affix's blog

By affix, 13 years ago, In English
Hi people!
recently i've learned about Dvorak keyboard and i want to use it but i think it would not easy to work with Dvorak after using QWERTY long time!
do you think really Dvorak is better for programming than QWERTY?
please share your ideas & experience about this.
  • Vote: I like it
  • -5
  • Vote: I do not like it

13 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +3 Vote: I do not like it
I think this change can not be digested
13 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +6 Vote: I do not like it
My opinion is that QWERTY is much more popular than Dvorak, and it will be very hard to get a keyboard with Dvorak's layout if you need a one on a onsite competition.
13 years ago, # |
Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +6 Vote: I do not like it

And I think keyboard merely has anything to do with programming. It really super-rare that bottleneck in solving a problem (for some bigger programming project code is usually < 10% of whole work, so I'm not even talking about this case) is typing, not thinking/coding (one should distinguish coding and typing, former is about having a clear idea and bug-free realisation while latter is simply ..typing:). And I have this opinion not being super-fast typist, my plain english average is about 70 wps, and C++ code is probably much less, 40-50, I guess.

If you just want to type faster, I would recommend you to take a look at forums on typeracer.com. I figured out that the world top typists (150+wps) are rarely Dvorak trainees.

13 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +6 Vote: I do not like it

What do you mean by 'Dvorak is better'?

If you mean speed, then no, Dvorak is no better. Your speed will be at the same level (but you should spend some time to achieve speed that you have with Qwerty).

If you mean comfort while typing, again, Dvorak is no better, not for programming at least. Probably Colemak or Arensito or something else will be better for programming.

Also some programs (e.g. VIM) designed to be used with Qwerty.

So I don't think that changing the layout is a good idea.