Re: Keymap note, was "Re: My GWorkspace feature request"

[Jeff Teunissen]

Ian Jones wrote:

> On 2003-06-19 12:51:43 +0000 Jeff Teunissen <deek@d2dc.net> wrote:

[snip]

> > [Ed. note: The superiority of the Dvorak keyboard layout is a myth, or
> > more accurately, a hoax -- the oft-mentioned "study" by the US Navy
> > was performed by none other than the guy who held the patent on the
> > Dvorak keyboard]
> 
> The dvorak map 'is' superior for the english language, if you do a
> little research on the subject (as I did) you'll find that 70 % of your
> keystrokes on a dvorak keyboard are on the home row, and not (as is the
> case with qwerty) having the most commonly used key sequences spread far
> apart to prevent the jamming of the mechanical hammer mechanisms that
> were present in typewriters when the qwerty keymap was designed.

This is also incorrect.

The qwerty layout _does_ help to prevent jamming, but not by slowing down
typists (as says the "party line"). It does it by placing commonly-used
character combinations at alternating ends of the key space, so that the
hands are used more evenly. This also happens to avoid jamming, while
helping maintain a swift typing speed.

> It took me around 6 - 8 weeks to gain the typing speed that I had with
> qwerty and my wrist tendons are thankful for the change too.

Having common keys on the "home row" does little (if anything) for
anyone's wrists, and the instance of improvement is well within the range
of the placebo effect.

And it's certainly been proven that Dvorak does not result in faster
typists.

[snip]

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| Jeff Teunissen  -=-  Pres., Dusk To Dawn Computing  -=-  deek @ d2dc.net
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