Eliezer uses Dvorak, or at least used to four years ago:
I can personally testify that Dvorak seems to be much easier on the fingers than Qwerty—but this is not surprising, since if Dvorak really were inferior to Qwerty, it would soon cease to exist. (Yes, I am familiar with the controversy in this area—bear in mind that this is a politically charged topic since it has been used to make accusations of market failure. Nonetheless, my fingers now sweat less, my hands feel less tired, my carpal tunnel syndrome went away, and none of this is surprising because I can feel my fingers traveling shorter distances.)
Except I’ve been typing for a living for 13 years on QWERTY and never had carpal tunnel syndrome. It’s not clear to me that it has anything to do with keyboard layout.
Reasons one may not have carpal tunnel syndrome may be:
1) independent of their keyboard layout, e.g. their carpal tunnels are very resilient, or they may not type enough to injure them;
2) dependent on the keyboard layout, e.g. for the typing one does one layout may be “efficient” enough not to trigger the syndrome.
The observation that one never had CTS doesn’t separate the two hypotheses (i.e., you can’t tell if you never had carpal tunnel because of 1 or 2).
My personal experience, as well as reports from others (e.g. Eliezer), is that typing on QWERTY did cause CTS, and after switching to Dvorak (for many years now), without any other visible change in typing (quantity or kind) the symptoms disappeared.
From this evidence, the conclusion is quite clear that Dvorak is better for CTS than QWERTY. To be unclear about it you’d need to also have observations of people that had CTS with Dvorak but not with QWERTY. (However, it’s also clear that QWERTY is enough for some people, and that you’re likely in that category.)
(Of course, the conclusion is “clear”, as I said, based on the evidence cited. It’s not a lot of evidence, so it doesn’t mean that the conclusion is definite in general. I just pointed out that you have more evidence than your personal experience that you’re ignoring.)
(ETA: Also, it appears that you don’t quite need to worry about it. Similarly, I picked Dvorak when I had CTS, my CTS went away, and I don’t need to worry about layouts better than Dvorak. That doesn’t mean I’m not clear about Dvorak being less efficient than other layouts.)
To be unclear about it you’d need to also have observations of people that had CTS with Dvorak but not with QWERTY. (However, it’s also clear that QWERTY is enough for some people, and that you’re likely in that category.)
Incorrect. As QWERTY is the standard, most people who have no problem with QWERTY don’t switch.
Therefore, people for whom QWERTY is more efficient than Dvorak are highly unlikely to ever use Dvorak enough to develop problems (such as CTS). If, say, 10% of the population was better off with Dvorak and 90% was better off with QWERTY, you still wouldn’t expect to see people developing CTS with Dvorak, then going to QWERTY, because most people start with QWERTY.
I’m not saying that QWERTY is better for anyone than Dvorak (personally the only reason I stopped using Dvorak was because I couldn’t work out how to change the commands for ctrl-c, ctrl-x, ctrl-z, ctrl-s etc. to be in the same positions, rather than spread all over the keyboard) merely that it’s a perfectly reasonable possibility given the evidence presented.
Eliezer uses Dvorak, or at least used to four years ago:
Except I’ve been typing for a living for 13 years on QWERTY and never had carpal tunnel syndrome. It’s not clear to me that it has anything to do with keyboard layout.
Reasons one may not have carpal tunnel syndrome may be: 1) independent of their keyboard layout, e.g. their carpal tunnels are very resilient, or they may not type enough to injure them; 2) dependent on the keyboard layout, e.g. for the typing one does one layout may be “efficient” enough not to trigger the syndrome.
The observation that one never had CTS doesn’t separate the two hypotheses (i.e., you can’t tell if you never had carpal tunnel because of 1 or 2).
My personal experience, as well as reports from others (e.g. Eliezer), is that typing on QWERTY did cause CTS, and after switching to Dvorak (for many years now), without any other visible change in typing (quantity or kind) the symptoms disappeared.
From this evidence, the conclusion is quite clear that Dvorak is better for CTS than QWERTY. To be unclear about it you’d need to also have observations of people that had CTS with Dvorak but not with QWERTY. (However, it’s also clear that QWERTY is enough for some people, and that you’re likely in that category.)
(Of course, the conclusion is “clear”, as I said, based on the evidence cited. It’s not a lot of evidence, so it doesn’t mean that the conclusion is definite in general. I just pointed out that you have more evidence than your personal experience that you’re ignoring.)
(ETA: Also, it appears that you don’t quite need to worry about it. Similarly, I picked Dvorak when I had CTS, my CTS went away, and I don’t need to worry about layouts better than Dvorak. That doesn’t mean I’m not clear about Dvorak being less efficient than other layouts.)
Incorrect. As QWERTY is the standard, most people who have no problem with QWERTY don’t switch.
Therefore, people for whom QWERTY is more efficient than Dvorak are highly unlikely to ever use Dvorak enough to develop problems (such as CTS). If, say, 10% of the population was better off with Dvorak and 90% was better off with QWERTY, you still wouldn’t expect to see people developing CTS with Dvorak, then going to QWERTY, because most people start with QWERTY.
I’m not saying that QWERTY is better for anyone than Dvorak (personally the only reason I stopped using Dvorak was because I couldn’t work out how to change the commands for ctrl-c, ctrl-x, ctrl-z, ctrl-s etc. to be in the same positions, rather than spread all over the keyboard) merely that it’s a perfectly reasonable possibility given the evidence presented.