That is is what drives me away from novel input methods and over-configured setups in general. On one hand it feels silly, but it feels a lot worse to be bewildered by a default setup.
I've used Dvorak as my primary layout for ~12 years now, and I'm just as capable at typing on QWERTY. Colleagues object if I set servers and test machines to a different keyboard layout.
The biggest struggle is words beginning "am" or "ma", the two keys which are in the same location on both layouts.
If you can learn to cope with changing between a Mac and non-Mac then you can learn to cope with changing keyboard layouts.
I'd recommend using only one layout when learning though: I switched solely to Dvorak when I was learning, then learned to use both side-by-side afterwards.
I use Dvorak, and it's only once a month or so that I type more then two words on a Qwerty keyboard.
If I'm helping a colleague, I expect them to type, otherwise they probably won't remember anyway. Otherwise, all I'm likely to type is a couple of letters to search for a name on the video conferencing system or a YouTube video on a friend's computer.
Can I ask how long did it take you to be touch typing on dvorak and how would you describe the benefits?
I like the idea of 'better' input methods including key layout but in reality I've found it simpler to stick to the defaults of the world. I'd be interested to hear your experiences
I learnt during the summer after the first year of university, when I was working on a small summer project at the university. It can't have been more than two months, probably more like one. I didn't touchtype Qwerty, although I could type fairly fast while looking at the keyboard.
I made the "tent" showing the keyboard layout, as described at [1].
It's simply more comfortable to use Dvorak. The clearest way I have to show that is by tapping fingers on the table: it's much easier to go small-to-large than large-to-small. On Dvorak, that means typing digraphs like sn, st, sh, nt, nh, th is optimized (Qwerty equivalent: ;l ;k ;j lk lj kj — what a waste of easy-to-type combinations!). The reverse combinations are rarer in English: ht, hn, hs, tn, ts, ns.
All the rare letters are on the bottom row, so the most awkward movement — bottom row then top row — is minimized.
Added to that, hand alternation is much better, which is also more comfortable. Taking my first sentence, "after" and "was" are all on one hand, and trigrams like "ear" (learnt), "rst" (first), "ect" (project) are common, yet ugly to type on Qwerty.
If you can touchtype Qwerty, type this to simulate typing the first two sentences:
G pdaolk hfoglu kjd ;fmmdo aykdo kjd ygo;k tdao sy flg.do;gktw ,jdl G ,a; ,sovglu sl a ;mapp ;fmmdo roscdik ak kjd flg.do;gkte Gk ialqk ja.d nddl msod kjal k,s mslkj;w rosnanpt msod pgvd slde
To remain closer to the defaults of the world, I've never bothered with Colemak or similar. I can add Dvorak to any computer I use, which I will occasionally do if someone asks me to use their computer to take minutes in a meeting or similar.
Huh, that's completely opposite to my experience. Sure, I miss some niceties, but I can't say that I am anywhere close to baffled or confused by a default setup.
Your experience is unsurprising. It depends on how much time you spend in a default configuration and how disparate your config is to that default.
I have no qualms using default vim despite it not being my standard method of work, but I still hate the feeling of any case where some muscle memory sequence does not result in what I expect. Ideally I don't want to have to think about anything outside of the problem at hand at all, and this is exactly the kind of thing that breaks immersion.
Because of this, among other reasons, I like small configs, standard input methods, programs with sane defaults and having a simple dotfiles repo.
On this note I can't wait til the next best set of standard input/output comes along, like AR screen so we can move around freely and naturally while working... that's the dream