[twopoint718]

I learned Dvorak over a summer break late in high school/early college (about 10 years). I was never a very good typist, so maybe this colors my 'switch' story. I think that I just generally have a hard time with feats of manual dexterity (no musical instruments, etc.), so I consider myself about the worst case scenario for QWERTY Dvorak switch time; I hope this gives someone who's on the edge the push to give Dvorak a try. It took me about 2 weeks to be able to use it such that it wasn't aggravating, 3 and I was using backspace way less, 4 I could use IM, 5 I was faster than I ever was with any QWERTY method and in 6 weeks it was very natural. So if you think it'll be a painful ordeal, just think that you'll almost certainly do better than me.

I'm also a post-Dvorak Emacs user. The way that Emacs works is just wired into my fingers now, I don't have to think about what the keys are, I just think "Find file" or "Suspend Emacs" etc. Some chords are probably a little tougher to do, but they are the exception rather than the rule. If there is a weird fringe benefit of Dvorak use it is that it makes me way more reluctant to reach for the mouse in any circumstance. I've never moved the keycaps on my keyboard (so there is no "cheating" while looking down) and so I have to depend on my fingers always being on the home row. I have to agree with Steve Yegge ("Effective Emacs") and consider using the mouse to be a pretty grave cache miss.

I'm a relative newbie to vim but I have no trouble moving around, I just developed a "feel" for where the HJKL keys go. It is hard to describe but you can kind of "unroll" their directionality in your brain. In some ways vim is nice (although it won't ever move me from solid Emacsity) in that the commands are simple letters which Dvorak makes really easy and comfortable to hit.