jump to search shortcuts work amazing once you get used to them. That said, I would guess actual improvements to be slim. I am learning a new layout to make me happy.