Please excuse this interruption for this important news bulletin:

Do not learn Dvorak!

Deep in the tomes of Ancient Geek from beyond Last Thursday, it is rumored to be written that the True Geek shall achieve divine productivity through careful dedication to the art of Dvorak Typing. Type faster with less stress! Dvorak: the rational keyboard —not that abominable scrabble-bag QWERTY layout that The Man grinds into garrulous school children to Keep The Good Word Down.

These are LIES.

I learned Dvorak touchtyping three years ago. It is true: it is a bit less stressful to type in Dvorak than QWERTY.

The problem: all computers and applications are designed for QWERTY. (enjoy trying to use emacs or vim on a QWERTY lettered keyboard reconfigured to type Dvorak. I did learn Dvorak emacs —what a waste of my life)

So, finally, before it was Too Late, I switched back from Dvorak to QWERTY when I converted to OS X with the purchase of a new MacBook last month.

Listen: I have been hamstrung for weeks because I can’t type fluently. You do NOT want to scramble your touchtyping mental wiring during an important project. You will need to dedicate hours each day carefully retraining your fingers. You will not have this time because you are already behind because you’re unable to type your work efficiently. This is bad.

There is one time to learn a keyboard layout: school. Unless you have nothing better to do than practice typing an hour each day —precisely the description of an elementary school typing class— DO NOT DISTURB YOUR TYPING MUSCLE MEMORY!

However, I do strongly recommend occasional typing drills to keep your typing skills sharp. I use this flash drill. The keyboard is the human connection to cyberspace. Don’t get left behind because you’re too lazy to type well.