5 ms·

The 'QWERTY was developed to slow down the typist' story is a lie. There is no serious evidence that Dvorak is a 'better' layout. If you were starting from scra

by tjoff 13y ago

The 'QWERTY was developed to slow down the typist' story is a lie. There is no serious evidence that Dvorak is a 'better' layout. If you were starting from scratch, there would probably be no advantage choosing one over the other, except that QWERTY is the standard. Retraining is a waste of time. The last sentence isn't supported by the prior, assuming you want to improve your typing. Let's say that dvorak and qwerty just as "good"/"bad" and that there would be no advantage choosing one over the other. Then retraining is probably not a waste of time because when retraining you don't pick up bad practices, like you did when you first started to type (not knowing better). It probably is easier to start from scratch than trying to relearn some subtle parts of something you've done every day for for over a decade. Also, the motivation to learn qwerty better isn't as big compared to dvorak where you are forced to make progress to be able to do anything useful.

krrrh 13y ago
I found this to be true. I typed Dvorak for a few years while in University, but switched back to QWERTY when I entered the workforce. I was pleasantly surprised that the increased speed and comfort I had attributed to Dvorak was maintained when I went back to QWERTY. It may have been less efficient than putting the same time I to traditional typing training would have been, but it definitely did increase my general skills as a typist to practice a new layout "from scratch".
- loup-vaillant 13y ago
  Well, you can effectively re-train without switching layouts. I started out as hunt-and-peck with QWERTY, then decided to properly touch type. Major comfort benefit. Then I re-trained with http://bepo.fr http://bepo.fr I got a smaller, but noticeable additional comfort. My conclusion is that touch typing is more important than layout. Layout is icing on the cake. Not essential for me, but damn useful.

by tjoff 13y ago

krrrh 13y ago

I found this to be true. I typed Dvorak for a few years while in University, but switched back to QWERTY when I entered the workforce. I was pleasantly surprised that the increased speed and comfort I had attributed to Dvorak was maintained when I went back to QWERTY. It may have been less efficient than putting the same time I to traditional typing training would have been, but it definitely did increase my general skills as a typist to practice a new layout "from scratch".

loup-vaillant 13y ago
Well, you can effectively re-train without switching layouts. I started out as hunt-and-peck with QWERTY, then decided to properly touch type. Major comfort benefit. Then I re-trained with http://bepo.fr http://bepo.fr I got a smaller, but noticeable additional comfort. My conclusion is that touch typing is more important than layout. Layout is icing on the cake. Not essential for me, but damn useful.