After typing on many different keyboard layouts, I've come to the conclusion that Dvorak wasn't a mistake, but learning Dvorak is a mistake. Qwerty is a mistake, that we are forced to live with.
Dvorak is the epitome of confirmation bias. All the "studies" that show superiority of Dvorak were produced by... Dvorak. Yes, technological inertia is real, but the claimed gains of Dvorak are simply untrue; if they were it would have naturally replaced Qwerty.
I unlearned dvorak, after 10 years, and after a few weeks, I'm surprised to find that Qwerty doesn't feel any less comfortable than Dvorak. It turns that out all I needed to do was to learn to touch type properly ;-). The killer application is Vim, which feels incredible when you are using the keyboard layout it was designed for.
Interesitng, I am in the process of trying to learn vim motions on qwerty and from the first second it seemed like it was designed for anything but qwerty.
Not really. Qwerty is objectively awful by every measurement. It is left hand heavy. The placement of characters is random and overuses certain fingers. It's awful. But I use it because it's the default.
Colemak-DH is generally speaking the best alternative layout in my opinion. The only "problem" with it is that it's kind of geared towards the ortholinear keyboards, but I use the Corne anyway so it's perfect
There are almost as many keyboard layouts as js frameworks 😂. For me, since I already use QMK, I just made my own keyboard layout, exactly for my needs. Nobody is touching my corne/lily anyway, everybody i've shown it to looked at me as if i was a wizard.
Using Colemak DH ISO on a standard ISO keyboard and it's great, the angle mod makes it very comfortable compared to more traditional layouts. I would not want to use an ANSI keeb though!
Colemak-DH is not the best alternative layout. There are a lot of newer alternative keyboard layouts that are objectively better than Colemak-DH like Graphite and Semimak-JQ just to name a few.
I can switch fluently between colemak-dh and qwerty. It's really not that hard if you just spend a bit of time swapping back and forth. So I have my comfort in my own place and still am perfectly capable of using any other keyboard out there
I undid DVORAK a few days ago and it's eye opening. 10 words per minute make you not want to do anything, you don't want to open a file, you don't want to scroll up and down, you don't even want to think.
@@theodorealenas3171 Oh sorry, I misunderstood. You're saying how hard it is to be switching layouts, how it occupies too much of your mental capacity. For some reason I thought you said you typed too fast on Dvorak and were too lazy to do anything else.
I quit games for a year purely due to discouragement when I bought a new keyboard with a different size and layout. Having to suffer through the mechanical struggle of playing after I had been so comfortable for so many years was really jarring lol
@@thefaisman8956 That feels like you're absolutely overreacting. Switching keyboards sucks, but you get used to it within a week or so, even if you really struggle.
If you go back and forth a couple times it gets a lot easier to switch. I ended up having my split keyboard typing colemak and type qwerty everywhere else. My hands seem to remember which to type based on the staggered keys
@@theodorealenas3171 what he means is going back and forth during the day. I do the same. I type at 110wpm on colemak dh, and 80-90wpm on qwerty. Its like being multilingual, just make sure you expose yourself to both consistently.
@JulianGoddard do you have any recommended layouts to try? Personally with programming I find way too much reliance on the right hands pink and index fingers that it makes traditional home row typing rather strenuous for coding extended periods of time. I have always kind of naturally moved my hands around sort of like 3-4 finger touch typing.
Same. I run dvorak on phones because my fancy typematrix keyboard broke and now just stick to qwerty on computers. But if I got a new keyboard it'd still be second nature.
Dvorak helped me to get rid of bad habits with qwerty. The thing is how often do you use other people’s keyboards, in my case is almost never so I will keep using it with custom layers for symbols as well
Exactly. When I use other peoples keyboards, I honestly add the Dvorak keyboard once and then switch it back to QWERTY when I'm done and then whenever I use that person's keyboard, I'm ready every time.
The trick is to learn Colemak/Dvorak on a different kind of keyboard. I do Colemak on grid and ortho-linear keyboards, and QWERTY on horizontally staggered keyboards.
I recently got a kinesis keyboard and even though I never got particularly good at dvorak, my brain at first kept defaulting to the dvorak keys ( I think because I had to think about where the keys where and my brain was used to dvorak when thinking about it rather than using muscle memory?) Interesting stuff
I've been using Dvorak for about a Decade now and would not want to switch back. But I am completely inept at using anyone else's keyboard, that's 100% accurate!
i have amniotic band syndrome that mostly affects my hands, for most of my life i just never learned to type properly and it was really starting to fuck with my hands and wrists a couple of years ago. i actually did end up learning to touch type on QWERTY for a year and it helped but i found it was still pretty painful some days, especially on the left hand. learned about Dvorak and haven't gone back since. the thing with Dvorak is it lets your fingers move A LOT less, you jump around rows way less often, and because it moves all the vowels to one side pretty much every (English) word is spelt using both hands.
This is the reason I just switched to a neo2 based layout called 'noted'. Now I can type " »«„“ " ' … äöü ẞ ñ ♦♥♠♣ {}()[] " and even greek letters "αβγδθψφ" and mathematical symbols "ℤℂΣ∀∃∈Δ∇⊆Γ⇐⇔⇒" relatively easy just by shifting to a different layer.
I think you missed the point of the video. He's saying that QWERTY is bad especially for symbols, but ergonomic layouts (in his case, Dvorak, but that also applied to Colemak) are a mistake because you're no longer fluent on QWERTY that is used everywhere, which makes it more difficult to work with other people.
@@Varpie I do disagree with that. At least when you combine it with another kind of keyboard. Columnar and split for me (and I think for prime as well). On normal staggered keyboards I still use QUERTY. I always long for my ergo keyboard with Colmak, but I can still hit 60-70 wpm comfortably. Which is more than good enough for the few times I need to use them.
The German 'Neo' Layout family fixed this issue amazingly, by moving symbols into the character area with the otherwise completely unecessary caps as the modifier. Makes it agnostic of the actual character layout one uses.
I remap to UU in (n)vim. It’s the least frequent letter that is accessible from the right-hand home row (I use left shift) and I’ve not once had insert mode go back to normal mode by accident by needing to type out ‘UU’. And if that case ever does happen the first U press times out after a second.
Yeah, been there. Still worth learning dvorak for me, though, as it got me to appreciate home row and never looking down. I brought this with me back to qwerty.
@@tswan137 I grew up with a keyboard with labeled caps, many years before they taught kids to use computers. Also, the reason I picked up dvorak wasn't that I couldn't home row, it's that I thought it would be faster (despite all top speed typists using qwerty).
@@tswan137I came here to say the same thing lol. I find it funny when people think "typing fast/efficiently" comes from a new layout... It does not, it comes from practice.
NEO-2 is a great layout both for regular language and for programming. All the symbols are you need for programming are easily accessible. It's a German layout, so it comes with 4 letters you won't use when you type in English but all that really does is give you additional ways of setting keyboard shortcuts.
Moved from Belgian AZERTY to Colemak DH ISO (angle mod), I found the letters ergonomics way better (the angle mod played a big role). As for the symbols, BE AZERTY has them mostly on the numbers row but you have to use Alt Gr. sometimes which is not great at all and press shift to use the numbers which I hate. Learning all the symbols as they are placed on US QWERTY was an interesting experience and made me realize why such and such symbol were used so much in programming. I'm going to transition to a Sofle split ergo keeb layer this month and can't wait to move towards a symbols layer under my fingers!
I never used Dvorak, and the only reason was because on the Qwerty I was writing much faster than I could process the things I had been putting into the text... My thoughts were (and to be honest, are, haha...) slower than my typing speed...
Learning Dvorak was great. My wrists used to hurt literally every day, but after switching to Dvorak years ago that problem has never happened since. It's not hard to switch though. I mostly use Dvorak at home and QWERTY at work, although occasionally I'll switch the work keyboard over if I need to type out a longer document. It's not like you can only ever know one...
I first heard of Dvorak because a friend with bad wrists was told about it by his doctor. I never had those problems, but I switched to dvorak for speed. When I go back to Qwerty (which I can do), I notice a lot of strain in my fingers and wrists. I would never "unlearn" dvorak.
I used Dvorak until I was faster on it, but I switched back to QWERTY because the Dvorak gains didn't outweigh the pain of being worse on every keyboard besides my own.
That sounds like you're just coping with skill issues, 99% of people use qwerty on a regular keyboard just fine. If you need dvorak and an ergo keyboard to type more than 40 wpm for more than 10 mins without getting several chronic illnesses it says more about the state of the user than the layout...
I type 90 WPM medium using only 3 fingers in each hand, because my pinky SUCKS (it has a malformation from birth) So, no... you dont need that to be fast or comfortable. But layers is in fact a really nice touch.
One thing I hate about coding with a non-english keyboard is that special characters aren't in the same places, and they're not standardized, so the keys are different on my work keyboard, my home keyboard, and my laptop, even though they are all qwerty.
How did you end up with three varieties? Two isn't hard to imagine, but three is "decided to pick up a keyboard at an airport along the way" territory to me. The one thing I really hate about US keyboards, is the shape of the enter key. And Windows really loves a US keyboard layout. It doesn't matter how many times I delete it, it keeps reinstalling it and randomly switching to it.
@@mascot4950 Its probably randomly switching to it because windows' default, for some fucking reason, is to change keyboard and/or language on ctrl+shift and alt+shift. Google how to turn off these shortcuts and you won't have to deal with windows switching keyboards seemingly randomly. You can still switch with Windows+Space so I don't see the reason for these shortcuts to exist in the first place.
As an Australian I grew up programming on 8bit computers with British keyboards. When moved across to IBM had to relearn to US Keyboards which makes more sense since we use $ as our currency. It’s just minor changes but I still feel to this day just removing “ as Shift 2 completely slowed down my programming.
I love french Azerty (I'm Belgian) and the symbols are pretty evenly spread. All the brackets are under 2 keys. You use shift/ctrl/alt/cmd/whatever to go from braces to curly braces to brackets.
@@NorthernChimp I like that I can type )}] simply by using nothing, option or shift+option. shift & option are super ergo for my left hand, the )° is easy for my right. Perfect combo for me. But it's all personal preference. For me it works, I'm used to it and since I'm flemish belgian I don't have the issues with writing French as I don't do it often.
Once upon a time I learned Dvorak touch typing on a qwerty keyboard. Since I was working as a computer support and going to many different computers, I could also touch type qwerty if I was looking down. I didn't need to see the keys just look towards them. I decided after awhile that constantly setting up and switching keyboard layouts was a pain, so just went back to the default qwerty. Now I'm using the Kinesis advantage 360 and now regular keyboards feel odd and a little painful if holding my fingers on the home row, but I have figured it how to use them good enough with my fingers diagonally across the keyboard using my 3d spatial awareness of where fingers and keys are. Probably all to say that humans are adept at adapting.
Compared to non English layouts, all the symbols are super accessible on an American layout. On Norwegian keyboards almost all the commonly used brackets require AltGr or Ctrl + Alt plus a number row key to be accessed. And we have tons of dead keys that makes accented characters. I ended up making my own layout by customising the Norwegian layout adding aliases for the brackets on the letter keys and made the ~ and ` and ’ and ^ keys non dead. (I don't type Spanish or Portuguese words very often anyway so I can live with changing layout whenever I want to write jalapeño, or when I want to write the rare Norwegian words with accents like "fôr" or "idé" )
I moved from Dvorak (10 years) to Programmer Dvorak (7 years). I am still OK on qwerty but it's challenging. For the symbol keys in Programmer Dvorak I don't think I can recall from memory... It's all muscle memory... When I need to type it, it will happen.
... I just learned both. I use dvorak 90% of the time. At work, i use a hard wire conversion keyboard or i just use QWERTY. I'm just waiting on something most of the time and just twiddling my thumbs, so the speed and RSI issues don't really matter 😂
My Journey was - learned Coleman in 2019 - unlearned Coleman in 2021, because I couldn’t use any other computer without constantly looking at the keyboard - bought a ZSA Voyager split keyboard in 2023 - switched to ISRT layout on the Voyager while still using a normal keyboard with QWERTY from time to time Nowadays I can use ISRT on the Voyager and QWERTY on a normal keyboard (for example my laptop keyboard) with around 90 wpm. It took a while to get used to this, but because I only use ISRT on a split keyboard, my brain can somehow compartmentalize the keyboard layout together with the keyboard I’m using.
German QWERTZ keyboard has entered the chat 😄 Shortcuts like "Ctrl + (" are the bane of my existence when I use software from america and such. "/" is ok, I got that one on it's own on the numpad but "("... come on! 🥴
I think the main issue here isn't about Dvorak itself, but about unlearning QWERTY at the same time. I had the same issue, and working on remote machines was a pain, but after a few weeks of having to switch on a daily basis, I'm not as fast but still able to type comfortably on QWERTY.
How have i been watching this stuff for this long and never knew you were dvorak? I learned on a lark when my manager at a job i hated swapped keyboard layouts on my machine as an april fools prank. I eventually swapped back because i hated rebinding keys for every new game i played.
Use a layer to keep the most used on the home row. The rest can be on row up or one row down. Takes a couple days to get used to but man it saves the wrists.
I was using Dvorak for 7 years. I unlearned it 1 month ago when I decided to go with neovim as my main editor. The thought of learning every keybing in dvorak was just too overwhelming, and the only alternative to that was complete remapping, which is even more daunting. I needed solid 2 days for transition because I was typing 10 words per minute, but now I feel functional again. Although Qwerty indeed does not feel as nice as Dvorak when typing, the benefit of being able to use any keyboard is refreshing.
@zyriab5797 This is exactly the kind of thing that I struggled with when I was using Dvorak. You CAN adapt pretty much everything to be dvorak friendly. Simple layer of alt + hjkl, simple update of config here, simple update of config there, simple remaping of hitkeys in this videogame, simple setting up of dvorak layout on girlfriend's laptop before doing some troubleshooting ect ect ect. It's not much, but it's also not zero cost. There is something to be said for the benefit of being able to use any machine right out of the box. Add to that the fact that Vim has a high enough barrier to entry without a custom keyboard layout. Can I guarantee that my adaptation to use dvorak with neovim won't clash with some plugin that I would want to use in the future? Maybe or maybe not, but you do have to think about such things. For me, switching back to the Qwerty allowed me to go through Vim manual without backhanded thoughts about adaptation to another layout. Overall, I think it was a positive change for me
I use VIM and Dvorak, and the keys it remaps to are surprisingly comfortable, and you also get used to where your shortcuts are. If you’re good enough at typing then you’re splitting hairs on speed and the only difference becomes which layout you convince yourself you like more. It doesn’t really matter.
I have difficulty remembering JCVP for the arrow keys, and I typically opt for the arrow keys instead. Other than that, maybe some of the keybinds that include a CTRL + a key on the left side of the keyboard would be slightly slower for me to enter, but that's because of my physically small laptop keyboard with a tiny right CTRL key. Dvorak layout doesn't really affect the vast majority of vim keybinds for me.
I don’t usually use a different pc and when I do, I don’t mind being very slow. That’s why I am currently learning ‘hands down neu’ with a symbol layer via thumb keys 🔑
I learned dvorak, then bought a corne keyboard, then made my own keyboard layout based on dvorak for spanish, programming and my corne. Then I had a regular qwerty at my job. I can still touchtype, but not as fast, not as comfortably. It not being ortholinear, row staggered or split gives me some physical pain, and i find myself sometimes thinking about the keyboard instead of the code. In my corne, my fingers just flow, and I'm focused on work, not on the keyboard. Now I bought a lily58, and i'll tune my layout for the extra keys 😀 i don't want to use a regular qwerty again, it's like discovering sum types and pattern matching, and then going back to java 1.6...
Colemak for the win! I feel like it’s a good balance between similar to qwerty and ergonomics. But yes the symbols being more easily accessible is super nice. I’ve done that with my ergodox and it’s fantastic.
You have to keep using both. Dvorak with your thumbs with swiftkey is amazing. My main issue was that not all games used windows keyboard mapping correctly so I constantly had to remap my dvorak to qwerty anyway (before I started using reWASD).
i don't know what to do it's been 3 years since i'm using Dvorak and i'm currently on 110 wpm but i'm facing a problem where i have to install Dvorak on every computer i use even if i use it only once (school , work) and i don't know if i should keep using Dvorak or just switch to azerty
Btw, VIM was designed at a QWERTY era, the key biddings hjkl there in a single row, muscle memory is a thing, but the 🧠 can do wonders in neuroplasticity and learn, or unlearn things. Best of luck Prime, I wish you a safe trip back to QWERTY, the VIM home land. 😆
Whoa, you’re a Dvorak typist and use VIM as your daily driver?! What keybinds do you use? (Fellow Dvorak Chad here…but honestly, sometimes wish I could unlearn it ha)
On my laptop, number keys also make me move the wrist a lot, so maybe it depends on the keyboard. Do keys *need* to be so tall and wide? My reason for switching back to QWERTY a few days ago is that Greek doesn't have DVORAK, so changing layouts was a real pain. Mainly because the dot and Ctrl+C moved around. DVORAK wasn't the best idea I've had in my life.
Have you tried Programmer's Dvorak which switches around the symbols and numbers too? I've used Dvorak for 15 or so years now and the transformation from when I used QWERTY was extremely noticeable. I don't tend to use other people's keyboards anyway so not really a big driver for me.
yeah i had the same realization that it made no sense (for me) to unlearn qwerty. So I just moved symbols around to places that aren't terrible. honestly, love it and would never go back.
I truly cant learn touch typing or typing methods, does that make me a bad programmer?i can't write faster than average but there's no real reason behind it and I still look at the keyboard often
Well, I've learned Dvorak and have tried to learn Colemak, but gosh it's just too much work. But the thought of learning Colemak is still edged in my brain somewhere.
When i got my Ergodox I simultaneously switched to Colemak. The learning curve took a bit, but i learned it. Now I can't type on a qwerty. I have a symbol layer, but the symbols on number row are still the same.
>other people's keyboards Dude, I'm alreadz inept at tzping on software that excepts mw to be using zour lazout. On top of this, if I ever need to have all of the accent characters of another language than German, I have to deal with this the entire time. And if Americans think that I shouldn't need to have everz accented character available in mz lazout, zou are herebz now expected to alwazs use Ä/Ö/Ü/ß correctlz or zou're a hzpocrite.
Qwerty only feels like an issue when you type like a beginner piano player. Hands in a very specific position unable to glide around the keys. My wpm jumped pretty high when I unlearned treating the home row like an ankle bracelet.
@@stefanalecu9532 It does fix something, as it uses different positioning for the keys. There is less overlap in muscle memory when you use different positioning for different layouts. I agree that it's not necessary to go for such a big keyboard though. There are much smaller keyboards that provide the same advantage.
@@DavidSanty same! I was legitimately seeing a doctor about surgery about 12 years ago when I switched to the OG Advantage and now I'm on an Advantage2 ... absolute life saver
I've been using the Dvorak with QWERTY commands layout to code on Mac without considering to switch. Now I consider unlearning Dvorak and relearning QWERTY because I started using Windows and struggle with shortcuts and switching layouts to type while gaming.
I have 7x5 Ortho linear keyboard and the layout I've ended up with after like maybe a year uses all of one layer, half-ish of the next two and then just a few keys on a fourth. I don't know if it's just because of how my hands are shaped like the length of my fingers and stuff but I don't get cramps and stuff anymore and I type a lot faster. I don't flex my wrists almost at all I don't move my hands at all they just sit in one place and I just type
Always hesitated to learn Dvorak for that exact reason. Also, I typically type in 3 languages each week, so I guess it wouldn't never be totally optimal..
There was a time where I used dvorak and colemak, and got pretty decent, but I gave up because of how integrated qwerty is with everything, how difficult it was to change every key mapping in every program, and because i've used qwerty so long that it'll take me forever to get colemak or dvorak up to my 140wpm. Aside from that, they definitely feel more comfy to type on, and produce fewer errors
@@chokocat9064 dvorak is already pre-installed in almost every OS in existing, it only the time you spend going to the setting is what bothering a bit. it can be achieved with one command on linux though, not sure about mac. (pretty sure there is a command in powershell but to lazy to memorize it).
devorak .. once I saw real typing by a lady having a conversation while typing 90 wpm I knew there is no way learning a new layout would help me do that
I come from classical music background and I completeley misunderstood the title of this video at first... thought you would say that the composer himself was a mistake 😅 Funny how different fields can use the same words but with different meanings
Nah Colemak-DH on a vertical-staggered split ortho mechanical keyboard with the symbols moved to easy to reach places under a modifier key is the correct solution.
I didn't quite get unlearning. Like, maybe your relearn a different system and use it, and therefore slowly forget the other, but, you didn't actually sit down and actively forget something.
After typing on many different keyboard layouts, I've come to the conclusion that Dvorak wasn't a mistake, but learning Dvorak is a mistake. Qwerty is a mistake, that we are forced to live with.
studies have shown almost no benefit to Dvorak over qwerty.
keeping qwerty for more than typing is where we failed.
Dvorak is the epitome of confirmation bias.
All the "studies" that show superiority of Dvorak were produced by... Dvorak.
Yes, technological inertia is real, but the claimed gains of Dvorak are simply untrue; if they were it would have naturally replaced Qwerty.
I mean, qwerty was designed so typewriters don’t break their typewriters or whatever.
@@nobbyfirefly57 This was only part of the design criteria and is over-emphasised by Dvorak company.
The thing about using other people's keyboards is... I never fucking do apart from what? 2 times a year? I'm not going to sacrifice my hand for that.
I take it you've never worked in an office that does open desks then (which is the norm in Australia)
@@ZM-dm3jg i have. Now it's home office
@@ZM-dm3jgthat sounds terrible
@@ZM-dm3jg Carry your keyboard everywhere - problem solved.
@@l3lackoutsMedia This is literally why Maltron keyboards come with a carry case like a typewriter. The Datahand did too.
I unlearned dvorak, after 10 years, and after a few weeks, I'm surprised to find that Qwerty doesn't feel any less comfortable than Dvorak. It turns that out all I needed to do was to learn to touch type properly ;-).
The killer application is Vim, which feels incredible when you are using the keyboard layout it was designed for.
OHH YEAH, that was my biggest throwback, it’s so weird trying yo type in vim with the dvorak layout
Interesitng, I am in the process of trying to learn vim motions on qwerty and from the first second it seemed like it was designed for anything but qwerty.
@@kejtos5 the killer with vim and Dvorak is having hjkl not contiguous anymore, mostly
I personally disagree. I find qwerty just feels like throwing your fingers all over.
Not really. Qwerty is objectively awful by every measurement. It is left hand heavy. The placement of characters is random and overuses certain fingers. It's awful. But I use it because it's the default.
Colemak-DH is generally speaking the best alternative layout in my opinion. The only "problem" with it is that it's kind of geared towards the ortholinear keyboards, but I use the Corne anyway so it's perfect
Best “common” layout maybe. Have you compared it to Engrammer for programming purposes?
There are almost as many keyboard layouts as js frameworks 😂. For me, since I already use QMK, I just made my own keyboard layout, exactly for my needs. Nobody is touching my corne/lily anyway, everybody i've shown it to looked at me as if i was a wizard.
Using Colemak DH ISO on a standard ISO keyboard and it's great, the angle mod makes it very comfortable compared to more traditional layouts.
I would not want to use an ANSI keeb though!
I use it on a iris. Beautiful layout.
Colemak-DH is not the best alternative layout. There are a lot of newer alternative keyboard layouts that are objectively better than Colemak-DH like Graphite and Semimak-JQ just to name a few.
I can switch fluently between colemak-dh and qwerty. It's really not that hard if you just spend a bit of time swapping back and forth. So I have my comfort in my own place and still am perfectly capable of using any other keyboard out there
"Your pinky"
Prime is a secret Emacs user I can't believe he'd do us like this
Jokes aside use whatever works for you I can't tell you how much time I spent weighing each of them up lmao
I always remap my modifier keys so that I have a left & right control. Emacs FTW!
I undid DVORAK a few days ago and it's eye opening. 10 words per minute make you not want to do anything, you don't want to open a file, you don't want to scroll up and down, you don't even want to think.
come on, really?
use the shell then, learn keys to navigate (or even use a modal editor), you can type everything
@someman7 shell, Emacs, mouse, modal... you forget your name at 10 wpm, brain is 98% on typing
@@theodorealenas3171 Oh sorry, I misunderstood. You're saying how hard it is to be switching layouts, how it occupies too much of your mental capacity. For some reason I thought you said you typed too fast on Dvorak and were too lazy to do anything else.
I quit games for a year purely due to discouragement when I bought a new keyboard with a different size and layout. Having to suffer through the mechanical struggle of playing after I had been so comfortable for so many years was really jarring lol
@@thefaisman8956 That feels like you're absolutely overreacting. Switching keyboards sucks, but you get used to it within a week or so, even if you really struggle.
If you go back and forth a couple times it gets a lot easier to switch. I ended up having my split keyboard typing colemak and type qwerty everywhere else. My hands seem to remember which to type based on the staggered keys
A COUPLE? How come you didn't learn your lesson after switching back the first time?
@@theodorealenas3171 what he means is going back and forth during the day. I do the same. I type at 110wpm on colemak dh, and 80-90wpm on qwerty. Its like being multilingual, just make sure you expose yourself to both consistently.
@JulianGoddard do you have any recommended layouts to try? Personally with programming I find way too much reliance on the right hands pink and index fingers that it makes traditional home row typing rather strenuous for coding extended periods of time. I have always kind of naturally moved my hands around sort of like 3-4 finger touch typing.
On a much lesser scale, I have the same feeling switching between Mac and Windows. My brain usually remembers which hotkeys are the right ones.
Same. I run dvorak on phones because my fancy typematrix keyboard broke and now just stick to qwerty on computers. But if I got a new keyboard it'd still be second nature.
Dvorak helped me to get rid of bad habits with qwerty. The thing is how often do you use other people’s keyboards, in my case is almost never so I will keep using it with custom layers for symbols as well
Yep. With layers, all the problems Prime describes disappear
Could you elaborate on what your bad habits were?
Exactly. When I use other peoples keyboards, I honestly add the Dvorak keyboard once and then switch it back to QWERTY when I'm done and then whenever I use that person's keyboard, I'm ready every time.
The main thing is when other people try to use yours
I suspect your bad habits weren't actually caused by using qwerty.
The trick is to learn Colemak/Dvorak on a different kind of keyboard. I do Colemak on grid and ortho-linear keyboards, and QWERTY on horizontally staggered keyboards.
I recently got a kinesis keyboard and even though I never got particularly good at dvorak, my brain at first kept defaulting to the dvorak keys ( I think because I had to think about where the keys where and my brain was used to dvorak when thinking about it rather than using muscle memory?) Interesting stuff
dvorak and swiftkey on a phone is incredible. I burned so many relationships cause I'd want to type like we talk in IRL and it's culturally unhinged
That's a great idea
I've been using Dvorak for about a Decade now and would not want to switch back.
But I am completely inept at using anyone else's keyboard, that's 100% accurate!
i have amniotic band syndrome that mostly affects my hands, for most of my life i just never learned to type properly and it was really starting to fuck with my hands and wrists a couple of years ago. i actually did end up learning to touch type on QWERTY for a year and it helped but i found it was still pretty painful some days, especially on the left hand. learned about Dvorak and haven't gone back since. the thing with Dvorak is it lets your fingers move A LOT less, you jump around rows way less often, and because it moves all the vowels to one side pretty much every (English) word is spelt using both hands.
Luckily you never had to code on a German Qwertz keyboard. No idea why I didn't switch to US Querty earlier.
Alt-Gr 😂
makes every single laptop lettering wrong. no way im googling how ill enter the § sign
Looks better than coding on AZERTY ?
This is the reason I just switched to a neo2 based layout called 'noted'.
Now I can type " »«„“ " ' … äöü ẞ ñ ♦♥♠♣ {}()[] " and even greek letters "αβγδθψφ" and mathematical symbols "ℤℂΣ∀∃∈Δ∇⊆Γ⇐⇔⇒" relatively easy just by shifting to a different layer.
@@anonymouscommentatorEvery single keyboard lettering is wrong with any other design than the one it was printed for.
Colemak dh with a symbol macro layer...
Only the horrible placement of hjkl for vim kinda sucks. Some correctly placed arrow keys in a layer make it okay, but I still find ich kinda annoying
@@be_cracked8212tbh I don't find it very annoying as you rarely use hjkl anyway when using vim properly
I think you missed the point of the video. He's saying that QWERTY is bad especially for symbols, but ergonomic layouts (in his case, Dvorak, but that also applied to Colemak) are a mistake because you're no longer fluent on QWERTY that is used everywhere, which makes it more difficult to work with other people.
@@Varpie I do disagree with that. At least when you combine it with another kind of keyboard. Columnar and split for me (and I think for prime as well). On normal staggered keyboards I still use QUERTY. I always long for my ergo keyboard with Colmak, but I can still hit 60-70 wpm comfortably. Which is more than good enough for the few times I need to use them.
@@be_cracked8212you can rebind hjkl in vim, I actually have my movements on wasd :D
The German 'Neo' Layout family fixed this issue amazingly, by moving symbols into the character area with the otherwise completely unecessary caps as the modifier.
Makes it agnostic of the actual character layout one uses.
Boosting this!
Watching this short is my mistake
put ctrl where caps lock is. Improves left wrist strain
As any Emacs person would tell you to do (Vim people would tell you to put Esc there instead)
@stefanalecu9532 as a vim person myself I just like to hit c-[ to enter normal mode, idk I just find it more ergonomic.
I remap to UU in (n)vim. It’s the least frequent letter that is accessible from the right-hand home row (I use left shift) and I’ve not once had insert mode go back to normal mode by accident by needing to type out ‘UU’. And if that case ever does happen the first U press times out after a second.
actually just adapted from hhkb layout. at least that L ctrl
@@stefanalecu9532Both. Tap for caps lock for , hold for . I set my keyboard up like this and now hate every other keyboard.
Yeah, been there. Still worth learning dvorak for me, though, as it got me to appreciate home row and never looking down. I brought this with me back to qwerty.
You couldn't homerow on qwerty, so you picked up Dvorak? What in tarnation are they teaching you kids
@@tswan137 I grew up with a keyboard with labeled caps, many years before they taught kids to use computers. Also, the reason I picked up dvorak wasn't that I couldn't home row, it's that I thought it would be faster (despite all top speed typists using qwerty).
@@tswan137I came here to say the same thing lol. I find it funny when people think "typing fast/efficiently" comes from a new layout... It does not, it comes from practice.
@@UrzaRage778 Dvorak is more efficient because its much more comfortable. No amount of practice will change comfort.
NEO-2 is a great layout both for regular language and for programming. All the symbols are you need for programming are easily accessible. It's a German layout, so it comes with 4 letters you won't use when you type in English but all that really does is give you additional ways of setting keyboard shortcuts.
Moved from Belgian AZERTY to Colemak DH ISO (angle mod), I found the letters ergonomics way better (the angle mod played a big role).
As for the symbols, BE AZERTY has them mostly on the numbers row but you have to use Alt Gr. sometimes which is not great at all and press shift to use the numbers which I hate. Learning all the symbols as they are placed on US QWERTY was an interesting experience and made me realize why such and such symbol were used so much in programming.
I'm going to transition to a Sofle split ergo keeb layer this month and can't wait to move towards a symbols layer under my fingers!
Update: it sucks to use regular keebs now
@@zyriab5797HAHAHA! Good to know
Belgium moment
@@ravivandersalm4586 let's go!
@@ravivandersalm4586 das nie te doen, ons keyboard. amen to qwerty
I never used Dvorak, and the only reason was because on the Qwerty I was writing much faster than I could process the things I had been putting into the text...
My thoughts were (and to be honest, are, haha...) slower than my typing speed...
Learning Dvorak was great. My wrists used to hurt literally every day, but after switching to Dvorak years ago that problem has never happened since.
It's not hard to switch though. I mostly use Dvorak at home and QWERTY at work, although occasionally I'll switch the work keyboard over if I need to type out a longer document. It's not like you can only ever know one...
I first heard of Dvorak because a friend with bad wrists was told about it by his doctor.
I never had those problems, but I switched to dvorak for speed. When I go back to Qwerty (which I can do), I notice a lot of strain in my fingers and wrists. I would never "unlearn" dvorak.
I used Dvorak until I was faster on it, but I switched back to QWERTY because the Dvorak gains didn't outweigh the pain of being worse on every keyboard besides my own.
You did it once, you can do it again. We are so here for ya!
Thats why you buy an ergo keyboard you can customize the layout, layers, etc. Qwerty is way less ergonomic and efficient than dvorak...
Which he has. Prime just has bad takes lately
That sounds like you're just coping with skill issues, 99% of people use qwerty on a regular keyboard just fine. If you need dvorak and an ergo keyboard to type more than 40 wpm for more than 10 mins without getting several chronic illnesses it says more about the state of the user than the layout...
I type 90 WPM medium using only 3 fingers in each hand, because my pinky SUCKS (it has a malformation from birth)
So, no... you dont need that to be fast or comfortable. But layers is in fact a really nice touch.
@@theairaccumulator7144its about comfort it is more comfortable then qwerty your massively exaggerating
One thing I hate about coding with a non-english keyboard is that special characters aren't in the same places, and they're not standardized, so the keys are different on my work keyboard, my home keyboard, and my laptop, even though they are all qwerty.
How did you end up with three varieties? Two isn't hard to imagine, but three is "decided to pick up a keyboard at an airport along the way" territory to me.
The one thing I really hate about US keyboards, is the shape of the enter key. And Windows really loves a US keyboard layout. It doesn't matter how many times I delete it, it keeps reinstalling it and randomly switching to it.
@@mascot4950 Its probably randomly switching to it because windows' default, for some fucking reason, is to change keyboard and/or language on ctrl+shift and alt+shift. Google how to turn off these shortcuts and you won't have to deal with windows switching keyboards seemingly randomly.
You can still switch with Windows+Space so I don't see the reason for these shortcuts to exist in the first place.
As an Australian I grew up programming on 8bit computers with British keyboards. When moved across to IBM had to relearn to US Keyboards which makes more sense since we use $ as our currency.
It’s just minor changes but I still feel to this day just removing “ as Shift 2 completely slowed down my programming.
I love french Azerty (I'm Belgian) and the symbols are pretty evenly spread. All the brackets are under 2 keys. You use shift/ctrl/alt/cmd/whatever to go from braces to curly braces to brackets.
Strange. I'm stuck with it and find it terrible. You can't even write French properly with it.
@@NorthernChimp I like that I can type )}] simply by using nothing, option or shift+option. shift & option are super ergo for my left hand, the )° is easy for my right. Perfect combo for me. But it's all personal preference. For me it works, I'm used to it and since I'm flemish belgian I don't have the issues with writing French as I don't do it often.
Once upon a time I learned Dvorak touch typing on a qwerty keyboard. Since I was working as a computer support and going to many different computers, I could also touch type qwerty if I was looking down. I didn't need to see the keys just look towards them. I decided after awhile that constantly setting up and switching keyboard layouts was a pain, so just went back to the default qwerty. Now I'm using the Kinesis advantage 360 and now regular keyboards feel odd and a little painful if holding my fingers on the home row, but I have figured it how to use them good enough with my fingers diagonally across the keyboard using my 3d spatial awareness of where fingers and keys are. Probably all to say that humans are adept at adapting.
Compared to non English layouts, all the symbols are super accessible on an American layout. On Norwegian keyboards almost all the commonly used brackets require AltGr or Ctrl + Alt plus a number row key to be accessed. And we have tons of dead keys that makes accented characters.
I ended up making my own layout by customising the Norwegian layout adding aliases for the brackets on the letter keys and made the ~ and ` and ’ and ^ keys non dead.
(I don't type Spanish or Portuguese words very often anyway so I can live with changing layout whenever I want to write jalapeño, or when I want to write the rare Norwegian words with accents like "fôr" or "idé" )
I moved from Dvorak (10 years) to Programmer Dvorak (7 years). I am still OK on qwerty but it's challenging. For the symbol keys in Programmer Dvorak I don't think I can recall from memory... It's all muscle memory... When I need to type it, it will happen.
... I just learned both. I use dvorak 90% of the time.
At work, i use a hard wire conversion keyboard or i just use QWERTY. I'm just waiting on something most of the time and just twiddling my thumbs, so the speed and RSI issues don't really matter 😂
My Journey was
- learned Coleman in 2019
- unlearned Coleman in 2021, because I couldn’t use any other computer without constantly looking at the keyboard
- bought a ZSA Voyager split keyboard in 2023
- switched to ISRT layout on the Voyager while still using a normal keyboard with QWERTY from time to time
Nowadays I can use ISRT on the Voyager and QWERTY on a normal keyboard (for example my laptop keyboard) with around 90 wpm. It took a while to get used to this, but because I only use ISRT on a split keyboard, my brain can somehow compartmentalize the keyboard layout together with the keyboard I’m using.
German QWERTZ keyboard has entered the chat 😄
Shortcuts like "Ctrl + (" are the bane of my existence when I use software from america and such. "/" is ok, I got that one on it's own on the numpad but "("... come on! 🥴
I think the main issue here isn't about Dvorak itself, but about unlearning QWERTY at the same time. I had the same issue, and working on remote machines was a pain, but after a few weeks of having to switch on a daily basis, I'm not as fast but still able to type comfortably on QWERTY.
How have i been watching this stuff for this long and never knew you were dvorak? I learned on a lark when my manager at a job i hated swapped keyboard layouts on my machine as an april fools prank. I eventually swapped back because i hated rebinding keys for every new game i played.
*laughs in Finnish where you need to do a Vulcan nerve pinch to make any of the special characters needed for programming*
Use a layer to keep the most used on the home row. The rest can be on row up or one row down. Takes a couple days to get used to but man it saves the wrists.
I was using Dvorak for 7 years.
I unlearned it 1 month ago when I decided to go with neovim as my main editor. The thought of learning every keybing in dvorak was just too overwhelming, and the only alternative to that was complete remapping, which is even more daunting.
I needed solid 2 days for transition because I was typing 10 words per minute, but now I feel functional again.
Although Qwerty indeed does not feel as nice as Dvorak when typing, the benefit of being able to use any keyboard is refreshing.
But the keybinds are based on words, not really positions. Apart from hjkl but you can set a simple layer like Alt+[hjkl]
@zyriab5797 This is exactly the kind of thing that I struggled with when I was using Dvorak. You CAN adapt pretty much everything to be dvorak friendly. Simple layer of alt + hjkl, simple update of config here, simple update of config there, simple remaping of hitkeys in this videogame, simple setting up of dvorak layout on girlfriend's laptop before doing some troubleshooting ect ect ect.
It's not much, but it's also not zero cost.
There is something to be said for the benefit of being able to use any machine right out of the box.
Add to that the fact that Vim has a high enough barrier to entry without a custom keyboard layout. Can I guarantee that my adaptation to use dvorak with neovim won't clash with some plugin that I would want to use in the future? Maybe or maybe not, but you do have to think about such things.
For me, switching back to the Qwerty allowed me to go through Vim manual without backhanded thoughts about adaptation to another layout.
Overall, I think it was a positive change for me
Neovim keybinds are fine on dvorak
do you use HJKL for arrow keys in VIM? or do you use the dvorak equivalent? how does dvorak effect your VIM keybinds?
I use VIM and Dvorak, and the keys it remaps to are surprisingly comfortable, and you also get used to where your shortcuts are. If you’re good enough at typing then you’re splitting hairs on speed and the only difference becomes which layout you convince yourself you like more. It doesn’t really matter.
I have difficulty remembering JCVP for the arrow keys, and I typically opt for the arrow keys instead. Other than that, maybe some of the keybinds that include a CTRL + a key on the left side of the keyboard would be slightly slower for me to enter, but that's because of my physically small laptop keyboard with a tiny right CTRL key.
Dvorak layout doesn't really affect the vast majority of vim keybinds for me.
I use Dvorak and just kept the keybindings the same. It's really not that bad.
DHTN is fine, but you'll have to replace what those ones were, and eventually I found one where everything was perfect positional vs mnemonic set up
@@branthebrave share config
I don’t usually use a different pc and when I do, I don’t mind being very slow. That’s why I am currently learning ‘hands down neu’ with a symbol layer via thumb keys 🔑
No way I’d unlearn Dvorak. Typing rhythm sequences like “the” and “its” is so satisfying. Every word congeals to home row. Prime is bonkers.
You must not be a programmer.
I'm a programmer and I still find the magic of Dvorak's homerow extremely satisfying. I even like Dvorak's symbol layout much better than Qwerty.
I learned dvorak, then bought a corne keyboard, then made my own keyboard layout based on dvorak for spanish, programming and my corne. Then I had a regular qwerty at my job.
I can still touchtype, but not as fast, not as comfortably. It not being ortholinear, row staggered or split gives me some physical pain, and i find myself sometimes thinking about the keyboard instead of the code. In my corne, my fingers just flow, and I'm focused on work, not on the keyboard.
Now I bought a lily58, and i'll tune my layout for the extra keys 😀 i don't want to use a regular qwerty again, it's like discovering sum types and pattern matching, and then going back to java 1.6...
I don't like any keys on that top row.
Hmm. I've been using Neo Bone and it has been great, as it uses layers to access symbols
For Lisp, Dvorak actually looks nice
Colemak for the win! I feel like it’s a good balance between similar to qwerty and ergonomics. But yes the symbols being more easily accessible is super nice. I’ve done that with my ergodox and it’s fantastic.
You have to keep using both. Dvorak with your thumbs with swiftkey is amazing. My main issue was that not all games used windows keyboard mapping correctly so I constantly had to remap my dvorak to qwerty anyway (before I started using reWASD).
Wow. Here I’ve been wondering if I should’ve gone Dvorak
I like it
I'm so uncultured that I didn't even know that people changed their keyboard layouts
i don't know what to do it's been 3 years since i'm using Dvorak and i'm currently on 110 wpm but i'm facing a problem where i have to install Dvorak on every computer i use even if i use it only once (school , work) and i don't know if i should keep using Dvorak or just switch to azerty
i stopped dvorak and switched to a normal keyboard layout (80wpm)
Which keyboard layout is being shown on this short?
Btw, VIM was designed at a QWERTY era, the key biddings hjkl there in a single row, muscle memory is a thing, but the 🧠 can do wonders in neuroplasticity and learn, or unlearn things. Best of luck Prime, I wish you a safe trip back to QWERTY, the VIM home land. 😆
Whoa, you’re a Dvorak typist and use VIM as your daily driver?! What keybinds do you use? (Fellow Dvorak Chad here…but honestly, sometimes wish I could unlearn it ha)
On my laptop, number keys also make me move the wrist a lot, so maybe it depends on the keyboard.
Do keys *need* to be so tall and wide?
My reason for switching back to QWERTY a few days ago is that Greek doesn't have DVORAK, so changing layouts was a real pain. Mainly because the dot and Ctrl+C moved around. DVORAK wasn't the best idea I've had in my life.
Have you tried Programmer's Dvorak which switches around the symbols and numbers too?
I've used Dvorak for 15 or so years now and the transformation from when I used QWERTY was extremely noticeable. I don't tend to use other people's keyboards anyway so not really a big driver for me.
Any love for Colemak? Thats what I've been using for 10 years.
Norman is the best layout. Increased efficiency + famipiar enough to not break global shortcuts
I have a very similar setup, but with all the symbols with open/close variants on the home row, on their own layer.
yeah i had the same realization that it made no sense (for me) to unlearn qwerty. So I just moved symbols around to places that aren't terrible. honestly, love it and would never go back.
colemak-dh is the best keybaord
I truly cant learn touch typing or typing methods, does that make me a bad programmer?i can't write faster than average but there's no real reason behind it and I still look at the keyboard often
One of the simplest changes for me was to switch so that pressing the numbers would require the shift key.
Well, I've learned Dvorak and have tried to learn Colemak, but gosh it's just too much work. But the thought of learning Colemak is still edged in my brain somewhere.
Scandinavian keyboards, you have to shift to type brackets (both square, and squirly)
When i got my Ergodox I simultaneously switched to Colemak.
The learning curve took a bit, but i learned it.
Now I can't type on a qwerty.
I have a symbol layer, but the symbols on number row are still the same.
I did the same thing switching to 60% layouts and find it awesome to give myself options
If Dvorak is a mistake, what is the "solution layout"? or please full video
>other people's keyboards
Dude, I'm alreadz inept at tzping on software that excepts mw to be using zour lazout. On top of this, if I ever need to have all of the accent characters of another language than German, I have to deal with this the entire time.
And if Americans think that I shouldn't need to have everz accented character available in mz lazout, zou are herebz now expected to alwazs use Ä/Ö/Ü/ß correctlz or zou're a hzpocrite.
Qwerty only feels like an issue when you type like a beginner piano player. Hands in a very specific position unable to glide around the keys. My wpm jumped pretty high when I unlearned treating the home row like an ankle bracelet.
I would unlearn Vim if I could. Vim was a huge mistake for me.
Why? Can you explain?
The problem with learning something like dvorak is when you're forced to type on a qwerty keyboard which happens almost all the damn time.
what is the name of displayed layout?
Dvorak was designed for typing English text, not programming. There are new layouts out there that are designed for programmers.
Yup but you need to write a lot of docs and socialize so… ;p
Like Engrammer!
@@adrien-barretlayers
I really Like how the german Keyboard is.
All Symbols are on the Shift top row.
I never knew there was more different between qwertz and qwerty
@@MrSofazockerthat‘s wrong. ,_,-,+ and others are not on the front row.
Use Extend layers!
I'm thinking about using right-alt to switch to a layer where the main row is the numbers and the top letters row is for symbols.
The qwerty was made to slow you down. It worked
Or just buy a Kinesis Advantage2 😉
Which doesn't fix a whole lot in the grand scheme of things except you have to get used to a huge ass keyboard that makes you look like an alien
@@stefanalecu9532 It does fix something, as it uses different positioning for the keys. There is less overlap in muscle memory when you use different positioning for different layouts.
I agree that it's not necessary to go for such a big keyboard though. There are much smaller keyboards that provide the same advantage.
I will never buy another keyboard without thumb clusters as long as I live. I run Advantage models at work and at home. Saved my hands and wrists.
@@DavidSanty same! I was legitimately seeing a doctor about surgery about 12 years ago when I switched to the OG Advantage and now I'm on an Advantage2 ... absolute life saver
I've been using the Dvorak with QWERTY commands layout to code on Mac without considering to switch.
Now I consider unlearning Dvorak and relearning QWERTY because I started using Windows and struggle with shortcuts and switching layouts to type while gaming.
just disable autohotkey while in game
I have 7x5 Ortho linear keyboard and the layout I've ended up with after like maybe a year uses all of one layer, half-ish of the next two and then just a few keys on a fourth. I don't know if it's just because of how my hands are shaped like the length of my fingers and stuff but I don't get cramps and stuff anymore and I type a lot faster. I don't flex my wrists almost at all I don't move my hands at all they just sit in one place and I just type
Always hesitated to learn Dvorak for that exact reason. Also, I typically type in 3 languages each week, so I guess it wouldn't never be totally optimal..
There was a time where I used dvorak and colemak, and got pretty decent, but I gave up because of how integrated qwerty is with everything, how difficult it was to change every key mapping in every program, and because i've used qwerty so long that it'll take me forever to get colemak or dvorak up to my 140wpm. Aside from that, they definitely feel more comfy to type on, and produce fewer errors
I only have to use somebody's keyboard once every one hundred days, so no I will stick with Dvorak.
@@chokocat9064 dvorak is already pre-installed in almost every OS in existing, it only the time you spend going to the setting is what bothering a bit. it can be achieved with one command on linux though, not sure about mac. (pretty sure there is a command in powershell but to lazy to memorize it).
Laughs in German keyboard layout. Not just QWERTZ - the whole special characters and symbols are completely crazy.
Have a look at NeoQWERTZ. All the good symbols directly under your fingertips without needing to learn a new layout of normal characters
devorak .. once I saw real typing by a lady having a conversation while typing 90 wpm I knew there is no way learning a new layout would help me do that
I come from classical music background and I completeley misunderstood the title of this video at first... thought you would say that the composer himself was a mistake 😅
Funny how different fields can use the same words but with different meanings
I thought I was gonna see you talk about classical music now
I switch from qwerty to dvorak and i feel better because u use more fingers for common letters than on qwerty
SAMEE
Or use a split board with a layer for symbols and use a thumb button to activate that layer
Yall using keyboards with anything but a space by your thumbs?!
Just do what I do and put [](){} at the home row under a layer. I think the Kinesis allows for that too?
Nah Colemak-DH on a vertical-staggered split ortho mechanical keyboard with the symbols moved to easy to reach places under a modifier key is the correct solution.
For me problem is with p on the pinky, so I decided to remap it to ring finger, and everything just works...
So Colemak?
Or am I not understanding what Prime is describing?
You can learn multiple keyboard layouts and remember them all.
Besides VIM I finally have another way to spend 500 hours that will save me 5 seconds of my life
Have you tried Colemak?
I didn't quite get unlearning. Like, maybe your relearn a different system and use it, and therefore slowly forget the other, but, you didn't actually sit down and actively forget something.
Guys we are all going to die, better have a social-relationship rather than using Arch, Neovim and Dvorak 😂😂😭😭
Meanwhile, I still use the 2 index finger method to type everything, from code to emails. I've made to 3rd year of uni in cyber doing this 😂
How do you even use vim with Dvorak?
Can someone write the name of the github project he is looking at?