Learning Dvorak

About 2 weeks ago I started learning the dvorak keyboard layout. Below are my thoughts.

Initial Motivations

It seems most people learn dvorak to type faster. From what I had found on the internet, there isn’t much proof that an increase in typing speed is guaranteed. Thus, while I believe in being efficient with my tools, this wasn’t my incentive for learning this keyboard layout. Instead, I learned it because I’m at the start of what I hope will be a very long and successful career as a software engineer, and I want to limit the risk of repeated-use injuries.

Initial impressions

I bought a new more ergonomic QWERTY keyboard, and switched my computer’s keyboard layout in settings.

My first thoughts, after making the switch and learning the home row, was that this has the possibility to be really nice. The way that many words that I was typing to learn the keyboard bounced back and fourth between my hands felt really good. While typing now required a hundred times the focus that it did yesterday, I felt like the experiment was worth continuing.

Impressions After 2 Weeks

After about a week, I could type at a tolerable pace again. After about 2 weeks, I’m no longer thinking about what key to type, although my fingers still make lots of mistakes so I’m still not as fast as I was on QWERTY. For reference, I’m currently 40-45 wpm on dvorak and I was running at about 70-80 on QWERTY.

Of course, on top of learning the new keys for typing, I also have to re-learn all of the keybindings and shortcuts. Copy, Paste, ls, vim motions, all of it has to be relearned.

I am past the point of the honeymoon phase, and I can see flaws with the layout. Having s and l on the same finger, and having u and p on the same finger, in my opinion, were massive oversights. These are very common letter combinations.

However, it’s not like QWERTY doesn’t also have a bunch of those. I tried to go back to QWERTY to see if I liked it more, and was shocked to learn I had completely destroyed my ability to touch type that layout. I really wish that hadn’t happened, as I worry that I’ll have to type on a QWERTY keyboard and be totally unable to. If I find that happens, I’ll have to re-learn QWERTY. It hasn’t happened yet, but I’m sure my parents will ask me to solve some computer issue sooner or later, or I’ll be asked to program on a QWERTY instead for a job interview.

But for now, it feels natural and I’m fast enough with it that I’m happy to continue with it.

Conclusions

If I had to do it all over again, I don’t think I would learn Dvorak again. Was it worth doing? Probably. My wrists aren’t sore anymore and it does feel more natural to type on. That could be purely attributed to the fact that I also got a new more ergonomic keyboard while learning it. In addition to the dubious value gained, I could have spent that time learning a lot of things that would have made me a better engineer, and I think that probably would have been a better use of my time.

Dvorak didn’t make me much faster or much more comfortable. If I wanted better ergonomics, I should have stopped with the new desk, chair, and keyboard.

Do I regret it? No, not really, I still think it was a good skill to learn, and it gave me a very clear opportunity to break a lot of bad typing habits I had picked up when I first learned to touch type as a kid and didn’t even know I had, and it might prevent repeated stress injuries years down the road.

But if I had to do it over again, I would focus my efforts elsewhere.