5 ms·

I never understood why Dvorak is a thing. I and others like me can touch type with Qwerty just fine. I can comfortably do 70-90 wpm, which is above my speed of

I never understood why Dvorak is a thing. I and others like me can touch type with Qwerty just fine. I can comfortably do 70-90 wpm, which is above my speed of thought. I don't suffer from RSI either and I've been touch typing for 20 years. Also the Qwerty layout is more international. In non-English languages the Dvorak assumptions break down, the layout being optimized for English. And good luck finding Dvorak versions for other languages. Whereas all localized keyboard layouts that I've seen are based on Qwerty (for languages using Latin chars obviously). So for people communicating in more than English, like myself, anything non-Qwerty would be a pain. So the biggest problem with Dvorak is that it is non-standard and it ain't worth it imo. I have issues with using other workstations, of friends and colleagues, just by having reconfigured Caps Lock into another Ctrl.

1337shadow 7y ago
I speak 3 languages on Dvorak-alt-intl layout which I have optimized for coding: https://blog.yourlabs.org/posts/2017-12-22-dvorak-intl-code-keyboard-layout-update/ https://blog.yourlabs.org/posts/2017-12-22-dvorak-intl-code-... Dvorak fixed my RSI problems, it is not possible that Qwerty have the same physical impact than Dvorak because physically a Qwerty typer has to "walk" a lot more distance with their fingers to type the same thing than a Dvorak typer that has all voyels on the home row. You can spot a Dvorak user by just watching them type: their fingers walk a lot less distance than other users. It's a trick that I learned from other Dvorak users who had spotted me. I can still touch type with Qwerty, but my hands hurt after 5 minutes. I type around 145 wpm, including in the 3 languages I speak (all ASCII based though) and languages or frameworks that I know by hearth. To make it easy for colleges and friends, I just have 2 aliases: alias aoeu="setxkbmap fr" alias qsdf="setxkbmap -I ~/.xkb code -print | xkbcomp -I$HOME/.xkb - $DISPLAY" As you can see, the four letters of the how row, in dvorak switches to french, in french switches to dvorak. Of course it could be more complicated with more layouts if I had to support them but then I guess a systray icon would work. Anyway, also using Kinesis Advantage 2 LF, absolutely love it, and plenty of other "non-standard" stuff like the OP says, such as a tiling window manager. Highly recommend learning or making a better layout than Qwerty because the drawbacks are largely country balanced by the benefits IMHO. It's not about whatever someone thinks is "standard" it's about how you want to touch the machine for the rest of your life.
- bad_user 7y ago
  > "I can still touch type with Qwerty, but my hands hurt after 5 minutes." That's not a good metric. In your case, you might be right, but for the general public it's like when picking up any new exercise or sport, like running or biking or anything really, when untrained you end up for the first few days with sore ligaments, joints and muscles. You get used to it. My hands never hurt, even though I love writing long texts, long emails, long code comments, etc. I can also do 120 wpm but I don't feel the need to do it because it's stressful, not necessarily on the hands, but on my thought process. Speed isn't an issue. If Dvorak solved your RSI, that's awesome, I can understand why you switched, however I don't think this is a causality issue, meaning that I don't think it was Qwerty that caused RSI in the first place. If Dvorak is a good strategy for you to manage the pain, then great, but it's pain management, not a cure. I also used to configure my machines a lot, going into a yak shaving rabbit hole every time it wasn't functioning properly. I was on Linux back then, but I gave it up and nowadays I'm much happier. The only yak shaving sink I still have is Emacs and I'll get rid of it as soon as I find something better.
  - 1337shadow 7y ago
    Indeed it's just my personal experience, but there's a fact that you seem to have missed: the distance that fingers must walk to type the same text is higher in qwerty than in dvorak, that's the whole point of dvorak and others such as bepo. So, typing in Qwerty is more physical work than typing Dvorak. There are ways to calculate that pretty accurately. I don't have proof that less finger distance means less hand work means less pain, so maybe you're right, maybe it's just a coincidence. Or maybe less finger distance means less work which means less tension accumulated in the muscles and then indeed less pain. Nonetheless, I changed "fixed my RSI" by "fixed my RSI problems" thanks to your feedback, which should clear out the misunderstanding.
    - kqr 7y ago
      It's also worth mentioning that some of the Qwerty pain can be psychosomatic in origin. Even for me, who hasn't suffered RSI, it was pretty clear that I didn't feel the exertion of Qwerty until I had gotten used to something better (Colemak, in my case.) Once I knew how nice it can feel to type on a keyboard, anything less nice starts mentally hurting – and I'm sure, for some people, also physically.
mresposito 7y ago
I switched to Dvorak after I got RSI about 10 years ago. It was so bad that I couldn't type anymore. So I taught myself Dvorak because I did some research and it seemed it could have been helpful. I was pretty desperate to solve my problem, and it seemed Dvorak could help since your hands travel less than Qwerty. Fortunately, I haven't had RSI ever since I switched to Dvorak. Switching to Dvorak is quite tedious, and I wouldn't recommend it unless you have a good reason to do so. Regarding internationalization, I write in English, Spanish and Italian in Dvorak with no problem. It really doesn't any difference to me as compared to Qwerty.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lytefm 7y ago
> And good luck finding Dvorak versions for other languages. I definitely recommend Neo2 for German users. Ctrl + a,x,v and c still with the left hand. Letter frequency optimised for German first, English second. All programming symbols easy accessible, additional layers for Greek symbols and math notation. Also, users of non-US layouts have much more to "gain" by switching from query-like layouts: Due to umlauts or accents, brackets tend to be way harder to reach.

1337shadow 7y ago

I speak 3 languages on Dvorak-alt-intl layout which I have optimized for coding: https://blog.yourlabs.org/posts/2017-12-22-dvorak-intl-code-keyboard-layout-update/ https://blog.yourlabs.org/posts/2017-12-22-dvorak-intl-code-... Dvorak fixed my RSI problems, it is not possible that Qwerty have the same physical impact than Dvorak because physically a Qwerty typer has to "walk" a lot more distance with their fingers to type the same thing than a Dvorak typer that has all voyels on the home row. You can spot a Dvorak user by just watching them type: their fingers walk a lot less distance than other users. It's a trick that I learned from other Dvorak users who had spotted me. I can still touch type with Qwerty, but my hands hurt after 5 minutes. I type around 145 wpm, including in the 3 languages I speak (all ASCII based though) and languages or frameworks that I know by hearth. To make it easy for colleges and friends, I just have 2 aliases: alias aoeu="setxkbmap fr" alias qsdf="setxkbmap -I ~/.xkb code -print | xkbcomp -I$HOME/.xkb - $DISPLAY" As you can see, the four letters of the how row, in dvorak switches to french, in french switches to dvorak. Of course it could be more complicated with more layouts if I had to support them but then I guess a systray icon would work. Anyway, also using Kinesis Advantage 2 LF, absolutely love it, and plenty of other "non-standard" stuff like the OP says, such as a tiling window manager. Highly recommend learning or making a better layout than Qwerty because the drawbacks are largely country balanced by the benefits IMHO. It's not about whatever someone thinks is "standard" it's about how you want to touch the machine for the rest of your life.

bad_user 7y ago
> "I can still touch type with Qwerty, but my hands hurt after 5 minutes." That's not a good metric. In your case, you might be right, but for the general public it's like when picking up any new exercise or sport, like running or biking or anything really, when untrained you end up for the first few days with sore ligaments, joints and muscles. You get used to it. My hands never hurt, even though I love writing long texts, long emails, long code comments, etc. I can also do 120 wpm but I don't feel the need to do it because it's stressful, not necessarily on the hands, but on my thought process. Speed isn't an issue. If Dvorak solved your RSI, that's awesome, I can understand why you switched, however I don't think this is a causality issue, meaning that I don't think it was Qwerty that caused RSI in the first place. If Dvorak is a good strategy for you to manage the pain, then great, but it's pain management, not a cure. I also used to configure my machines a lot, going into a yak shaving rabbit hole every time it wasn't functioning properly. I was on Linux back then, but I gave it up and nowadays I'm much happier. The only yak shaving sink I still have is Emacs and I'll get rid of it as soon as I find something better.
- 1337shadow 7y ago
  Indeed it's just my personal experience, but there's a fact that you seem to have missed: the distance that fingers must walk to type the same text is higher in qwerty than in dvorak, that's the whole point of dvorak and others such as bepo. So, typing in Qwerty is more physical work than typing Dvorak. There are ways to calculate that pretty accurately. I don't have proof that less finger distance means less hand work means less pain, so maybe you're right, maybe it's just a coincidence. Or maybe less finger distance means less work which means less tension accumulated in the muscles and then indeed less pain. Nonetheless, I changed "fixed my RSI" by "fixed my RSI problems" thanks to your feedback, which should clear out the misunderstanding.
  - kqr 7y ago
    It's also worth mentioning that some of the Qwerty pain can be psychosomatic in origin. Even for me, who hasn't suffered RSI, it was pretty clear that I didn't feel the exertion of Qwerty until I had gotten used to something better (Colemak, in my case.) Once I knew how nice it can feel to type on a keyboard, anything less nice starts mentally hurting – and I'm sure, for some people, also physically.

mresposito 7y ago

I switched to Dvorak after I got RSI about 10 years ago. It was so bad that I couldn't type anymore. So I taught myself Dvorak because I did some research and it seemed it could have been helpful. I was pretty desperate to solve my problem, and it seemed Dvorak could help since your hands travel less than Qwerty. Fortunately, I haven't had RSI ever since I switched to Dvorak. Switching to Dvorak is quite tedious, and I wouldn't recommend it unless you have a good reason to do so. Regarding internationalization, I write in English, Spanish and Italian in Dvorak with no problem. It really doesn't any difference to me as compared to Qwerty.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

lytefm 7y ago

> And good luck finding Dvorak versions for other languages. I definitely recommend Neo2 for German users. Ctrl + a,x,v and c still with the left hand. Letter frequency optimised for German first, English second. All programming symbols easy accessible, additional layers for Greek symbols and math notation. Also, users of non-US layouts have much more to "gain" by switching from query-like layouts: Due to umlauts or accents, brackets tend to be way harder to reach.