The first pain was RSI that I got through typing a lot. I decided to try Dvorak to see if it helped.
The second pain was touch typing incredibly slowly for a few weeks whilst I learned the layout. It was a great experience, typing is a lot more comfortable, and I've never looked back.
Regarding the negatives:
You need to switch back when using other peoples’ computers
Kind of. If you type on their computer for 5 minutes, just hunt-and-peck. If you type on their computer for an hour, go to the control panel and switch their layout into Dvorak!
Nearly no availability of keyboards with dvorak layout
It doesn't matter at all. If you're using Dvorak for a sensible reason then you're touch-typing. If you're touch-typing you're not looking at the keys.
Having to relearn all your hotkeys
I can understand why Vim's hjkl would cause an annoying transition, but location independent hotkeys will cause you no problem.
After the first few months I tried suggesting to people that they should try dvorak, but mostly they just look at me like I'm an alien, so I kind of stopped. My mom actually tried it though - that was pretty cool (even though she decided not to make the switch).
I find it's exactly like speaking two languages. I have no problem just typing QWERTY on other people's keyboards, though it is slow going for the first minute if it's been a while.
I echo the RSI sentiments though. Dvorak is more comfortable for myself. I'm somewhat tempted to try Programmer's Dvorak for the brackets/braces/parens at some point, but I do like having my (Dvorak) TypeMatrix 2030 keyboard reflect my actual keymap.
Many programs choose their shortcuts based on QWERTY. Espcially editors like vim or emacs.
I don't type particularly faster on Dvorak.
I can't really feel a difference between the two schemes which makes one a killer over the other. In other words: Both schemes are about equally decent.
I use my emacs with most default key bindings in dvorak and haven't noticed it any better/worse than qwerty. Like I said on the article, ymmv
It is easier to learn because it changes many fewer keys, especially the less frequent ones which are harder to learn because you rarely use them. I found I could never remember where z and v were on Dvorak. Also, many hotkeys stay in place (ctrl+c, ctrl+v, etc).
I learned Colemak (from 0 to 70wpm, now like 90) in 10 days (I had learned and switched back from Dvorak before, though, so I was used to learning new keyboards).
It is potentially faster since it was designed after modern computers were invented and depends more on "finger rolls" to type common substrings quickly. With Dvorak, I often used the same finger to type adjacent letters. I also used my pinky a lot. That was painful. Finally, Colemak keeps punctuation in the same sane place, so it's better for programmers.
Colemak is the 3rd most popular layout. I use it and find it available or trivial to install on all modern OSs. I can easily use other people's computers by either switching the keyboard layout, or just by glancing down which causes my mind to switch to qwerty mode.
It took me 2 months to go back to speed and I was not that good at typing, looking regularly at the keyboard with my Qwerty.
But now, I don't know if this comes more from the Typematrix or Dvorak, but anyway, the combination is so great, it is the first time in my entire life that I am fully touch typing, with the feeling that all the keys are naturally falling below my fingers. I will never go back.
Note, I am a solo entrepreneur working from my home office, so I do not have the problem with the switch between home and work keyboard. I started in March last year if not wrong, so my experience is a bit more than "just a test".
It's more fun.
Everyone tries to justify it as more comfortable or faster, but really it boils down to it being fun. (I use dvorak.) Sure, you spend more time on the home row, and certain key chords are much more natural, but everything has its drawbacks. One thing no one tells you is that dvorak is brutal on your right pinky... especially if you use *nix and type things like 'ls' a lot. After a while your pinky gets stronger and you no longer notice, but everything has its advantages and drawbacks.
So really, lots stop spending all this effort justifying and evangelizing our keyboard layouts. If you enjoy a non-qwerty layout, then by all means share it with the world, but stop making it something bigger than it is.
The more comfortable claims seem to be echoed by a lot of other dvorak typers here as well.
Also, the pinky strain is echoed a lot, even if I haven't really suffered that (perhaps for playing the piano and guitar??), so I think that's something to watch for too.
The (IMHO) improved typing speed is just a secondary effect.
The most efficient keyboard layouts are described here:
Programmer’s Dvorak is particularly awesome – my most often used keys were readily available and my typing speeds were much higher.
Something suffered though. My emacs environment used a Dvorak command remapping mode that played nice with some of my other major modes but broke the majority of my most often used commands in some very important modes. I chose to forgo Dvorak and switch back to QWERTY because I didn’t want to maintain multiple different remapping packages for my Emacs environment, BIG pain in the ass.
I did, however, become a much better QWERTY typer because of it and greatly wish to become ambi. Maybe my next go will be a project in itself to better support Dvorak with my Emacs environment!
