[sawwit]

I think this one is a waste of time unless you seek a mental challenge. In my experience, it's just not worth getting confused on QUERTY keyboards all the time, and the 5% speedup or so is really not worth it. It's definitely more a cargo cult/challenge than a useful skill.

[mbrock]

I don't think the speedup is worth it, but that wasn't why I became interested in the first place. I'm way more interested in the benefits of a more ergonomic layout for my wrists and fingers. I haven't studied the science of that very carefully, but I'm fluent with both Dvorak and Qwerty and the subjective comfort I feel when typing English with Dvorak is very much worth the effort of learning it, for me. It ticks me off a little bit when people discount it as "definitely" a "cargo cult" thing. If you don't like it, that's fine.

[sawwit]

> It ticks me off a little bit when people discount it as "definitely" a "cargo cult" thing. If you don't like it, that's fine.

Read more carefully. I merely said that people mostly do it as a challenge or as a cargo cult, doubtfully because it is a useful skill (unless you happen to spend an extremely large amount of time writing, which likely only applies to a small percentage of those that get told to learn Dvorak).

[pc86]

I'd be interested in knowing what resource(s) you used to learn Dvorak, and how easy it is for you to switch back and forth (if you do it often/daily).

[metasean]

I'm not a dual-keyboarder, so I can't address that question.

When I first got a computer, in college, my father recommended I learn Dvorak instead of Qwerty for ergonomic reasons.

My keyboard was one of the typical 80's/90's beige color, so I took a black sharpie and wrote the Dvorak equivalent on each key. When I was typing, I focused on trying to remember which finger had to move where for each character. If I couldn't remember it for more than a second or two, then I could look at the keyboard.

It only took a couple of weeks to get the basics down, and it was several weeks after that that a friend pointed out I had worn off the sharpie for my most frequently used keys (I hadn't even noticed) and I was typing at a speed comparable to all the Qwerty keyboarders in the dorm.

[pc86]

Is it possible to switch back and forth easily, or is it one of those things where the constant context switching is more trouble than it's worth? I know very little about Dvorak, is it a software setting in the OS (e.g. you can relatively easily switch a single keyboard back and forth) or a hardware/firmware setting in the keyboard itself?

[ggreer]

It's a software setting, though the setting varies in each OS. OS X has my favorite layout: Dvorak with qwerty shortcuts. That gives me normal placement for cmd + x/c/v/etc.

I really like Dvorak. I don't type much faster, but typing requires much less effort. If you know someone who types Dvorak, take a look at the wear patterns on their keyboard. It's pretty much the home row. Contrast that to qwerty, where the top row (especially the E key) gets an inordinate amount of wear.

[metasean]

Most major operating systems have supported Dvorak for well over a decade (I started using it almost 2 decades ago and have never used an operating system that didn't have support baked in).

It does take a minute or two to initially set it up. Here's an old listing of ways to do it on a wide range of operating systems - https://kb.iu.edu/d/aepk And I would recommend setting up a keyboard shortcut to switch between them.

Once you have it set-up, including a keyboard shortcut, switching your keyboard is just a shortcut away.

I only type in Dvorak, so I can't speak to the ease of a single typist switching back and forth. I have pair programmed quite a bit with Qwerty typists and other than occasionally switching keyboards and momentarily forgetting to switch it, it has never been a problem.