30 ms·
qwerty. If the alternate layouts do give any real speed advantages (which is open for debate, I've heard of studies proving both sides), it isn't enough to be
by georgemcbay 15y ago
qwerty.
If the alternate layouts do give any real speed advantages (which is open for debate, I've heard of studies proving both sides), it isn't enough to be non-standard, IMO. YMMV but it isn't uncommon for me to be typing at someone else's keyboard and I don't want to have to mentally switch modes, so I just stick with qwerty.
Also, as much as some hackers like to focus on typing speed (advocating dvorak, the essays by Yegge, Atwood, etc), speed of typing has never been my bottleneck to writing good code, so optimizing for it never seemed very useful.
FWIW, I don't even touch type, I have a very odd 5 finger no-look (but not touch typing) muscle memory system (3 on the right hand -- thumb, index, middle and 2 on the left, index and thumb) but that gets me about 90 wpm when I've timed it which feels plenty fast enough.
- cytzol 15y agoI switched to Dvorak two years ago, and though I'm a bit faster, it's not by much. The benefit of Dvorak is comfort, rather than overall typing speed, and that's something that can't be easily measured. Most of the time, your hands stay on the home row, and I've noticed that the shorter travel distance for my fingers lets me type for longer periods of time without needing to take a break, instead of just typing faster. I liken it to headphones - when you switch away from iPod headphones to an expensive audiophile pair, you don't notice a huge difference until you have to go back, and what you previously thought was fine now sounds horrible. I used to be fine with qwerty, but now whenever I use it I can't help but notice "wow, my hands are moving all over the place".