Advocating Dvorak

zeroweb writes "A group of three faithful Dvorak promoters have launched new website at DvZine.org. The big thing here is a Comic (available in print, pdf and html) describing the history of QWERTY and Dvorak, how and why one should make the switch, and real-life stories of the converted. If you are thinking about making the switch, this could push you over the edge. My favorite line: "It could be the difference between working in your garden at 70 or wearing wrist braces at 40." As someone who started wearing wrist braces at 23, I couldn't agree more - I read this comic, changed my keyboard layout and have been happier ever since."

Only going to work if it became standard

[syousef]

Bottom line is the last thing I need at work is to not be able to use anyone else's computer because I'm use to a non-standard keyboard layout. I refuse to use shortcut keys on non-standard keyboards for the same reasons.

I've been working in IT for a good number of years now without needing wrist braces, all the while using QWERTY. I know a lot of other people who haven't suffered this fate. I'm not saying no one has ever had this problem but when you exaggerate risks like this its called FUD/scaremongering.

Crackpots?

[kzinti]

I haven't RTFA yet (it's printing now), but I can tell you as a longtime Dvorak user that we're viewed as crackpots and we have little credibility with the QWERTY types. So I hope that if these guys are making medical claims that they have some real medical evidence to back up their claims, and not just the kind of anecdote mentioned in the Slashdot teaser. I've used Dvorak for 13 years and I can type faster than I could in QWERTY and the keyboard feels more comfortable. But that doesn't mean that it will be so for everybody, and it certainly doesn't mean that Dvorak will reduce anybody's likelihood of damaging their wrists. Caveat emptor.

Re:Dvorak is very good

[odaen]

I changed from Qwerty about a year to 2 years ago. Not sure exactly when. It's not about typing faster, it's about typing easier.

Might I recommend not changing the keycaps, it makes them uneven on most keyboards. The best bet is to get a sticky label and put the layout on the bottom edge of your monitor and learn not to look at the keys when you are typing.

If you use windows there is a registry which changesl your keys to dvorak at the driver level which means pretty much all games use the new layout (including Half-Life).

DVORAK for real world, SysAdmin/Programming uses?

[Blymie]

Someone should do a study of how fsck, dir, cd, ifconfig and other "stuff" works into dvorak.

These words often have none or few vowels.

One key line in the comic:

"Come on! How often do you type a semi-colon??? It's a wasted key! On the home row no less!"

Guess what ;) I type a _lot_ of semi-colons. Bash scripting, PERL coding, you name it.

Honestly, it would be amusing to see how DVORAK stacks up, when programming and sysadmin tasks are taken into account. DVORAK could be a detrement in these cases...

Re:Only going to work if it became standard

[Anonymous Coward]

You suck, your post itself isspreading FUD without fact. I wish I had some mod points left, and that /. had a -1: Factless modifier!

Re:Dvorak is very good

[odaen]

Actually for lots of people, now is a really good time to try and learn. It's the start of the Summer Holidays, and by the time you get back to School you'll be able to use qwerty without mucking up your dvorak knoledge. Just don't try to switch to Qwerty when you have trouble typing, it just makes it harder.

Re:So.... who wants to tell him?

[I confirm I'm not a]

tell him that the Qwerty being designed to slow down your typing is nothing more than a myth?

He knows - it's on p.3 of the comic. "He" (they) point out that when Sholes invented the typewriter - there weren't any typists to slow down. Sholes was responding to jams in his new-fangled keyboard, not to mythical too-fast typists.

Re:Yes, of course

[American In Berlin]

That of course is still far away from a scientific proof. It just more or less repeats what everybody knows, that Dvorak sounds like a good idea.

But that isn't enough to convince me that is really is a good idea.

Besides that, I think it might be a much better idea to not use QWERTY or Dvorak exclusively, but to use both from time to time, because that might be the best way to avoid health problems from typing.

Re:Staying away for now.

[mindstrm]

IT's widely said that you can go between the two without difficulty.. it's not like learning one precludes using the other.

(just like, say, yoy can type on a calculator keypad or telephone pad equally quickly, despite a different layout.

Re:Dvorak is very good

[mcgroarty]

But seriously, DVORAK is _so_ much more efficient, and typing actually becomes a pleasure.

This is the part where you move from advocate to fanatic. Seriously. You sound like the Mac or Firefox evangelist who spends half an hour showing how cool his tool is, changes someone's mind by revealing how it can be useful, then changes it back by going all weepy over it and making it clear this isn't about the tool qua tool. Big neon culty warning signs.

Re:Dvorak is very good

[pohl]

Yeah, because the only people who ever experience pleasure are cult members.

Re:DVORAK for real world, SysAdmin/Programming use

[diabolus-ex-machina]

that's also something I'm really interested in.
My background : Here in France we have some Azerty keyboards where letters are shuffled a bit. Not a big deal IMHO. But where I have a hard time is with the special meaning keys like :?>,.'{}[]!@#$ etc.
I do quite a lot of programming stuff and one day I discovered that a american layout made much more sense and was waayyy more handy in my everyday typing life. Command line stuff and emacs keybindings (vi too to some extend) are MADE to be used with an american keyboard. Up to the point where I'm typing this message on a qwerty keyboard and use many strange key combo to type all the acccents needed to type proper French. I prefer that way.

I have the same concern about you about real life (sysadmin and programming stuff) typing with a dvorak keyboard. I do type some french and english texts but I also type some weird characters all day long. I'm not sure a dvorak keyboard will help me with that.

Re:Dvorak is very good

[CastrTroy]

But people are lazy. So long as there are keys to look at, there will be people who are lazy and look at them. When I was in grade 7, they did this ALMENA typing thing. Anyway, throughout the exercises, your hands were covered, so you could not look at the keys. Not being able to look at the keys makes you learn much faster. It's kind of like having answers to math problems in the back of the book. If the answer is there, people will just look it up, instead of learning to do it the proper way.

Re:Only going to work if it became standard

[goatpunch]

Bottom line is the last thing I need at work is to not be able to use anyone else's computer because I'm use to a non-standard keyboard layout.

I use Dvorak full-time at home, and wherever else possible. Since I can touch-type, I can also quickly change the drivers. EVEN IF I must type with QWERTY, I have only lost a few WPM compared to when I used it all the time.

I switched to Dvorak 5 or 6 years ago. Never changed the keycaps- I was previously a Qwerty touch-typist and found that within a few weeks I was up to and perhaps surpassing my previous Qwerty speed. I switched back to Qwerty after a couple of months.

A couple of points I can add to the discussion:

• I found that, while Dvorak may be 'faster', flat-out typing speed is rarely the limiting factor when I am working, if I'm writing code or any text that I want to sound decent my fingers usually have to pause occasionally while my brain catches up. If I was transcribing large blocks of other people's writing typing speed would be more important, but for me there wasn't that much difference.
• Other people's keyboards- this is the reason that I switched back to Qwerty. It's all very well to be happily chugging along at 80wpm on your own machine, but when you have to sit down at your boss's desk for 2 minutes to look into a problem, and you're slowly hunt-and-peck typing, it's rather embarassing. Even if you install the drivers and/or switch keyboards on their machines, it's a pain for them if you forget to switch back ("What did you do to my fing keyboard?")
• Qwerty is a standard, and as anyone who uses the internet knows, sometimes a sub-optimal standard is better than a superiour non-standard solution.

I would only recommend the switch to Dvorak if: A) the geek factor of using an alternate layout is enough that the problems are worth it, or B) if you rarely have to switch machines, and you do a lot of typing at full speed, or C) you have room in your head for 2 keyboard layouts at once, and can switch at will.

Re:Only going to work if it became standard

[SuperQ]

I'm 27, and I started having a bit of hand pain from typing at work. I re-adusted my keyboard on my desk, raised my chair a couple inches, and the problem has mostly gone away.. having good typing posture is esential when you sit in front of a computer 8+ hours a day.

a free quote (almost)

[Anonymous Coward]

It is foolish to take offense when none is intended.
It is more foolish to take offense when it is intended.
-near quote, I don't know who thought of it first

Re:"Comic"

[Lord of Ironhand]

While this is exactly how I learned to type Dvorak myself, there is something to be said for keeping the keycaps in qwerty layout and taping a reminder sheet somewhere to your monitor.

Changing the keycaps encourages you to look at the keyboard, while you'll probably want to touch-type Dvorak. It took me a while to un-learn looking down all the time even though I already knew the positions of the keys.

Plus, it keeps the little "bumps" on the "f" and "j" keys in the right place.

Re:Dvorak is very good

[CoolVibe]

Dvorak is _not_ so very good when vi (or vim) is one's standard editor. [linuxsa.org.au] I tried using dvorak for a while, but my finger muscle memory is so attuned to vi(m) with querty, I destroyed several chunks of code while poking on the wrong keys (yay for CVS and Subversion). It also doesn't "flow" with vi like querty does. "hjkl" is useless with dvorak, as are many other well placed vi command-mode keystrokes.

The dvorak-advocates can blather all about languages and how one can speak several without losing proficiency in one, but muscle memory is a TOTALLY different league and is a bitch to relearn.

Sure, I can remap the keys so they have their "qwerty" equivs, but then I might as well stay with qwerty then.

And no, I'm NOT switching to emacs. They can pry my beloved vi from my cold dead fingers.

Re:Dvorak is very good

[Citizen of Earth]

I'll bet that 'vi' is a bitch to use on a Dvorak keyboard.

Re:Only going to work if it became standard

[Coryoth]

One of the best programmers I've met, who could turn out good code at least as fast as anyone else I've ever met, typed with his feet (he had cerebral palsy). Sure, his WPM rate wasn't as high as most, but give him a decent editor and he'd fly along - mostly because he could think through his code very efficiently.

Typing speed for coding is vastly overrated.

Jedidiah.

Re:Dvorak is very good

[ChuckleBug]

You sound like the Mac or Firefox evangelist who spends half an hour showing how cool his tool is, changes someone's mind by revealing how it can be useful, then changes it back by going all weepy over it and making it clear this isn't about the tool qua tool. Big neon culty warning signs.

I don't understand this mentality. If someone convinces you something works, why would you decide to discard that simply because the person who convinced you turned out to be annoying? Either he's right or wrong. Why does the attitude of the messenger enter into it?

I agree that zealots are annoying. That doesn't mean they're always wrong, though.

Re:nice to know that Dvorakers are still mortal

[AyeRoxor!]

He's right. Signing posts is dumb. Surrounding your nick with tildes is gay. I'm willing to sacrifice karma to second that vote.

Re:Studies on Dvorak - the patent holder

[I_bet_this_is_not_al]

I think we seriously need to think about this whole issue _right_now_, since it is important to development. QWERTY was developed a long time ago, for typewriters; and while DVORAK solves some of its problems, it was still designed (by Dvorak) using nothing but pen and paper. Today we already have algorithms (some open sourced too) to generate new keymaps based on writing efficiency, usually language based. Such programs use rules such as -- two far off keys typed by the same hand is a negative; alternating between hands is usually good; and two keys together are also a plus. One can feed large amounts of data--text in different languages (to get to a mean) or even C code, in order to generate the "perfect" keymap. This can take a long time, but this is what our clusters are for... I have been thinking of doing this for a long time now. I did find open source code to do just this, but none were usable enough while still having complex-enough rules. I think It'll be good if we have a mass-switching now (promoted by the governments), since the computer-using population is growing every day. If someone wants to help me in keymap generation you may contact me.

Re:Only going to work if it became standard

[Hosiah]

Heck, I think programming actually requires you to "un-learn" touch typing to a certain extent. If you code a lot, you won't find much reason to keep your fingers on the "home keys" (except that vi uses simple letter keys in command mode). Programming languages use punctuation extensively, unless you're using something like Python, where you use tab and return a lot more. And when developing larger applications, you'll find half your keystrokes involve the special edit keys, particularly copy 'n' paste (you gtk+ coders with me on this one?).