[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.do...@hp.com> > [Warning: off-topic] > > 42 147 <aeus...@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 > > >
