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QWERTY and Dvorak

May 7, 2021

I've been using Dvorak, particularly "Programmer Dvorak", for a decade now. It's nice, but I don't think it was all that worth it...

Immediately, the layout sounds like a coolio idea: all the important keys are on the home row, and most of the keys you use most are close to the home row, which differs rom qwerty, which was designed to keep typewriter pins further apart (NOT to make peole type slower; don't let anyone tell you that)

But... There are a few things that make Dvorak a total pain:

Your computer becomes unusable to other people
Other people's computers becoeme harder to use
Nearly all software was designed with QWERTY in mind
Remapping keys for things like video games is a pain
Finding the keymap facility in each new OS is a pain

I don't know if Dvorak prevents strain ingury or if it's more ergonomic (by a substantial amount), so I can't make any remarks there. as for speed, i don't know what the big deal is with typing speed; once you're touch-typing, you're fast enough, honestly. i don't care if you can do a zillion words per minute. i really don't.

i don't know if i'll be able to switch back to qwerty, but i think i'll try. maybe it'll be easy, but i'm not holding my breath.