Or am I the only one?
C’mon, all those enlightened souls who have shunned ASDF for AOEU, you do post here, right?
Me!
I never learned to touch-type until I was in grad school. At that point, I decided if I was going to bite the bullet and learn, I might as well learn Dvorak. So I type about 70 wpm in Dvorak, and about 25 wpm hunt-and-peck if I have to use Qwerty. My husband touch-types both, and is faster than me with Dvorak. I don’t know what his Qwerty speed is.
I’d give it a shot if I’d ever seen one … but I type pretty quickly on QWERTY and I’m a bit worried about the learning curve, starting something new. (Plus I’d have to learn my shortcut keys all over again.)
Hey, htns, now I understand your sig !
And my nick? 
(I wanted “aoeu”, but that was taken. Ah well, such is life I guess.)
Yo! (or should I type Ts!).
I just use a standard qwerty keyboard with a software driver switch, but my pal Sanguine (who converted after I did) actually owns the hardware.
And the main reason I did it: wrist problems. They’ve vanished.
I switched over about 6 months ago, and I love dvorak. I only switch back when I have to type one-handed and don’t want to feel around for the keys. (Not like that! When I’m lying down on the couch and doing a crossword on my laptop or something!)
I was suprised at how fast I picked it up. It really only took a few weeks to get fairly proficient. I still don’t think I’m quite as fast as I used to be on qwerty, but then I don’t type as much now as I used to either.
is it really possible to function comfortably in both languages? could you use a dvorak keyboard at home and a standard one at work, or on a travel laptop? typing seems like a mechanical skill that you would have to do one way or another unless you are consciously thinking about finger placement.
Here’s another dvorak user emerging from the woodwork. I made the switch six months ago,
after reading the article by Liebowitz and Margolis (“Fable of the Keys”) and the rebuttal
by Randy Cunningham. I adapted to the new keyboard layout pretty rapidly, with daily
practice on instant messenger and e-mail.
I agree with Reader99 that typing involves too much muscle memory for one to be
comfortable with both layouts, but apparently some Dopers have had success being
keyboard-bilingual.
I tried switching several years ago. I type pretty fast, maybe 90 wpm on QWERTY, and when I couldn’t come close to that on Dvorak after trying solid for three weeks, I quit.
Also, after I was into it a couple weeks, I became confused at QWERTY when I had to use other peoples computers, and I figured that would only get worse if I used Dvorak permanently.
I sure like the idea of it though.
yup, switched a year or so ago. Also because I had never learned to touch type, and every time I tried learning, the temptation to peek overcame me. So I figured, hey, if I switch to a dvorak layout, then the squiggles on the keys will bear no relationship to what gets typed, peeking would be of no use, and I’ll have to learn to touch type. After I sorta-learned, I pulled an external keyboard apart and moved the keys around, mostly so I could find some odd bits of punctuation that perl used more than English. But my laptop keyboard still reads qwerty, it just types ',.py. Confuses the heck outta people if they ask to hop on my machine for a quick google 