5 ms·

I ran into a similar issue when trying to switch to the Colemak keyboard layout from QWERTY. I was able to get up to a decent-enough speed for normal english t

by dilap 5y ago

I ran into a similar issue when trying to switch to the Colemak keyboard layout from QWERTY. I was able to get up to a decent-enough speed for normal english text in a few days, but trying to use emacs was murder: It turns out all of its many (and critical) keyboard shortcuts are embedded in my brain as motions, not as their corresponding letters. So trying to figure out what a shortcut should be in emacs was really difficult: I'd have to think about the motion in QWERTY, figure out the letters, then think about what the letters would be in Colemak, and then finally make the shortcut. Very difficult and slow, and really messed with my head. So, I gave up, and I'm back on QWERTY, which, honestly, is good enough for me. (I did consider the possibility that there probably exists some emacs minor mode to map just shortcuts (i.e., key prefixes start with meta or control or whatever) back from Colemak to QWERTY, but...life is too short, and I've already wasted far too much of it configuring emacs.)

cyounkins 5y ago
I agree. Keyboard shortcuts are really difficult. If I could go back I'm not sure I would repeat the exercise, I've just kind of stuck with it. On macOS there is "Dvorak - QWERTY ⌘" which switches to QWERTY when pressing ⌘ so many shortcuts work.
ecpottinger 5y ago
One fun event, years ago I was at a developer home and he was showing me how he could create different text windows on his text only display. He would just quickly reach out hit some key and a text window would be create for example. Asked him how he did that and he tried to do it slowly, and he could not figure which keys he pressed. His normal speed was too fast to follow but he no longer knew which keys he pressed and every time he tried to do it slowly he just stopped in confusion. :)
thatswrong0 5y ago
I was lucky in the sense that I chose to switch to Colemak from QWERTY my first year in college when I realized I wanted to pursue programming as a career _and_ that I couldn't learn retroactively how to touch type QWERTY. I hadn't developed any real habits at that point.. all that I had was my terrible 5-total-finger QWERTY typing style inherited from shit-talking people in Age of Empires 2 when I was a kid.

by dilap 5y ago

cyounkins 5y ago

I agree. Keyboard shortcuts are really difficult. If I could go back I'm not sure I would repeat the exercise, I've just kind of stuck with it. On macOS there is "Dvorak - QWERTY ⌘" which switches to QWERTY when pressing ⌘ so many shortcuts work.

ecpottinger 5y ago

One fun event, years ago I was at a developer home and he was showing me how he could create different text windows on his text only display. He would just quickly reach out hit some key and a text window would be create for example. Asked him how he did that and he tried to do it slowly, and he could not figure which keys he pressed. His normal speed was too fast to follow but he no longer knew which keys he pressed and every time he tried to do it slowly he just stopped in confusion. :)

thatswrong0 5y ago

I was lucky in the sense that I chose to switch to Colemak from QWERTY my first year in college when I realized I wanted to pursue programming as a career _and_ that I couldn't learn retroactively how to touch type QWERTY. I hadn't developed any real habits at that point.. all that I had was my terrible 5-total-finger QWERTY typing style inherited from shit-talking people in Age of Empires 2 when I was a kid.