Re: A good charge against free operating systems
>>>>> "Stephen" == Stephen Rank <Stephen.Rank@durham.ac.uk> writes:
Stephen> Actually, qwerty was especially designed to be productive (not
Stephen> counter-productive). On previous keyboards, typists pressed
Stephen> keys in too quick sucession and jammed the mechanism, which was
Stephen> counter-productive. qwerty was the _most_ (not least)
Stephen> productive solution to that problem.
But we don't have that problem any more.
Stephen> No-one's come up with a better keyboard layout. Dvorak's not
Stephen> really a keyboard layout, more of a whole new keyboard.
I don't get what you mean by this.
Stephen> Again, from what I've heard, dvorak's relatively hard to
Stephen> learn (anyone can type a `x' on my keyboard, just look for the
Stephen> `x' key, not so fast on a dvorak),
Um, there are dvorak keyboards, you know. And on many keyboards, you
can switch the key tops around.
I heard that a typist can learn Dvorak in under a month. I think it
took me about half a year, because I was switching between Dvorak and
qwerty (Dvorak at home, qwerty at school). I think that's one of the
big barriers to Dvorak. People don't want to have to switch layouts
depending on where they are.
Stephen> but faster to use when it's been learned.
I don't know about faster, but it's a lot more comfortable. My hands
don't have to move as much. It's great for preventing carpal tunnel
syndrome.
>> Btw, I regularly finf my self typing ":q!" in Word.
I'm an emacs user, so I always hit C-x C-c in Word (when I'm forced to
use it).
Hubert
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