[jessejmc]

I typed with an index, middle, and ring finger style (+thumb for space) before devoting a few weeks to convert to full touch typing. I went from 50 wpm to 70 wpm.

That said, the only time I ever maintain 70 wpm is stream of consciousness writing. If I'm thinking about the words, the bottleneck isn't my typing speed.

On a semi-related note, a friend and I were talking about a switch from qwerty to dvorak. Has anyone that was a touch typist in one made the switch to the other? Thougts afterwards?

[phildawes]

I switched from qwerty to dvorak about 10 years ago but I did it for RSI reasons rather than speed. I'm not sure if it was the dvorak that cured the RSI or the fact that the switch made me really slow for about 3 weeks.

Also I'm not sure if my speed was vastly increased or not - my dvorak is 75-80wpm on tests, but I didn't test my qwerty beforehand. For the first few months I think I was typing faster but I was also making more mistakes owing to the decreased movement required for each keypress causing letters to come out out-of-order. It took a while to get that under control.

One thing that does improve: you realise that remapping individual keys isn't a big deal, which is quite liberating. For example I've moved a bunch of punctuation keys about (e.g. parens) to make programming easier and more comfortable. It takes a couple of days to adapt per key.

[crazydiamond]

There was recently a long discussion here or on reddit/r/programming about dvorak vs qwerty. Did not seem to go in favor of dvorak.

[smcq]

Eh, deciding ergonomics by a democracy of internet users is pointless (99% of them are probably just repeating things they read on the internet anyway).

Dvorak will reduce the amount of finger motion. Other claims require further proof, but it's fairly trivial to demonstrate that dvorak is better for your hands.

[sh4na]

Not surprised, dvorak is optimized for speed in pure text, and programming is not pure text, nor does it need a lot of speed most of the times, and the ()[]{};.$ symbols are the most important, which clashes with what the dvorak layout considers important.

[barrkel]

I'm a Dvorak user, but I think it's a wash. Dvorak moves the [] and {} up a row beside the backspace key; but some compensation is that =/+ is moved down a row, and -/_ is moved down two rows. $ and () are in the same places. . is above the Qwerty D rather than below the L and ';', like reflection through the keyboard center-point.

I would point out that when using curly-brace languages, I never actually type either { or }. Instead, I use an editor macro that inserts the brace pair with appropriate indentation and leaves the cursor at an extra level of indentation in a new line between.

[smcq]

As a dvorak programmer, it just prompted me to write more python. If you're typing {} characters all day, you should consider how much semantic value that's adding to your programs vs. the cost to type them.

Other characters (',."<>) are clear wins on dvorak, and they contain considerably more semantic value than {} do in any language. ";" is also easier in dvorak.

[gnurant]

The semi-colon is on the home row on qwerty.

[smcq]

Yea, but it's right pinky which is weaker for most people. By moving it you also gain the -_ being on the home row (which you type less than semi-colon while programming in syntax demanding languages)

[gnurant]

Why then would dvorak put s there if it were difficult?

Sensibly most English punctuation is on the left hand along with the vowels on dvorak; which is easy to remember.

Dvorak is very well considered. The combos: qu, th, wh, ph feel really nice.

What amazes me is the fact that the keys are staggered on a computer; I'd expect them to be radial; with my fingers. It appears no one's ready for a radical departure from the typewriter layout. Let's see what happens with the ipad.

[happenstance]

I'm not sure exactly how optimized Dvorak is. There are far more sophisticated (computerized) ways to optimize keyboard layout now than there was back when the Dvorak layout was created.

Also, although those punctuation characters are indeed important (though I'd add '/', and '-' to your short-list), you probably type the alphabetic characters far more (just my guess, admittedly).

[jedbrown]

I think few people work with the classic dvorak layout (the one with awkward punctuation characters).

[ZeroGravitas]

Without arguing with anything you've said, how does any of that favour Qwerty?