Slashdot Asks: Can Anything Replace 'QWERTY' Keyboards? (technologyreview.com) 303
MIT Technology Review recently discussed new attempts to replace the standard 'QWERY' keyboard layout, including Tap, "a one-handed gadget that fits over your fingers like rubbery brass knuckles and connects wirelessly to your smartphone."
It's supposed to free you from clunky physical keyboards and act as a go-anywhere typing interface. A promotional video shows smiling people wearing Tap and typing with one hand on a leg, on an arm, and even (perhaps jokingly) on some guy's forehead... But when I tried it, the reality of using Tap was neither fun nor funny. Unlike a conventional QWERTY keyboard, Tap required me to think a lot, because I had to tap my fingers in not-very-intuitive combinations to create letters: an A is your thumb, a B is your index finger and pinky, a C is all your fingers except the index.
The article also acknowledges the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard layout and other alternatives like the one-handed Twiddler keyboard, but argues that "neither managed to dent QWERTY's dominance." [W]hat if the future is no input interface at all? Neurable is a startup in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that's working on a way to type simply by thinking. It uses an electrode-dotted headband connected to a VR headset to track brain activity. Machine learning helps figure out what letter you're trying to select and anticipate which key you'll want next. After you select several keys, it can fill in the rest of the word, says cofounder and CEO Ramses Alcaide....
Then there's the device being built over at CTRL-Labs: an armband that detects the activity of muscle fibers in the arm. One use could be to replace gaming controllers. For another feature in the works, algorithms use the data to figure out what it is that your hands are trying to type, even if they're barely moving. CEO and cofounder Thomas Reardon, who previously created Microsoft's Internet Explorer, says this too is a neural interface, of a sort. Whether you're typing or dictating, you're using your brain to turn muscles on and off, he points out.
While a developer version will be shipped this year, Reardon "admits that it is still not good enough for him to toss his trusty mid-'80s IBM Model M keyboard, which he says still 'sounds like rolling thunder' when he types." But do any Slashdot readers have their own suggestions or experiences to share?
Can anything replace 'QWERTY' keyboards?
The article also acknowledges the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard layout and other alternatives like the one-handed Twiddler keyboard, but argues that "neither managed to dent QWERTY's dominance." [W]hat if the future is no input interface at all? Neurable is a startup in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that's working on a way to type simply by thinking. It uses an electrode-dotted headband connected to a VR headset to track brain activity. Machine learning helps figure out what letter you're trying to select and anticipate which key you'll want next. After you select several keys, it can fill in the rest of the word, says cofounder and CEO Ramses Alcaide....
Then there's the device being built over at CTRL-Labs: an armband that detects the activity of muscle fibers in the arm. One use could be to replace gaming controllers. For another feature in the works, algorithms use the data to figure out what it is that your hands are trying to type, even if they're barely moving. CEO and cofounder Thomas Reardon, who previously created Microsoft's Internet Explorer, says this too is a neural interface, of a sort. Whether you're typing or dictating, you're using your brain to turn muscles on and off, he points out.
While a developer version will be shipped this year, Reardon "admits that it is still not good enough for him to toss his trusty mid-'80s IBM Model M keyboard, which he says still 'sounds like rolling thunder' when he types." But do any Slashdot readers have their own suggestions or experiences to share?
Can anything replace 'QWERTY' keyboards?
DVORAK (Score:2)
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Yeah, DVORAK can replace QWERTY keyboards... but you'll be condemning yourself to a life of fighting your environment to work in DVORAK instead of QWERTY.
Pretty much. It really won't change either unless there's a fundamental shift on how typing is changed either. And since we've got a couple of generations that have learned nothing but QWERTY keyboards, and an entire new generation with their tablets, smartphones and so on as well? It likely will never change.
Don't get me wrong, I can type on both types and get a higher error free on DVORAK, but you're trying to fight an uphill battle if you think that QWERTY will be replaced by anything short of either
DVORAK: proven best by DVORAK! (Score:5, Informative)
What they found was that most of the early studies showing Dvorak keyboards to be superior, were done by Dvorak himself,,, who was trying to sell his patented keyboard to the US Navy.
If it works better for you that's great--but the Navy was not impressed and didn't buy it.
https://reason.com/archives/19... [reason.com]
I would agree that on technical grounds, Dvorak sounds like a big improvement over querty... but the few modern studies I've read of showed no clear benefit.
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Well, this is not exactly scientific, but on online typing test sites, it's the Dvorak typists who dominate [keyhero.com] the top ranks.
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Well, I'm going out on a limb here, but maybe people who type competitively aren't doing the same thing as people who are going to save, send, or submit the results of their typing and not just the metadata.
Also, that gelbut guy is looking pretty suspicious with a whole page of scores between 199.99 and 199.42. Never a bad day and only 198? Never a good day and 200? Names that differ from their neighbors, and similar names with scores that vary, all seem to be QWERTY. In fact, only the bot filling page one
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Well, I'm going out on a limb here, but maybe people who type competitively aren't doing the same thing as people
That is a very good point. Most typing comparisons use the typing of already known plain english text which is not what most people write. We spend much more time pausing, thinking, re-reading and editing than most comparisons take into account.
This is statistics for emacs only (and I don't know how they got it):
http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/com... [ergoemacs.org]
But if a similar pattern holds for other types of typing then only about 50% of keystrokes are creating text. The other half is navigation and commands (up, down, sa
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In fact, stenotypists are the fastest. To become a court reporter, you need a minimum of 225 WPM, which is already more than the world record on a QWERTY/Dvorak keyboard.
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Because they are all in a cult!
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Well, my anecdote (singular of "data") is, I can type at about 100 WPM on Dvorak. I don't think I ever typed that fast on QWERTY, even before my QWERTY speed suffered with my finger memory switching to Dvorak (I can still type on QWERTY; I'm just far more error-prone and it takes more mental effort). The fastest I remember typing on QWERTY is about 80 WPM, when I was in college.
Re: DVORAK: proven best by DVORAK! (Score:2)
I say we should go with some electronic equivalent of the California Job Case> [wikipedia.org].
The layout just works, though it's completely set up for American English.
Alternatives already exist (Score:3)
Various Chordal keyboards have been developed over the years, and even the basic ASCII versions work rather well.
But there is a well established alternative, it's the ancient Morse Operator's "Iamic Squeeze Keyer".
Those who have never used it will fall about laughing of course, but many have used an Iamic Keyer (via USB adaptor) for keyboard input for years. It's fast and fun, and quickly becomes perfectly natural.
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To become popular though it would need to be competitive on speed, and the WPM of Morse code keyers is pretty low compared to a moderately skilled QWERTY typist.
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I thought he meant Lambic. I just love beer, I do!
Can I be a judge too?
Likely 'No' (Score:2)
If you want to do any amount serious work such as,
- Write hundreds of e-mails
- Write 10k long reports
- Code 8 hours a day
You better be using a qwerty keyboard !
I owned touch screen phones, tablets and devices in between such as MS Surface. Non of them are great for any serious work.
Call me outdated, I still use a BlackBerry for writing/drafting e-mails on the go. And yes, I am a keyboard hoarder... every time I come across decent one, I just buy it. My current favourite being MS Ergo 4000.
Comment removed (Score:3)
I say it will happen (Score:2)
I have thought about keyboards/displays/input devices, I did switch to emacs way back, to do column blocks
Is there something new coming yes but I have n
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I did switch to emacs way back, to do column blocks ;) that is kinda like switching a keyboard. emacs is different (alien) those who know, know.
No worries! Rescue is on the way!!
Emacs has a superb vi/m mode: https://www.emacswiki.org/emac... [emacswiki.org] or you could go really evil: https://www.emacswiki.org/emac... [emacswiki.org]
Emacs is still a decent operation system, and with the vim and evil mods it now does no longer lack a decent editor!
Good enough is good enough (Score:2)
Basically, the overall resistance to replacing QWERTY is down to whether there is a tangible benefit to be had to compensate for the pain of transition. And transition to anything different *will* be painful because it necessarily requires everyone to retrain on the new layout. It's not clear that any previous alternative (including Dvorak) actually provides such a benefit. Even if there is a measurable improvement with a new layout or new input device, it would have to be such that it makes life noticeably
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Basically, the overall resistance to replacing QWERTY is down to whether there is a tangible benefit to be had to compensate for the pain of transition. And transition to anything different *will* be painful because it necessarily requires everyone to retrain on the new layout.
Unless what you transition to is something you already know, like handwriting. But that's a lot slower than touch typing.
I still liked Graffiti 1, the original input method on Palm PDAs. Most of all because you could do it without watching - taking notes under the table was not difficult at all. It wasn't all that speedy, but it was reliable and easy to learn for anyone who could write block letters. Graffiti 2, after the lawsuit by Xerox, not so much. You no longer had all the letters as single-stroke
Holy shit no. (Score:5, Insightful)
If a keyboard fails to correctly register one input out of 10,000 it's in danger of getting replaced.
If a touchscreen correctly registers 10 inputs in a row it's a fucking miracle.
dvorak vs qwerty (Score:5, Informative)
I think the upshot here is: qwerty is "good enough" and nothing has come along that drastically improves upon it, so for the foreseeable future, it's staying put.
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Pretty much this. Tiny improvements aren't going to be enough to force the entire world to shift, we'd need to see something on the level of typing as fast as you can think/speak the words - without the distraction in an open office of everyone talking all at once.
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Tiny improvements aren't going to be enough to force the entire world to shift, we'd need to see something on the level of typing as fast as you can think/speak the words
Whne I'm programming, I can already type vastly faster than I can think, and I'm a solidly average typist.
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I wish someone would make a good programming keyboard. Some languages have tried to work around the limitations of the US QWERTY layout, such as standardizing on capitalization instead of underscores in variable/function names because the underscore is a stretch to type.
I'm such between UK and Japanese layout now. Both have their advantages and disadvantages but could be improved for coding. I also do custom layout that gives me some useful characters with the alt key, such as the degree symbol, Pi, omega (
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It probably would have helped you more if you had put in two solid months of targeted typing practice on QWERTY to improve your speed and accuracy.
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Morse (Score:2)
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Morse code is one of the first "lemple ziv (welch)" compression systems. That means, often used characters have a short sequence of "sounds". Or a short sequence of short sounds. The more rare a letter is, the longer its sound sequence is.
I have heard that 50 words per minute is achievable, it only need to go as fast as I can think (which is not that fast) you easy think 500 - 1000 words per minute.
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Morse "E" is as quick as hitting the "E" on a keyboard. Everything else is slower.
QWErgo, please (Score:2)
Right now I am still using a gen-1 MS Natural keyboard, but it is the last one I have.
Kinesys makes a split model that looks good.
I like the Ergodox too, but the modifier key thing scares me. I'd prefer it with just a plain querty layout.
Really though,,,, I am wondering when voice-recognition typing died?
Seems like 10-15 y
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Really though,,,, I am wondering when voice-recognition typing died?
...
If you are on a Mac or Windows, voice recognition is built in, on Macs since nearly 30 years
I want the (Score:2)
Just my 2 cents
Type by thinking? That might..oh look, a squirrel (Score:3)
[W]hat if the future is no input interface at all? Neurable is a startup in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that's working on a way to type simply by thinking. It uses an electrode-dotted headband connected to a VR headset to track brain activity. Machine learning helps figure out what letter you're trying to select and anticipate which key you'll want next. After you select several keys, it can fill in the rest of the word, says cofounder and CEO Ramses Alcaide
Let's just assume that no amount of machine learning, artificial intelligence or anticipatory pattern matching can handle my typical thought processes (need sex, any espresso left? what time is it? gotta check slashdot, shit my feet hurt, wow need to trim fingernails, was that a mouse?) nor I'm guessing what goes on in the minds of many other developers.
Why reinvent the wheel? (Score:2)
If this device is detecting hand positions... why not just use the letter signs from ASL (American Sign Language)? Lots of people already know it.
In other countries they’d use the local equivalents, of course.
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AR Keyboards (Score:2)
There have been a few attempts at 'projection keyboards' that project an image of a virtual keyboard onto a surface, with a camera that tries to detect which keys you're pressing. Unfortunately the camera POV is usually parallel to the projector, so it has a difficult time telling when you're touching the surface; also, you can't rest your fingers on the virtual keys, leading to finger fatigue as you hold them in midair.
I predict the proliferation of Augmented Reality keyboards, which use an AR display to s
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... I predict the proliferation of Augmented Reality keyboards, which use an AR display to show a virtual keyboard anywhere, not just on real surfaces. Your hands will be wearing haptic gloves which resist movement of your fingers, giving tactile feedback and avoiding fatigue.
Or, keyboards will be replaced with subvocalized dictation/voice control for non-programming tasks.
The AR approach makes sense to me to, but why bother with gloves. Superimpose the keyboard image onto the table in front of me. As I type, the cameras (one on each side of the glasses) should be able to detect when my finger hits the table surface.
The feedback for subvocalized control (uh, huh, ooh, ah) needs to be female with a Proper British voice: "oh my god. don't stop. that's it, slow. ok, now deeper. ohhhh myyyyy godddddd". Please don't ask which regional variation. Make it sound like Emma
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Of you could just use a qwerty keyboard -- more accurate feedback, and no need to wear sweaty gloves and special glasses.
An AR keyboard sounds like a solution looking for a problem.
From My Cold Dead Fingers (Score:5, Informative)
I have two Model M keyboards. I'm typing on one now. I've had several different keyboards over the years including Dell and recently a couple of Mac keyboards for my work and home laptops.
I'm at times extremely frustrated at my tablet or phone virtual keyboards. My fingers aren't that small and I'm constantly hitting space for 'n' or even interspersing spaces to break up words due to my floating thumb. I had an Android phone for a couple of years and it was the most annoying keyboard, frustrating enough to be flung across the room more than once. I had a Blackberry back in the day and the physical keyboard, while small, still took a little pressure to generate a key. Even too close to a virtual keyboard will throw in an extra letter or space. Right now I rest my thumb briefly on the keyboard while I type.
I recall some virtual keyboard, laser light letters on your desk to simulate a keyboard. Anything like that, even a full sized tablet virtual keyboard wouldn't work for me for coding. I even bought the second Model M to replace the Dell keyboard I had at work (at IBM at that!) because scripting was such a pain in the ass.
I did try out the Dvorak keyboard a bunch of years back. Swapping key-caps on my IBM was pretty simple to make that change. But as an IT person a the time, using a Dvorak keyboard on my keyboard and then going to the users who all had QUERTY was insane. I'm not doing that any more, at least to that extent, but there are the occasional times where I need to use someone else's keyboard and switching back and forth would be annoying.
[John]
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I've got a model M in the attic. I'm waiting to go deaf so I can use it.
the problem with special at your (Score:2)
Just my 2 cents
I already am in the future (Score:2)
No,,, well, not another keyboard (Score:2)
Honestly, I'm close to using voice for typing more than the keyboard now. So, in a sense, voice will replace qwerty. Editing is the issue that keeps my keyboard here for now. There is no way I can describe edits out loud as fast as I do them with a keyboard.
Chorded keyboards [wikipedia.org] have been around since the 1800s - including some that use tapping as opposed to pressing keys.
I used one in the mid-90s for a while that I can't find at the moment. It was an ergonomic grip designed to be a one-handed keyboard replace
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To be useful voice needs to be the command prompt. And the masses are not capable of using that well. The skilled can but not the public over all. At least not at this point in time.
Just my 2 cents
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Though vital, the command prompt is not where I do my most typing. Documentation, messaging, and email are among the applications that I enter the most characters in and speech is working well for me in all of those cases. My editor has not yet succumbed though and likely won't for a while. That will take a lot more AI. I edit programs into existence at a much faster pace than I can speak.
It is the editing that keeps me from saying that the majority of the characters I enter are entered via speech which is
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And still almost nobody uses them. That should tell you something.
Err...voice command? (Score:2)
Wondering why vocal command isn't included in this list? I know people who dictate text messages and other memos in their phones (and have for several years)..this could easily get to the point where we vocalize a lot of what we want to input. (Although this could cause vocal strain after extended use, so not ideal either..)
Sign language? (Score:2)
A glove that recognizes signing letters and numbers, etc... something like this [ucsd.edu]?
There are faster solutions. (Score:3)
But they're harder to learn. While typing English, stenotypers (like court reporters) can type over 200 words per minute with high accuracy, but it takes four years of training to achieve that level of proficiency. On the other hand some one-handed chorded keyboards seem slightly easier to learn for novices than QWERTY, but the fastest users are only equivalent to a mediocre typist. Since you pretty much have to learn QWERTY, these don't add much marginal value.
QWERTY may not be optimal, yet it works well enough and is sufficiently easy enough to learn for most people. Add to that being ubiquitous, standard, and mandatory to learn and I don't think we'll see any viable alternative to QWERTY emerging on hardware keyboards anytime soon.
Touchscreen keyboards are a different story. QWERTY on-screen keyboards don't work well enough for many tasks. Back in the PDA days there was a lot of research being done on this, but predictive text gave the QWERTY on-screen keyboard enough of a leg up to be practical for things like texting. At the time that was that, but these days peoples' data is increasingly in the cloud and accessed through some kind of mobile terminal. Maybe it's time to revisit this.
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I'm not sure what you're arguing. Why would writing a novel on a tablet require a fundamental change in language? People used to write them on sheets of paper, and some writers still carry moleskine notebooks to work in.
There's no reason not to write a novel on a smartphone, other than that text entry is slow. Ten years ago it would have been a PITA beause you'd have to move your working copy between devices, but now text speed is the only thing holding you back.
Re:There are faster solutions. (Score:4, Informative)
As a tour de force (or more likely as a sponsored demo) you could certainly write a book with a smartphone or tablet, but it's not efficient. The qwerty mechanical keyboard was developed specifically to address the problem of bulk text entry accessible to the majority of humankind at a good efficiency level. Touchscreens were designed for a totally different purpose, and text entry is an auxiliary capability of this input method.
Similarly, I could make a table using nothing but tools flaked from rocks. It wouldn't be a very good table, and I wouldn't be able to concentrate on the task of making it a better table, because I'd be too busy spending my energy struggling with inappropriate tools.
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Stenotype output uses latin alphabet, but that's about it. You can't read stenotype without training and it's ambiguous due to it being mostly "approximated phonetic". The word "example" becomes "KP A PL PL". Steno at 200 WPM versus QWERTY at 80 WPH is apples/oranges. If the judge needs to read a transcript of a dialogue, the stenotyper will need to transcribe the transcript.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
You will have to... (Score:2)
Yes... just nothing right now. (Score:2)
I imagine a future wherein computers would be able to read your mind, similar in concept to speech recognition except for mere thoughts instead of spoken words. As you think of what you would want to otherwise type or say, the computer would respond exactly as if that had been typed at a keyboard.
An AI could adapt itself to the way that you think so that if your mind has a propensity to wander, the system could learn to recognize with certain things, that is not necessarily what you meant to actually t
This isn't a yes or no thing (Score:3)
However it's not necessarily the case that future workloads will involve the direct entry of large amounts of text. Right now everything we do is fundamentally supported by a raft of text entry - sourcecode, documents, etc. It is conceivable that future workloads might involve the manipulation of some other way of abstracting the same concepts. As a totally artificial example, if tomorrow's programming language is designed such that the "sourcecode" is an array of 3D blocks, then it's easy to conceive that the IDE for such a language could be a VR or AR interface where you pick up and place those blocks with your fingres.
One might argue that the dominance of the QWERTY keyboard as "the input method" is already challenged by touchscreens - which don't even have keyboards on them all the time. But of course the real question is not "will something else replace QWERTY as the dominant input method" but really "will something else replace QWERTY as the dominant input FOR SIMILAR QUANTITIES OF TEXT" - which is a very different question. Touchscreens obviously are terrible for this. Let the flames begin.
Keyboard is like a music instrument (Score:2)
It doesn't matter (Score:3)
The problem with challenging these things is that they're trying to fix something that isn't broken.
Sure, there are fringe problems with the layout. But those fringe issues don't matter to the majority. If you have a personal fringe problem, then fix it yourself.
there are lots of other options for you to use.
But the majority won't change because it doesn't matter.
Long story short, stop trying to project fringe issues on the majority. That is "your" problem. That isn't an insult. Own it. Then actually fix it. You can do it if you actually care.
If you don't care enough to do anything about it, then it didn't matter to you either.
Yes, ANYTHING Can (Score:2)
The QWERTY has the advantage that it exists. I learned to type on it 60 yearsago. DVORACK and all the other keyboard styles MIGHT be better, but we'd to have a cohort of children who learned a new keyboard style nearly from birth.
Yes (Score:2)
QWERTY keyboard are much older than IBM (Score:2)
Well duh! (Score:2)
Unlike a conventional QWERTY keyboard, Tap required me to think a lot, because I had to tap my fingers in not-very-intuitive combinations
I'm sure the first time you typed on a QWERTY keyboard it was anything but intuitive! Try Tap for a year then tell us about it.
Anything can. But will *you* do it? (Score:2)
Pretty much any input method can replace the QWERTY keyboard. The only question is will *you* learn to use it?
The biggest contender for a long time was the T9 input method on mobile phones there were people who could type up a storm on those. However as the smartphone clearly showed, given the option people quickly revert to what they are familiar with.
How good is your Morse code? I could quite happily type this without a QWERTY keyboard. ... But I don't.
ASL (Score:2)
However, let me make a practical suggestion - the manual alphabet from sign language. Gear used for VR can already detect hand positions, or rig up some sort of sensor glove for input. Okay, even for those already trained it isn't as fast as the fastest touch-typist - but then again I'm not as fast on a real keyboard as a touch typist either so perhaps that is meaningless. And
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QWERTY will not be completely replaced, but I know many people who use voice for 90% of their input needs. But that doesn't work for coding.
Strap-on neural sensors have big limitations, but a brain implant with a direct connection to neurons could give you not only text input, but also thought control over light, appliances, etc. You could also use it as an alarm clock that you can't lose, a reminder and appointment calendar, as well as a place to keep always-accessible notes.
They will need to figure out
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That is science fiction at this point
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That is science fiction at this point
Brain implants [wikipedia.org] are science, not science fiction. Commercialization is still a ways off, but thought control is working in the lab. The first commercial applications will likely be in medial devices for amputees and paraplegics. The mass market will follow.
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It'll also give the NSA a direct line into your brain meat. But that's a feature, not a bug in today's tech sector.
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But that doesn't work for coding.
Indeed. These devices don't compete with keyboards and keyboard-optimised editors...
But that's not to say that it couldn't be done. We would have to design programming languages with a syntax that was optimised for some new HID but still possible to use a text editor with (because editor lock-in tends to kill most languages where this is tried).
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We would have to design programming languages with a syntax that was optimised for some new HID
I'm not sure what that would look like, but I think that it's safe to say that it wouldn't be anything like your sig.
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And as a plus; you could have advertisers directly beam you timely and useful product information.
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But that doesn't work for coding.
It does... https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] - Demo starts about 9 minutes in
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QWERTY will not be completely replaced, but I know many people who use voice for 90% of their input needs. But that doesn't work for coding.
Strap-on neural sensors have big limitations, but a brain implant with a direct connection to neurons could give you not only text input, but also thought control over light, appliances, etc. You could also use it as an alarm clock that you can't lose, a reminder and appointment calendar, as well as a place to keep always-accessible notes.
They will need to figure out how to disable it during exams.
Perhaps Voice input and Virtual Keyboards (QWERTY) in VR workspaces will become a thing in another 25 years or so.
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"QWERTY will not be completely replaced,"
Sure it will. Already all the Germans use a QUERTZ one while all the French people use AZERTY and ....
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Wrong.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Firstly, if you are going to learn to use a keyboard, you might as well learn the one you are going to find everywhere, and not some weirdness that is mildly more efficient (VHS v Betamax).
Secondly, if accuracy matters, you need control over every key stroke. You need a programming language and to enter every character personally. If it doesn't, then get drunk and go talk slang with your mates in the bar - its more fun, but won't get the bugs out.
Voice input won't work - hell, I can't understand the dialogue in half the American content on the TV, and I have yet to meet an IVR system that understands what I say at all. I speak standard BBC English, and I cant get the damn things to understand "yes" and "no".
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I remember this same discussion about 50 years ago.
Firstly, if you are going to learn to use a keyboard, you might as well learn the one you are going to find everywhere, and not some weirdness that is mildly more efficient (VHS v Betamax).
I would agree, except that I recently moved to Europe and the standard keyboard here is the "QWERTZ" keyboard. Z and Y are swapped. (Colloquially called among expat friends a "kezboard".) Also, all the punctuation is in a different spot. I tried learning it, but then would go home and sit at my QWERTY laptop. I finally gave up and remapped the keys. I'd say just use what you're used to and don't worry about what you're going to find everywhere.
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It's the standard in Germany and presumably Austria. Unless they've been up to their old tricks again.
This is the case even between US English and the proper kind like what The Queen talks.
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QWERTY isn't unique to US English. E.g. British keyboards are QWERTY too but have a different layout to US ones.
To be fair, it's mainly the programmers that spot the differences.
Not "mildly more efficient" (Score:3)
Except Dvorak isn't just "mildly more efficient", it's much more efficient and doesn't preclude being able to type on a QWERTY keyboard. Dvorak to Colemak is "mildly more efficient", to the point where the creator of Colemak advises Dvorak users not to bother.
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When I was in college I switched my keyboard to Dvorak and trained myself to use it. I rapidly discovered two issues that led to my giving up on it:
1. While typing letters on a Dvorak keyboard is arguably more efficient, all of the Windows shortcut keys have been developed for a qwerty keyboard layout. For instance on qwerty, ctrl-c ctrl-v are done with your left hand. On Dvorak you have to take your hand off the mouse to hit ctrl-v. I'm sure I could have remapped all of my shortcuts as well, but it w
Wht could possibly gpo wronmg (Score:3)
for (int i = 0; i j ; look at the rump on that ) { oh no the boss is coming over he's a total cunt
}
That was the missed opportunity (Score:2)
Most people learned to type on a qwerty keyboard. Qwerty remains because nothing else, such as Dvorak, has been so much better that it's clearly worth completely re-learning how we type. Dvorak *is* better than qwerty, but it's not clearly so much better than "whatever you already know".
Smart phones don't use the muscle memory of typing on a keyboard. If you were accustomed to typing on a keyboard, you ALREADY have to learn a different skill, thumb-based text entry on a tiny screen. That would have been th
Spatial would be if asked where the mouse is (Score:4, Informative)
Spatial memory is about remembering where things are.
A skilled typist doesn't type "the" by thinking about where the T is, then where the H is, then where the E is. There"fingers just do it", they'd tell you. Psychometric experts would explain that it has moved from the cerebellum to the basal ganglia - motor connections.
Here's an experiment to see the difference:
Asked a skilled typist where the J is. They'll likely answer by fist putting their fingers out as if typing it, then move their finger to remind themselves, then describe the location. They tell their finger to type J and it hits J, which then reminds the spatial part of the brain where it is.
I once had an ATM pin number I had used for many years, but when asked I couldn't remember it for the life of me - until Input my fingers on a pin pad. Muscle memory. That's how skilled typists type, not by remembering the location of each letter.
" they remember the finger movement (Score:2)
I should have ended that with:
They remember the finger movement (muscle) for the letter, not the geographical location of the key.
Re: (Score:2)
I actually worked at Swype, where we invented swyping to type. The number 1 rule we had about any ideas was that it had to stick with the QWERTY keyboard- trying to change the layout of the keyboard was considered a step too far.
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As a happy swype customer (I still use it) I say good job. I'd never have used it if it wasn't QWERTY.
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Iâ(TM)ve been using Dvorak for about 20 years now and thereâ(TM)s nothing better.
Apparently Slashcode hates Dvorak.
Millennial murder spree! (Score:2)
I'm sure Millennials are due to kill QWERTY keyboards any day now.
Re: Better question (Score:2)
"Marketing says we need something new to spur on sales. The replacement market isn't sustaining enough growth for the investors."
"Our design team has come up with this new layout. The old layout was made by a team that retired years ago. The new bucks want something with their name on it."
Re: IDIOS (Score:2)
That happens when your 't' key craps out and you can't afford a new keyboard.
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QWERTY are two things: A physical layout of keys in rows and a logical mapping of symbols to those keys. Dvorak is only the latter.
I think physical layout is much more important than the key mapping. I have a bit of RSI on the outer side of the hands (Emacs pinkie) and would like to reduce the stress on the pinkie. As a programmer I am probably biased but I don't find the layout of the letters to be problematic. I spend a lot more time thinking than typing so typing speed isn't a huge issue. I also spend more time navigating, editing or typing weird symbols like braces and brackets than I do typing plain English text and those actions