On Tue, 1 Mar 2005, Mr Daniel Dilts wrote: > The last I heard, there was no real speed benefit for > using a Dvorak keyboard, though, if I am wrong, will > someone correct me, please?
Aaaack! No! You've just started the hugest flamewar ever! (Ross proceeds to fan the flames.) Short answer: there's a big controversy over whether Dvorak is actually faster. Longer answer: these articles will give you a good taste of the controversy ... (shamelessly ganked from Wikipedia) http://reason.com/9606/Fe.QWERTY.shtml http://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html http://www.dvorak-keyboard.com/dvorak2.html http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/dissent.html Anecdotal answer: The "World's Fastest Typist" uses the Dvorak keyboard. That must tell you something, eh? http://sominfo.syr.edu/facstaff/dvorak/blackburn.html Ross's Opinion answer: It may be true that Dvorak conveys some speed benefit, but I haven't seen any major studies (other than ones done by Dvorak himself) showing one way or the other. When confronted with this, Dvorak enthusiasts often say that it's not [simply] for speed benefits, but for the relief they get from wrist pain when they use Dvorak. I believe that both the speed benefits and the relief from wrist pain *may* simply be due to relearning, properly, a different way to type. A nice study would be to take a group of Qwerty typists and retrain half of them on a Dvorak keyboard and the other half on, say, an alphabetical layout and compare typing speed and relief from wrist pain among the group. As for me, the combination of Qwerty being "good enough", coupled with the fact that many things (such as vi, or CTRL-Z,X,C,V) make use of the Qwerty layout, has kept me from taking the time to give it a try. I've heard both success stories and failure stories from many different people with regards to Dvorak, so all I can say is: YMMV. ~ Ross -------------------- BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ The opinions expressed in this message are the responsibility of their author. They are not endorsed by BYU, the BYU CS Department or BYU-UUG. ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
