Comment Dvorak your powerbook! (Score 1) 624
I want to throw in another post on the positive column...
I am not only a programmer but a classical musician as well and I am hypersensitive to wrist issues. After years of subtle pains I learned Dvorak and haven't had any problem since! My main concern at the time was that I still had to take the GRE and no number of phone calls was going to get me permission to change the keyboard layout on one of their computers (unless I could prove my physical handicap). So I maintained the ability to switch with great success.
At the moment it takes me about 30 seconds to remember the other pattern but then I'm back up to speed. And taking the time to learn proper chording technique (i.e. use different hands for chords - don't try for the stretches) sped up my old QWERTY typing too.
To the people that argue that Dvorak is a waste of your time: There is nothing that Qwerty can do that Dvorak can't do better! My brother-in-law is always arguing that emacs key-commands were made for Qwerty and can't work on Dvorak, but that hasn't slowed me down any. Qwerty was designed to slow down secretaries and keep the keys from jamming in those old ribbon & paper computers. Who wants to type on a layout that was created to slow you down??
All of my computers have Dvorak keyboards now. My new PB G4 took about half an hour to carefully pop off all the keys and reset them. The only thing lacking is the two little bumps that mark your index finger location on the home-row, which are now in different places...
-ben
_______________________
http://benjamindaysmith.com/
I am not only a programmer but a classical musician as well and I am hypersensitive to wrist issues. After years of subtle pains I learned Dvorak and haven't had any problem since! My main concern at the time was that I still had to take the GRE and no number of phone calls was going to get me permission to change the keyboard layout on one of their computers (unless I could prove my physical handicap). So I maintained the ability to switch with great success.
At the moment it takes me about 30 seconds to remember the other pattern but then I'm back up to speed. And taking the time to learn proper chording technique (i.e. use different hands for chords - don't try for the stretches) sped up my old QWERTY typing too.
To the people that argue that Dvorak is a waste of your time: There is nothing that Qwerty can do that Dvorak can't do better! My brother-in-law is always arguing that emacs key-commands were made for Qwerty and can't work on Dvorak, but that hasn't slowed me down any. Qwerty was designed to slow down secretaries and keep the keys from jamming in those old ribbon & paper computers. Who wants to type on a layout that was created to slow you down??
All of my computers have Dvorak keyboards now. My new PB G4 took about half an hour to carefully pop off all the keys and reset them. The only thing lacking is the two little bumps that mark your index finger location on the home-row, which are now in different places...
-ben
_______________________
http://benjamindaysmith.com/
