Abandoning QWERTY
About a year ago, I came to a realization that the standard QWERTY keyboard layout is not the most ideal typing style for extended long term use. I noticed that I was getting hand and forearm pains at the end of everyday, and could feel the pain building up throughout the day when reaching for the B or P keys.
I did some reseach into this, and discovered that the QWERTY layout is probably the most harmful keyboard layout of all.
How did we get here?
It turns out, the QWERTY layout derives from it's predecessor, the typewriter. BACK IN THE DAY, typewriters were designed with keys spread apart so that the pins and rods of the device wouldn't jam when typing too fast. This is probably a very rudimentary explanation of this history, but at the end of the day, it basically outdated.
The History of QWERTY
Meaning, (based on the QWERTY wikipedia article), QWERTY was designed and implemented in 1874 when the typewriter was first sold. That's an awfully long time ago, in terms of technology. The only reason I can think of why we still use this today is "because that's how it's always been", which I think is quite silly.
Colemak vs. Dvorak
I looked into other popular keyboard layouts. The next two most popular layouts are Dvorak (1936) and Colemak (2006). If you dig into the different Colemak variants, you'll see that there is a more popular version called Colemak-DH, but for this post, I'll just be referring to it all as Colemak.
Obviously, with such a drastic "life change", I'd want to make this transition as seamless as possible. I noticed before, when setting up a new computer or laptop, I always had the choose my preferred keyboard layout. That's when I first noticed the two other layouts. Although I always chose QWERTY, the back of my mind always wondered what it would be like to use another layout.
The Ol' College Try
So, I gave Colemak a shot, seeing as it was the more modern layout. I configured my keyboard and practiced every day and night for a month. By the end of switching, I decided that Colemak was not for me. I did not think that the tradeoff was worth it. The benefit of this more ergonomic layout was not worth giving up and switching over. I eventually transitioned back to QWERTY and felt at home again, but the cramping returned.
Health Stuff
Apparently, there's a medical term for this. RSI, or Repetitive Strain Injury. I'm no medical doctor, but I've also heard of terms such as carpel tunnel syndrome, or tennis elbow (when I used to work in the kitchen). Still wanting to type on the keyboard with a more erogonmic setup, I did some research and found out there were dozens of other keyboard layouts!
Searching For Better
I joined a Discord server called Alt Keyboard Layouts that I found on the Keyboard Layouts subreddit. I asked around for some suggestions, and told the community my situation. One member prescribed me a dose of Recurva for two weeks, at to see how that felt. That's when I knew I needed to try out more layout options before I commited to any single layout.
I did some reseach on the most popular keyboard layouts and tried them all out. These include: Graphite, Canary, Sturdy, Galium, Ngram, and Rstlne. I think the last one might be a meme layout I got tricked into trying. I spent about one to two hours with each one on MonkeyType to see which one I "clicked" with the most.
I have to say. If I had to recommend an alternate keyboard layout to someone, it would have to be Recurva or Graphite. I think the both are most comfortable. If I had to go back, I'd probably choose Graphite, but there's no real tangible reason why, other than the name sounds cool and it's a bit more popular. Though, saying it's more popular is a very miniscule difference, since like 99.999% of the world uses QWERTY still.
Conclusion
As you've probably surmised, I commited to Recurva. Ever since then, I've had no regrets and would do so again in a heartbeat. The amount of hand and forearm pain I feel now is probably 1/30th of the pain I felt before. I say this because during my QWERTY days, I'd have to use my hand massager everyday at the end of the day, but now I only use it about once a month.
Even my efficiency when typing has increased. I think that before, I typed at about 60-70 words per minute, with regular mistakes, maybe 80% accuracy since the keys are horribly placed. Now, I've matched my old speed, and even reaching up to 100wpm on a good day with 90-100% accuracy.
After getting comfortable with my new layout, my next challenge was to figure out how to manage my neovim config, since now I'd no longer use hjkl for navigating (left, down, up, right) in my code editor. That post will be for another day.