[continues off-topic]

> Have you tried a Dvorak keyboard?

A friend of mine ridicules me for being a QWERTY typist, but I have found
no empirical evidence that it is actually superior. At best, it has been
proven, in /some/ studies, to be /slightly/ superior; and from a
cost-benefit standpoint, /slight/ superiority according to /some/ studies
(and I should add, only at extreme speeds), is not worth relearning how to
type.

I should add, he, too, changed the default Emacs keybindings to be
positional. But he ended up changing /different/ defaults.

2013/2/20 Nick Dokos <nicholas.dokos@hp.com>

> [Warning: off-topic]
>
> 42 147 <aeuster@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > My hands might be smaller than average, or, at least, smaller than yours.
> > To reach <right> I must shift my entire arm to the right and
> > downward. To reach <RET> no such movement is necessary. Maybe a slight
> > turn of the wrist to the right.
> >
>
> I doubt my hands are bigger than yours: I have to do exactly what you
> describe (at least on the bigger keyboards). It's just not as big a deal
> for me as it is for you.
>
> > > Of course, these things are *highly* personal preferences, and you
> might
> > > have a lower tolerance for pain than I have, but I have to ask: where
> > > exactly is your <right> key relative to <RET>?
> >
> > Warning, digression:
> >
> > I'm ultra cautious about finger / wrist strain. Even if I feel slight
> > discomfort from a keybinding, I will change it to be more ergonomic and
> > strain-free. Practically every basic Emacs movement command has been
> > rebound for optimum comfort as a QWERTY typist.
> >
> > Many of the default Emacs keybindings are notational, not positional. For
> > example, C-p and C-n. I've made them all positional. C-p / C-] are now
> > paired together for previous-line / next-line. C-q / C-e for
> > beginning-of-line / end-of-line. From a positional standpoint, C-p / C-n
> > makes absolutely no sense.
> >
>
> Agreed - they are only mnemonically significant. And I think you are
> right in taking precautions. As I said, I'm a sufficiently bad typist
> so that all these sins have not bitten me (at least not yet - and they
> are rapidly running out of time).
>
> Have you tried a Dvorak keyboard? My son uses a QWERTY keyboard, mapped
> in software to Dvorak - he learnt to touch type on one by switching
> all the keycaps, although he didn't need the crutch
> after a while, so his second keyboard has all the keycaps in the
> standard places - they just produce different characters than what the
> keycaps say. This had two advantages for him: the Dvorak placement
> which reduces strain (supposedly at least), and the fact that I
> couldn't say to him "Move over and let me drive for a while". I tried
> a couple of times and I can still hear his laughter... I suspect
> that unless one is an experienced Dvorak typist, it is a better security
> device than many passwords :-)
>
> I'm not sure a Dvorak keyboard would help with emacs chords though.
> Another possibility is one of the funky Kinesis keyboards: a colleague
> would wax ecstatic about his, but he was not an emacs user. And they
> are too expensive to buy one just to try it out.
>
> I'd be interested if somebody has tried either a Dvorak keyboard or
> a Kinesis one with emacs - but this is way off-topic by now, so maybe
> not.
>
> Nick
>
>
>