I switched over to the Dvorak layout about 2 months ago and I'm getting pretty good with it, but still am not up to speed mostly because when trying to 'think' type I end up making alot of mistakes. I'll do really well with a little concentration on typing but as I focus on the thinking I tend to make what I'll call mistake streaks where I'll get the same letter wrong 3-5 times before getting it right.
My Qwerty fingers are completely gone and I find it a pain to use since I learned to touch type in the early 90s and now have to lift my hands and look at the keyboard all the time when using that layout on someone elses computer.
Keyboard shortcuts and punctuation have been my least favorite parts of the switch. I still get them wrong all the time and not having the shortcut keys on the left hand is a bit of a pain.
I'm going to stick with Dvorak in the hopes that I things get better as I move forward. I switched mostly as a preventative measure to avoid the RSI issues I see in this industry alot, but I can't yet recommend switching to others.
I switched just over a year ago - it didn't take me too long to get up to an acceptable speed (45wpm), but it's taken quite a lot longer to get up much higher than that. I'm currently between 60 and 70 wpm, and I still find I need to think about the typing to get up to that type of speed.
The 'mistake streaks' do get better as you go along though - I find that I just switch between thinking about what I'm typing and the keyboard layout when I make a mistake, which helps avoid repeated mistakes. The context switch is annoying though, ideally I'd like to do around 90wpm with 100% accuracy, which is why I've started practicing with a typing program again.
My Qwerty fingers are completely gone and I find it a pain to use since I learned to touch type in the early 90s and now have to lift my hands and look at the keyboard all the time when using that layout on someone elses computer.
Keyboard shortcuts and punctuation have been my least favorite parts of the switch. I still get them wrong all the time and not having the shortcut keys on the left hand is a bit of a pain.
I'm going to stick with Dvorak in the hopes that I things get better as I move forward. I switched mostly as a preventative measure to avoid the RSI issues I see in this industry alot, but I can't yet recommend switching to others.