I bought moonlander some time ago and found the learning process far too frustrating. What's more, I noticed that the more I switched to the new layout, the more I was struggling with more classic ones (primarily laptops and my trusty MS NEK 4000). That was enough for me to shelve the moonlander for now.
How long it takes to fully and comfortably switch, including all the punctuation characters? Did you also struggle with other keyboards?
I only have two kinds of keyboards: a regular 94 key Mechanical Keyboard and the Glove80. My accuracy/speed is now equal on both for QWERTY after 3 weeks. It is confusing to switch between Colemak-DH back to QWERTY on the same keyboard. I'll fix the Glove80 to Colemak-DH and use QWERTY everywhere else.
I had learned touch-typing (for a non-qwerty layout), so using a keyboard where the keys are in columns isn't so difficult.
I suspect it's difficult for the "quick hunt-and-peck", where your fingers can quickly hunt down the keys on the staggered rows, but aren't trained to follow finger-per-column that the classic touch-typing discipline encourages.
> ... including all the punctuation characters
It's actually not so bad. The symbols associated with 0-9 stay in the same positions as you put 0-9. This leaves `, -=, [], /\. You can put [] near (), or in some other way that makes sense; you can put /\ together. ` I tend to have on a pinky finger. -- Rather, I'd say there are ways of arranging the symbols so that it retains what you're familiar with, or has an improved association to it.
> ... the more I was struggling with more classic ones ...
When I was learning a non-qwerty layout, I struggled using either qwerty or dvorak. Eventually, my motor memory was able to sort it out. -- Although, I think using different layouts on the same keyboard is very confusing.
I went through the similar journey with Moonlander. Took me about 3/4 months to be comfortable, with tweaking the layout quite a few times.
I did have some struggling with normal layout after. It sounds silly but after typing almost everyday on monkeytype.com, things (wpm, accuracy, etc) are stable for me.
The learning process is pretty normal, other than that you have a vague idea of where keys are if you're already touch typer, which is to say it's incredibly frustrating... until it's not.
How long it takes probably depends on the person but I'd say if you actually force yourself to use it you'd probably feel comfortable on it in less than a month. To me it wasn't really much of a choice. It was one of many changes I had to make to help deal with RSI.
A lot of people use standard keyboards their entire life without issue. If you're not experiencing issues with a standard keyboard, why make things harder on yourself than necessary?
I went all in. No laptop, no other keyboards. From now on, your only computing devices are desktop computers or two-in-one convertibles (microsoft surface pro). My coworkers don't touch my keyboard, I don't touch their dirty keyboard.
It's a bit easier if you're already typing on a non standard layout, like dvorak, which was my case.
It took me about one week to me productive on an ErgoDox and another week to surpass my original typing speed and accuracy. I created my own layout instead of using the default, based on what was easiest for me to reach and the most common symbols I used.
After a few weeks I could look away from the screen to have a conversation with a coworker while still typing at full speed and accuracy.
For an easier learning curve, consider a regular 75% layout split in two. The only keyboard I know of that uses this is Mistel Barocco MD770, which I’ve been using for two years. I’ve swapped the keycaps to DSA ones.
How long it takes to fully and comfortably switch, including all the punctuation characters? Did you also struggle with other keyboards?