Many people wonder why I chose to learn the Dvorak Keyboard layout, assuming the risk that I might have to abandon the qwerty layout never to return again.

Many of you are probably wondering what the Dvorak Keyboard is, so I'll provide you with a little information and refer you to this site for more: http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/. It's the first hit on google and provides great explanations for what dvorak is, and why people use it. But, for the lazy, here's what it looks like: (stolen from http://homepage.mac.com/chinesemac/LatinExtended/layouts/Dvorak.html)

The essential idea is that the most commonly used keys in the english language should be the easiest to hit; since modern keyboards need not worry about problems surrounding mechanical, hammer-driven typewriters, keys can be placed in order of efficiency rather than usage feasibility. For instance, if 't' and 'h' were together on a typewriter, two hammers would get stuck together on any word which had a 'th' or 'ht' in it; it would happen about five times just in this last sentence. Additionally, dvorak is driven my the hand alternation method. That is, as often as possible, hands should alternate each other for keystrokes. So, vowels are controlled by the left hand and the bulk of consanents are on the right hand (as most people are right-handed). The more efficient layout reportedly reduces the distance travelled over qwerty by about 10:1.

My opinion? I think dvorak is the best thing to happen to my computer usage over everything else. While I haven't gotten to be as fast as I should be able to type, after less than a year under the system I can type longer, type more relaxed, and come away with a significantly reduced number of typos. They say that the dvorak layout prevents CTS (carpel tunnel syndrome) by virtue that the hands extend themselves much less. I just feel more comfortable typing with it.

The biggest problem with dvorak is being able to type on the rest of the world's machines. Over 99% of the machines on the market come with qwerty standard, and getting dvorak layout used to be either a hardware challange or a keymapping challenge that most users wouldn't touch. Currently, every major operating system, WindowsXP, Mac OSX, *nix, all have dvorak layout built right in into a relatively easy place to implement and use. Because it's just a different input language, most public computers have no problem allowing the dvorak keyboard capability. So, compatability isn't really a problem.

However, when learning dvorak keyboard, one should only type in dvorak layout in order to become fluent. It took me about a month to get to the point where I was comfortable typing on dvorak- i chose to learn over winter break where timed typing really didn't matter. No big deal, and I've been typing in dvorak ever since.

Occasionally, I do have to type in qwerty; in the months after learning dvorak it was quite trying. Eventually, i said, "screw it; just use dvorak full time." I've gotten to the point where this is my primary keyboarding language, and qwerty be damned-- then programming happened.

Programming opens up a whole new consideration to choosing a layout. Most programs worth their salt use keyboard shortcuts designed for easy access. Emacs, the king of programming editors, has many many commands that the left hand can perform exclusively on qwerty. Additionally, more often than not, unix commands assume the crappy qwerty layout, and include commands such as 'ls' which make sense on qwerty, but not on dvorak because of hand and finger alterations. (Refer to the images if you need convincing.) So, I needed to relearn qwerty.

It turns out, at least for me, that going back and forth is absolutely no problem. After about a second relearning curve, i can type with relative accuracy between both layouts, favoring dvorak in all respects. Some people report up to an hour adjustment period, but for me, i can switch back and forth almost on the fly. Maybe I got lucky, or I learned to have that ability out of necessity.

To conclude, dvorak has made my typing career more comfortable and more geeky. With my ability to switch between qwerty and dvorak on the fly, there is no reason not to exploit the benefits of typing faster with less errors and greater comfort. Should you have a free couple months where typing doesn't matter along the speed axis, I encourage you to give it a try.

So, that's the rhyme and reason I choose to be a complete and utter nerd. And it's also one of the many reasons why I am greater than you. This page has not been proofread and has been written in less than 20 minutes- see how many typos you can find across this roughly 800-word piece of writing. That's about 40 words per minute, including the downtime to scratch my nose, think about what I'm writing, grab a picture, upload the file, and work from there.

Btw- props to my cousin Adam for prompting me to learn the dvorak way of life. He's probably sailing off into the sunset right now on his boat.