[olug] OT: Learning Colemak

[Leonardo]

On Tue, April 29, 2014 7:38 am, unfy wrote:
> Decided that I'll be turning 40 in a couple years and that I'd like to
> be gentle on my hands as I continue to code / type etc.
>
> As part of those goals, decided to pick up the Colemak keyboard layout.
> ZXCV being in the same spot as Qwerty is a big selling point for the
> common computer shortcuts that they are.
>
> Typing test starting out with: 99 WPM Qwerty, 6 WPM Colemak (having
> never typed Colemak before).
>
> So far it's been interesting.  I'm learning Colemak 'on the side' (do
> some typing lessons, then go back to Qwerty to work... etc... trying to
> get about 10-15min of Colemak typing in an hour while here at work).

Colemak typist here!
I've been typing in Colemak since 2008. I first switched to this layout as
part of a challenge: a friend of mine was going to switch to Dvorak and I was
going to switch to Colemak (both cold turkey) and at the end of the month
we'd compare who got better. He gave up a couple of hours into the
experiment. I continued using Colemak because it felt better than QWERTY on
my hands and (after a lot of practice) I realized I was a lot more accurate
in Colemak than in QWERTY (even though I started typing in QWERTY when I was
a little boy and now I'm almost 30).
My speed is also better in Colemak, but that's not as important for me. Just
for reference, my speed in Colemak is about 85WPM when I'm feeling really
lazy, upper 90s when I'm more focused and my record is probably between 110
and 115. My QWERTY speed was probably 75 when I was feeling lazy with a usual
speed of 80s and a record of 90s.
I can still type in QWERTY when needed. It's not like years of QWERTY could
be forgotten right away. It just takes me a few seconds to adapt to the
change of layout.
Also, I should add that I'm left handed, so backspace on capslock feels
really comfortable for me.