Snigel
Member
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2010
- Messages
- 110
How long did it take you to make the switch? (I'm kinda interested in trying colemak, just haven't got tarmak working yet.)
I learnt Dvorak roughly 15 years ago now and still use it (or I use a Swedish version of it, but it's functionally the same so that doesn't matter here). Back then, it took me around two weeks before I could type normally and about a month to reach 100 WPM, which was my speed with QWERTY before that. It's an interesting but very frustrating experience, especially the first two weeks!

It's not obvious that switching is good for speed. Most of the fastest typists in the world (using normal keyboards) use QWERTY, not Dvorak or Colemak. Even though these methods could (and maybe should) be faster, the difference probably isn't significant. People often bring up ergonomics as an argument, which is a better argument. Typing with Dvorak just feels nicer because of the increased use of the home row and the higher rate of alternating hands. But don't switch because you think it will make you faster, because it probably won't unless your typing technique is lousy and you use switching to Dvorak or Colemak as an excuse to learn proper technique, which is what I did. You could do that with Qwerty, though.
The reason I don't outright recommend switching is practical, though. While I mostly use my own computer to type, it is annoying to type on other people's computers, at the library, at my parents' place, at hotel computers abroad, and so on. There's no way to avoid that. Sure, I can type decently fast on QWERTY too, but it's frustrating. This is a non-issue if you stick with Qwerty!
Finally, this is not a joke:

Believe me, I haven't done this to be deliberately annoying, but:
- I use blank, black keycaps on a custom mechanical 60% keyboard
- I use Swedish Dvorak by default
- I have my operating system in Chinese
- I have reprogrammed several function keys
- I run Linux
Tl;dr: Get out while you can!
