[joshribakoff]

I use it too. For anyone questioning Dvorak vs QWERTY layout I recommend Dvorak. You’re learning a new layout anyways when switching to this thing. Dvorak won’t speed you up even after years of using it, but you can be essentially just as fast as QWERTY and it’s much more zen in the sense you have to stretch for keys less often. However you may find you need to change keyboard shortcuts as some chords that are natural in a regular QWERTY keyboard are no longer natural with the unique layout. Luckily you can buy foot pedals and program macros for common keyboard inputs right in the onboard computer in the keyboard. Well worth it if you have any kind of pain or uncomfortable experience with a traditional keyboard

[copperx]

After 10 years of switching to Dvorak, I wouldn't do it again. I don't live in one app, I use Office, Photoshop, Emacs, IntelliJ, Visual Studio, and each one, obviously, has different shortcut keys. I often have to think whether I'm in Dvorak or qwerty mode; and the muscle memory of shortcuts went away.

I can't deny that typing prose in Dvorak is extremely pleasant. But switching between Dvorak and qwerty (I often use others' computers) and between a regular keyboard and a Kinesis requires me to remember 4 different shortcuts sets for each program that I use.

If you are mostly a writer of prose, I recoomend the switch. But the ROI is not there for the jack-of-all-trades programmer.

Life is too short to forgo muscle memory.

[joshribakoff]

For me personally switching has been surprisingly transparent.

[hajile]

I looked into Dvorak then settled on Colmak. It gives most of the advantages (some claim it's actually better) without messing up every single shortcut I've learned over the years.

I was doing lots of typing at the time and my first day learning Colmak, I was amazed that I'd been typing for hours and my fingers didn't hurt.