[HN Gopher] Switching from QWERTY to Colemak and Back
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Switching from QWERTY to Colemak and Back
        
       Author : jboogie77
       Score  : 34 points
       Date   : 2023-05-19 19:22 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (oppositeinvictus.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (oppositeinvictus.com)
        
       | bombcar wrote:
       | A downside with these off-QWERTY keyboard settings is that (as he
       | mentioned) the shortcuts are often designed for QWERTY keyboards
       | - things like X C V, sure X might be cut, and C is kinda copy,
       | but V is not paste.
       | 
       | To really "go whole hog" you have to either remap the shortcuts
       | to be the same positionally, or rethink the shortcuts from first
       | principles.
        
         | landgenoot wrote:
         | Colemak takes this into account. Z, X, C and V are in the same
         | position.
        
           | WorldMaker wrote:
           | Q, W, A, and B are as well. Those eight cover a lot of major,
           | common shortcuts.
        
         | noirbot wrote:
         | I believe what I used to do was set it up where CTRL worked to
         | also revert my keyboard to QWERTY mode, so all your muscle
         | memory for shortcuts on QWERTY still work, but typing is in the
         | other layout.
         | 
         | At the end of the day, I found I'd sort of bound "Copy" or
         | "Save" to a key combo in my mind that was somewhat unrelated to
         | the specifics of where C or S were on the keyboard for typing,
         | so it didn't really hurt my uptake of the new typing layout.
        
           | Taikonerd wrote:
           | That's clever!
        
       | okwubodu wrote:
       | I wonder if some of the perceived benefits of alternate layouts,
       | like Dvorak and Colemak, are due to users being forced to
       | consciously touch type.
        
         | peeters wrote:
         | I doubt it. I don't think people that can't be bothered to
         | learn to touch-type are the ones going out and learning an
         | esoteric keyboard layout.
         | 
         | When I made the switch, I was reliably about 95 WPM (touch
         | type) in QWERTY and topped out at around 105-110 in Colemak.
        
       | dnh44 wrote:
       | I switched to Colemak "cold turkey" last year and I couldn't be
       | happier now that the transition is complete. I too never got as
       | fast as I did with qwerty but it's so much more comfortable that
       | I don't care.
       | 
       | I probably made a mistake by not practising typing much on places
       | like keybr.com and about three months in I was starting to think
       | that I had made a horrible mistake because at that point I was
       | slow at both qwerty and colemak but by six months I was totally
       | happy that I stuck with it.
       | 
       | I didn't struggle much with keybindings but I did end up creating
       | an alias cs='cd'. In terms of using other computers I got a
       | programmable mechanical keyboard or I just hunt and peck in
       | qwerty now.
        
         | jaggederest wrote:
         | Don't worry about getting faster, you'll continue to improve
         | over time. I switched to Dvorak in ~2007 and I am faster now
         | than I ever was on QWERTY. Probably would have continued to
         | improve on QWERTY too, tbf.
        
       | r00fus wrote:
       | I went through something similar where several of my work
       | assignments put me in europe for couple of years.
       | 
       | Learning AZERTY and QWERTZ (especially for coding) was quite
       | challenging but I got the hang of it quite quickly (just small
       | changes from QWERTY - I almost wish there were a coding specific
       | keyboard so you didn't have to hit shift for things like
       | underscores, plus or the like - some of the european keyboard
       | layouts were way easier (*, ! and other shift sequences are
       | "native") while numerals!! require shift.
        
       | draxil wrote:
       | the editor muscle memory thing is always the thing for me.. Even
       | changing keyboard and not the key layout causes me issues.
        
         | thingification wrote:
         | I'm not saying that's not a thing, but if you're going to
         | switch keyboard layout I do think that's objectively the least
         | of your problems. Re-learning a huge list of common letter
         | pairs, triples, etc. that appear in words in English / your
         | native language(s) is a bigger task.
         | 
         | To make a hyperbolic comparison: seems a little like saying
         | that learning cyrillic letters is a problem for learning
         | Russian: true, but compared to learning the rest of the Russian
         | language...
        
       | lumb63 wrote:
       | I've wanted to try Colemak for years now, but living in a QWERTY
       | world where I may have to operate on other keyboards, other
       | machines, etc., has discouraged me. Maybe Colemak is better, but
       | the benefit it provides isn't enough to entice me, apparently.
        
         | WorldMaker wrote:
         | I made a few realizations that helped when I switched:
         | 
         | 1. If I can carry a laptop somewhere, I likely don't ever need
         | to borrow someone else's computer there.
         | 
         | 2. If I can't bring a laptop, but I'm allowed to RDP, I can
         | often RDP into my own machines. Your machine still uses the
         | keyboard layout you tell it to, so even if you are working on a
         | QWERTY host machine you might still be typing Colemak to your
         | own machine.
         | 
         | 3. If I need to help someone else on _their_ computer, it is
         | often better for teaching /learning to let them do it
         | themselves and just direct/supervise.
         | 
         | 4. In the worst case, even in modern times, a surprising number
         | of people hunt-and-peck on keyboards. The only person that
         | feels embarrassed about me hunt-and-pecking on someone's QWERTY
         | keyboard _is me_ , most other people don't even notice (it is
         | still that common). Even if I can't touch type in QWERTY any
         | more, I can still do everything I need to accomplish on other
         | people's machines with hunt-and-peck, and that's _fine_. I just
         | had to give myself permission to feel embarrassed about that.
         | 
         | (4) is definitely the hardest. It's also not as necessary for
         | some people as it was for me. Colemak was designed for, and
         | some people are quite good at, being able to use it side-by-
         | side QWERTY and keeping touch typing skills in both. If you use
         | physically different keyboards for the two, your muscle memory
         | can use context clues to use the right touch typing in the
         | right place. In my case my QWERTY touch typing form was _bad_
         | and unlearning it was also part of the reason for switching to
         | Colemak and after I switched it was never worth learning
         | "proper" QWERTY touch typing and I have long since lost any
         | embarrassment I had at hunt-and-pecking on other people's
         | QWERTY keyboards.
        
       | pokoleo wrote:
       | * * *
        
       | taeric wrote:
       | Amusingly, I just made the swap on my phone to be Colemak
       | everywhere. :D
       | 
       | I'm curious on if it really matters. I made the switch for the
       | same reason I would go between left and right handed mice. Mostly
       | just to keep interested. And to see if I could. I've been happy
       | with it, may change again soon. Not sure. That said, I have not
       | focused on building speed up. Maybe if I was to try that more, I
       | would care. I find as soon as I'm at 60wpm, I am at the point
       | that I am not limited by typing at all.
        
         | kadoban wrote:
         | Oh phone, I would suggest a change to a different input method
         | entirely. I used Messagease for years, and I've switched to
         | Thumb-Key now, https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key (same
         | concept, just Open Source and maintained).
         | 
         | My thinking is that if you throw a full keyboard on a tiny
         | screen, and remove actual physical keys, layout is besides the
         | point. You've already gone wrong in a way that layout cannot
         | fix.
        
       | thingification wrote:
       | There are games out there that help you learn the skill of
       | switching quickly.
       | 
       | As at least one other person has commented, context acts as a
       | switch even when you can't directly "find" the switch
       | consciously. It isn't only the keyboard. I learned colemak on one
       | keyboard while I continued with QWERTY on another, and it wasn't
       | a big surprise that it was hard to do the reverse for a while.
       | What did really surprise me was that I couldn't type QWERTY in
       | the typing drill software I was using for Colemak, and I couldn't
       | type Colemak in the online typing test where I was used to typing
       | QWERTY! It wasn't a subtle effect, quite a dramatic speed
       | plummet, especially in the former case - and just switching back
       | to my normal text editor was enough to speed up my QWERTY again
       | 30 seconds later!
       | 
       | I guess if you focus practice on finding that switch, for example
       | with those games, that's just another skill you can learn like
       | any other. Some people certainly have got very good at that with
       | practice.
        
       | thunkle wrote:
       | I type Dvorak all day at work, and Qwerty everywhere else, my
       | brain can switch freely between the two no problem. I have no
       | idea why this is possible, but it is.
        
       | 45ure wrote:
       | I went through a very similar experience on using keybr to learn
       | Colemak last year. It was in anticipation of typing on a custom
       | split ergo to improve efficiency.
       | 
       | I was really surprised by how easy it is to build up muscle
       | memory, along with some decent speed/accuracy. However, I had to
       | make a decision to _unlearn_ most of my efforts and go back to
       | QWERTY, as it was causing too much confusion switching between
       | the two layouts. Colemak was also causing cramps between the
       | shoulders and the neck on traditional staggered keyboards.
       | Regardless, I am glad that I undertook this exercise, and
       | occasionally do some tests for basic retention.
        
       | tehnub wrote:
       | Colemak-DH is the true way https://colemakmods.github.io/mod-dh/
        
       | 0xb0565e487 wrote:
       | I switched from QWERTY to Colemak about 5-10 years ago for a
       | solid year or so.
       | 
       | My WPM decreased by around 25% and I actually found Colemak to be
       | rather uncomfortable; with QWERTY (and DVORAK) you tend to
       | alternate stroke between hands. Even if there is more finger
       | travel, it just feels right to me.
       | 
       | Also, having a different layout than the peers around you is an
       | absolute pain.
       | 
       | My conclusion is that having an alternative layout is not worth
       | the marginal improvements if any it may offer. If I was forced to
       | try another layout though, I would try DVORAK.
        
       | Taikonerd wrote:
       | For those thinking of switching to Colemak, you might consider
       | using the Tarmak method: [0]
       | 
       | It's a series of 5 intermediate keyboard layouts that each change
       | just a few keys from QWERTY. So, instead of one big transition
       | that takes weeks to learn, you have 5 smaller transitions, each
       | of which you can learn in a weekend.
       | 
       | [0]: https://forum.colemak.com/topic/1858-learn-colemak-in-
       | steps-...
        
         | karmakaze wrote:
         | I specifically looked at Colemak and Tarmak. I didn't like the
         | number of transition steps of Tarmak that reassigns already
         | moved keys.
         | 
         | Ultimately, I came up with my own easier layout[0] and
         | transition steps[1] that's on par with Colemak, or better IMO
         | (on English prose). After much iteration, it ended up looking
         | like an optimized NIRO layout.
         | 
         | One advantage is that it's closer to QWERTY which makes the
         | transition less frustrating. A disadvantage is that the
         | similarity makes it actually harder to easily switch between it
         | and QWERTY until substantial new muscle memory is gained.
         | 
         | One final observation is that I was never a very fast typist
         | and the new layout didn't make me faster. In fact, the amount
         | of typing that I do as a developer in a day wasn't enough to
         | learn a new layout smoothly and had to use typing practice
         | websites to make up the volume. What I do appreciate is that my
         | hands feel much more comfortable all the time now, whereas I
         | was having occasional cramps and on rare occasion shooting
         | pains on the backs of my hands that prevented me from typing
         | for several days at a time.
         | 
         | I have layouts for Mac and Windows. If anyone has an easy to
         | follow how-to reference for Linux (console + X/Wayland?) that
         | would be appreciated. Ultimately an inline USB mapper would be
         | ideal.
         | 
         | [0] https://github.com/qwickly-org/Qwickly [1]
         | https://github.com/qwickly-org/QwickSteps
        
         | thingification wrote:
         | It is useful, but it's worth knowing that most of the learning
         | effort to get up to speed comes only after you've been through
         | all the intermediate stages, just gradually speeding up on the
         | final full-colemak stage. But it's a big help in not quitting
         | early on from frustration I think. There's a few really painful
         | changes like the changes in where R and S go, and making
         | noticeable progress before that is a big motivator.
         | 
         | I just typed "leasning" instead of "learning" 3 times, all
         | these years later, huh. I suppose because I was thinking about
         | it!
        
       | copperx wrote:
       | I agree. I learned Dvorak about 15 years ago, and even though
       | typing is much more comfortable, I wouldn't do it again.
       | 
       | I wish I knew about the increased cognitive overload. Sure,
       | typing English and code is great, but once you get to shortcuts
       | in different applications, things get rather ugly. I use multiple
       | computers, and switching back and forth between QWERTY and Dvorak
       | is no problem, but every time I switch to a different program I
       | have to THINK about which layout I am using and because I never
       | switch my keyboard keycaps, I have to think and LOOK which key
       | I'm pressing.
       | 
       | Also Control/Command C, X, and V are impossible to do with one
       | hand while holding your mouse unless you remap keys or create
       | macros. It's a mess.
       | 
       | I've never felt comfortable about shortcuts ever since.
        
         | thingification wrote:
         | Of course if you just stick to a non-QWERTY layout and never
         | use QWERTY, you don't have this problem. My solution to that
         | has mostly been to use an external "mechanical" keyboard that I
         | flash with a colemak layout. But on laptops I often type on
         | that keyboard and use software to switch and that's worked OK
         | for me too. Some programs use the key code instead of the
         | letter, and that messes me up occasionally on laptop keyboards
         | (maybe VS code, from memory?).
         | 
         | Colemak does keep C, X and V in the same places for this
         | reason, but if you're a big hotkey user, that's only a small
         | part of it.
        
         | Taikonerd wrote:
         | _> Also Control /Command C, X, and V are impossible to do with
         | one hand_
         | 
         | One of the motivations behind Colemak was to make an efficient
         | layout that didn't move C, X, or V.
         | 
         | Mr. Dvorak back in 1936 couldn't have known about cut / copy /
         | paste ;-)
        
         | kentonv wrote:
         | > Also Control/Command C, X, and V are impossible to do with
         | one hand while holding your mouse unless you remap keys or
         | create macros.
         | 
         | I took the, uh, hard way on this one: For every OS I have used
         | in the last 20 years I have figured out how to write a program
         | that intercepts keystrokes and rewrites them so that when I am
         | holding ctrl or alt, my keyboard temporarily reverts to Qwerty.
         | (I type Dvorak.)
         | 
         | My current iteration involves using systemtap to, uh, monkey-
         | patch the Linux kernel. Which works... surprisingly well?
         | 
         | https://blog.cloudflare.com/how-to-monkey-patch-the-linux-ke...
         | 
         | Code and older version here: https://github.com/kentonv/dvorak-
         | qwerty
         | 
         | Though these days I'm starting to think this guy's version
         | based on /dev/input might be a better way to go:
         | https://github.com/tbocek/dvorak (This even works on Chrome
         | OS.)
         | 
         | MacOS has this keyboard layout built-in, but in multiple
         | attempts I have never been able to get myself to like MacOS,
         | so...
        
       | Taikonerd wrote:
       | If Colemak were available out-of-the-box on Windows, I think that
       | would double its adoption.
       | 
       | Are any Microsoft people reading this? If so, please file a
       | ticket with the appropriate team ;-)
        
       | otterpro wrote:
       | That was similar to my experience with Dvorak, back in the early
       | 90's. Having learned touch typing on qwerty on an IBM typewriter
       | from high school, and learning/typing for several years, I
       | thought I was pretty good typist, but in college, I had the
       | nagging feeling I wanted to try something else, since my wrist
       | didn't feel too good after a long typing session, and I wanted to
       | get even faster.
       | 
       | It felt so weird learning to type in Dvorak layout, but I got
       | used to it and after a month, I was typing ok, and within 2
       | months, I was probably typing the fastest I've ever been. It felt
       | much easier to type physically and felt more effortless to type.
       | The downside was that every time I went to type on someone else's
       | computer, I just couldn't type on qwerty anymore. Some people
       | just seem to have knack on being able to switch between layouts,
       | but I just couldn't. Being an "expert" on computer as a software
       | engineer, imagine people's surprise when I could barely locate a
       | key... "So where is that B key again?" Also I couldn't use VIM no
       | matter how I tried to remap the keys in vim. Eventually, I
       | abandoned Dvorak for practical reason, and when I did, it took
       | few weeks to get back to re-learning qwerty.
        
         | jurassicfoxy wrote:
         | I had a co-worker that could switch between qwerty and Dvorak
         | instantly, it was amazing. And type very quickly in both.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | pluijzer wrote:
           | I can switch between Dvorak and Qwerty quicky if it is a
           | physically different keyboard. I type with Dvorak on my
           | Kenisis keyboard and Qwerty on my laptop without any effort
           | in switching between the two. But as soon as I try it vice
           | versa I feel like I am typing for the first time.
        
             | meatmanek wrote:
             | I subconsciously switch to qwerty when using someone else's
             | computer, and it really throws me off if they use Dvorak. I
             | still have an account on my parents' old computer, and it
             | takes me a moment to remind myself to use Dvorak while
             | using it.
        
             | tough wrote:
             | Some sort of context-aware muscle memory
        
         | TylerE wrote:
         | I stopped caring about typing when I realized I could already
         | type twice as fast as I can think.
        
           | celeritascelery wrote:
           | What is your WPM? I am about 80 and still feel like my brain
           | is running ahead of my fingers.
        
           | Taikonerd wrote:
           | In my mind, a more ergonomic keyboard layout isn't about
           | typing faster -- it's about putting less stress on your
           | fingers.
        
         | meatmanek wrote:
         | Yep, very similar experience here.
         | 
         | I learned Dvorak around age 12, a year or so after I learned to
         | touch-type QWERTY. I completely lost the ability to touch-type
         | QWERTY after switching to Dvorak until I took a CS class in
         | high school that was on ancient computers running Win98, where
         | I had no ability to change the layout.
         | 
         | I have gradually built back my ability to touch-type on QWERTY
         | now, acceptably quickly (probably 50WPM?) but my error rate is
         | atrocious. I find it a little embarrassing to be a computing
         | professional and not be able to type competently when I sit
         | down at someone else's computer.
        
         | allknowingfrog wrote:
         | I switched to Dvorak a couple of years before I learned VIM. I
         | made the decision not to remap anything in VIM, because it
         | seemed like every key already had a job, and I was afraid of
         | upsetting the balance. I'm still a Dvorak/VIM user 10 years
         | later. My directional navigation keys are in strange places,
         | but it's just muscle memory at this point.
         | 
         | If I had learned VIM first, I'm not sure how the switch to
         | Dvorak would have gone. My fear of breaking an unfamiliar
         | editor may have accidentally steered me into success.
        
           | WorldMaker wrote:
           | I learned vim first then switched to Colemak and made the
           | mistake of first trying a very heavily remapped vim layout.
           | Eventually it was reminded to Vim's layout _other_ than its
           | directional keys is very heavily mnemonic and eventually I
           | was convinced to use fewer to no remaps and the classic vim
           | mnemonics. I probably could have used that advice sooner to
           | avoid the years of a very custom map and the confusion that
           | still sometimes accidentally triggers.
        
           | taeric wrote:
           | VIM is a fun one, in this regard. True, the arrow keys are no
           | longer on the home row. For the most part, you can just use
           | the arrow keys, of course. Keeping your hand exactly at home
           | position is largely over sold on that regard, and physically
           | grounding your hand between the arrows and home is easy to
           | flip between.
           | 
           | The nice thing, though, is most of the other key choices are
           | mnemonic. "C" for change, etc. Such that you really can keep
           | moving fairly well by sticking with the conversation you are
           | having with VIM.
        
             | rgoulter wrote:
             | > Keeping your hand exactly at home position is largely
             | over sold on that regard...
             | 
             | It's a marginal benefit, but it's still a benefit.
             | 
             | The more significant factor than "qwerty vs colemak" is
             | that the thumbs aren't able to achieve much with the hands
             | rested on home row. They can hit spacebar; and to be useful
             | for anything else, the hands have to move.
             | 
             | Whereas, with keyboards like the Moonlander, the thumbs can
             | reach 2-3 keys each.
             | 
             | Albeit, regarding vim's 'hjkl', vim makes it very easy to
             | quickly move around a single line, so h/l shouldn't be very
             | common. For rapid vertical movement, 'easy motion'-style
             | stuff is neat.
        
         | thingification wrote:
         | > Some people just seem to have knack on being able to switch
         | between layouts, but I just couldn't.
         | 
         | Did you put in serious deliberate practice time and still find
         | that? If yes, what sort of time?
         | 
         | I suspect those people just did that sort of practice (even if
         | maybe not really attending much to the fact they were doing so
         | - I don't think that's a contradiction!)
        
       | Lio wrote:
       | > _Colemak is pretty awesome if your goal isn't to be the fastest
       | typer. I really think it should be the default keyboard layout
       | taught._
       | 
       | I've been using Colemak for about 14 years now. I can't say that
       | I'm faster but haven't had a repeat of the wrist pain I lived
       | with with QWERTY.
       | 
       | It's been a real boon to have Colemak available on macOS and
       | Linux.
        
         | thingification wrote:
         | I also switched for reasons of keeping my hands happy (as a
         | prevention measure), not for typing speed.
         | 
         | I'm a bit slower than I was in QWERTY (at a guess, maybe if I
         | race I easily get to 80 instead of 90 wpm or something, not
         | sure). If I kept up with deliberate practice I'd end up faster
         | than I was I think, but I don't really do that.
        
           | WorldMaker wrote:
           | I think at this point I'm faster in Colemak than I ever was
           | in QWERTY, but speed doesn't matter anywhere near as much as
           | comfort and I also don't think I've ever really "thought"
           | more than 30-50 wpm in real world practice anyway. Typing
           | test scores are useless rote repetition exercises and don't
           | reflect real world typing anyway. I've almost never
           | encountered the need to just retype out everything I'm
           | reading that someone else wrote outside of typing tests.
           | (Though admittedly in the typewriter era that was a more
           | useful skill, before digital files and copy-and-paste.)
        
       | codetrotter wrote:
       | Bro made the classic mistake of trying Colemak when he should've
       | tried Dvorak.
       | 
       | T. Dvorak User
        
         | bbojan wrote:
         | Always found Colemak to be much more programmer-friendly than
         | Dvorak.
         | 
         | E.g. try typing _ls -la_ on Dvorak.
        
           | Symbiote wrote:
           | alias ha='ls -la'       alias hh='ls -l'
        
           | codetrotter wrote:
           | The golden path is to start with Dvorak hardware mapped
           | keyboard (TypeMatrix 2030 USB) and then later buy a
           | programmable keyboard (ErgoDox EZ Shine) and make your own
           | Dvorak-based layout with your own affordances for
           | programming.
           | 
           | That's what I did.
           | 
           | https://github.com/ctsrc/ergodox-ez-shine-dvorak
           | 
           | > try typing ls -la on Dvorak.
           | 
           | Put alias ll = "ls -la" in your zshrc if typing ls -la
           | bothers you ;) but personally I just type it out
        
           | david38 wrote:
           | Try typing just                   l
           | 
           | in a modern shell
        
           | tom_ wrote:
           | I'm a programmer, not a professional folder contents lister.
           | Anyway, I'll typically use my 4th finger for l, because my
           | hands are a slightly weird shape perhaps - and if I know I'm
           | going to type ls -la, I'll put my 3rd finger on it.
           | 
           | Try typing CreateVertexBuffer or SetVertexDrawTestFlags on
           | QWERTY. Or consider the humble underscore!
        
           | irthomasthomas wrote:
           | How does it compare to Programmer Dvorak?
        
           | tmtvl wrote:
           | Why would I do that when I can type _ls -lA_?
        
         | tom_ wrote:
         | Rather agree. I'm sure there'll be a bit in it in terms of
         | efficiency and comfort, since Colemak is more recent, but
         | Dvorak _is_ available on Windows out of the box.
         | 
         | I switched to Dvorak over 20 years ago and I've been quite
         | happy with its availability. I use Dvorak shortcuts (so, for
         | example, w and v are next to one another), and standard Emacs
         | bindings, and when I used vim I used the standard bindings with
         | that too. Main issue I've faced is that some programs use WASD,
         | and they do it by keycap rather than scancode, so now the
         | controls are wonky.
         | 
         | (Regarding QWERTY speed, I type on a split keyboard on my own
         | PC, which has helped keep my QWERTY muscle memory fairly good;
         | people that see me type are often surprised that it's not what
         | I'm used to. I can barely type Dvorak on a normal keyboard,
         | though, and I have to look at the keys to type QWERTY on a
         | split keyboard.)
        
         | codyb wrote:
         | I love typing in Dvorak. Although I don't use it on my phone. I
         | didn't find the switch particularly painful. I just switched
         | one day... and had a chart printed out that I looked at
         | whenever I couldn't remember something and eventually I just,
         | didn't need it.
         | 
         | I don't think it took particularly long... a few weeks? Maybe a
         | bit more. I had to do the same thing when I picked up the
         | ErgoDox and programmed in certain layers.
         | 
         | But now my fingers just dance across the split keyboard from
         | side to side. It's really enjoyable and feels great.
        
       | peeters wrote:
       | I didn't find the switch to Colemak nearly as difficult as OP.
       | The way I learned it was with some linux-based typing tutor at
       | the time, where it introduces one letter/key at a time, with
       | emphasis on touch typing (which is obviously important because
       | most people aren't getting Colemak keycaps). I went cold turkey,
       | spent 10-20 hours on a weekend, and could work well enough in
       | Colemak the following Monday (probably 40-50 WPM). Then maybe a
       | few weeks to 110 WPM, where my time waster during that period was
       | doing typing tests.
       | 
       | Throughout, I never fully abandoned QWERTY. It was certainly
       | difficult to switch between them, but my office environment was
       | collaborative enough that not being able to maintain some level
       | of competency in QWERTY really hurt.
       | 
       | Eventually, I switched back to QWERTY because there were just
       | enough things annoying about "being different"--NOT because
       | Colemak in itself was bad. Things like configuring keybindings
       | for things like VIM, where half the shortcuts are positional
       | (e.g. homerow navigation) but the other half are mnemonics (next)
       | and now in Colemak they can't be both. And just in general,
       | sharing your hardware with others and vice versa. Colemak was
       | beautiful, but sometimes the imperfect standard is better than
       | the perfect thing that nobody uses.
       | 
       | Switching back to QWERTY I was back to full speed in a few days.
       | That, to me, is the biggest reason I'd encourage anyone to give
       | Colemak a shot. You don't just lose your QWERTY muscle memory, it
       | just hibernates a bit and is groggy when you wake it up.
        
       | anonymouskimmer wrote:
       | > Colemak is pretty awesome if your goal isn't to be the fastest
       | typer. I really think it should be the default keyboard layout
       | taught.
       | 
       | People don't get enough exercise as is.
        
       | legulere wrote:
       | If someone working at Apple reads this: it would be amazing if I
       | could remap Capslock to Backspace without any third party tools
       | in the Mac (there's already an option for almost every key except
       | backspace). Also if it would be possible at all on iOS that would
       | also be nice.
        
         | Lio wrote:
         | Excellent idea.
         | 
         | Not sure if this will help in the meantime but I remap Capslock
         | to CTRL and then use CTRL-h as backspace. It works almost
         | everywhere in macOS.
        
       | dist-epoch wrote:
       | If it was an obviously better layout across various metrics, the
       | world would have switched by now.
       | 
       | I don't believe this "worse is better" non-sense. Quality does
       | break through eventually.
        
         | tom_ wrote:
         | But it obviously is - just not so much that it's worth
         | switching over, given how much of a standard QWERTY is and how
         | much hassle it is to retrain. Most people just don't type
         | enough for the issues with it to become apparent, and if
         | there's no issues with it then there's nothing to justify
         | changing.
        
         | jboogie77 wrote:
         | the comfort in typing with colemak is mindblowing once you get
         | used to it.
        
       | davesque wrote:
       | I did this too. Was on Colemak from about 2012 to 2018 or so. Was
       | surprisingly easy to switch back to QWERTY. Did it in about two
       | weeks. All that muscle memory was just sitting there waiting for
       | six years.
        
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       (page generated 2023-05-19 23:00 UTC)