When comparing Carpalx QGMLWY vs Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, the Slant community recommends Dvorak Simplified Keyboard for most people. In the question“What are the best keyboard layouts for programming?” Dvorak Simplified Keyboard is ranked 6th while Carpalx QGMLWY is ranked 15th. The most important reason people chose Dvorak Simplified Keyboard is:
Designed with comfort in mind.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Easier to learn than QGMLWB
Keeps the ZXCV key in the same place as the very common QWERTY keyboard layout. More familiar than even than QGMLWB.
Pro The layout is basically good for most Latin languages
As vowels and consonants are mostly divided between 2 hands and most words in Latin languages are made of 2-letter (consonant+vowel) syllables, the layout keeps it efficiency not only in English, for which it was primarily created, but in other languages too.
Pro It takes much less effort to type than classical layout
The layout effectively combines not only changing hands methods, and rolling fingers as well, that makes typing a real pleasure.
Pro About the same score on the carplax test as the QGMLWB variant
See the source here.
Pro More ergonomic
Designed with comfort in mind.
Pro Standard on all operating systems
You can find this layout on all operating systems.
Pro Opportunity to learn proper touch typing
Most people passively learn and use QWERTY-based layouts before switching to Dvorak. The switch gives them an opportunity to completely relearn 10-finger typing, which is where a significant portion of the speedup comes from. Coupled with more ergonomic key placement, this makes for a more enjoyable typing experience.
Pro Useful keys in home row
70% of more useful keys are placed in the home row.
Pro You can reuse qwerty layout
Since letters and symbols only change place, but not key, you can change the keys on your keyboard and get a full comfortable Dvorak layout, without having to buy a new keyboard.
Pro Vowels all on one hand making it easy to teach to kids
Cons
Con Very unpopular
Even rich on keyboard layouts variety Linux distros like Deepin, offering most of existing layouts, doesn't have this one. The situation on Android is not better, moreover if somebody get used to Swift-like keyboards, that do not have this layout, that person will be forced to have a second (e.g. qwerty) layout in mind.
Con Not always worth trying
The layout is great only if somebody uses it daily and a lot, like journalists, bloggers, writers do. In this case inconvenience to install the layout is worth use it. If you primarily use your phone/tablet to write some comments in Internet and other tiny writing tasks having such an unpopular layout on just your PC/laptop could be not justified.
Con Inconvenient for common key-shortcuts
Key bindings common to most applications, such as Ctrl+Z/C/V, can't be done on the left hand while mousing with the right. Shortcuts for other applications are out of the QWERTY positions they were designed for and aren't so convenient to access.
Con The U is directly under your finger while the I is far away
I
is used more--by about 2.5 times. In fact, U
is the least used vowel after Y
. The consonants TNSHRDLC
all appear more often. So why is U
directly under your finger? And why should you have to stretch for I
?
Con F is too hard to reach
F
is not an especially common letter, but it's used much more than the rare letters JQZ
. Why is it on one of the most difficult spots on the keyboard? It's also used in OF
, one of the more common bigrams, ranked at #13. Maybe some other languages use Z
more than English, but why is F
harder to reach than Q
?
Con L is too hard to reach
L
is not a rare letter. It's used even more than U
is in English. Why put it in a difficult spot for use with the weak pinky finger?
Con Not the standard keyboard layout
It will be difficult to frequently switch between computers.
Con The "ls" command is uncomfortable to type
This is a very common command programmers have to type often when working with the shell. It's pretty awkward in Dvorak, especially when you add common options. Try typing "ls ‐latr", and see how that feels.
Con Difficult for occasional moments when you have only one hand free
Hand-alternation is good for touch-typing with both hands, but problematic (a lot of horizontal movement) when typing with one. Can be avoided by temporarily switching to another layout.
Con Not easy on the right pinky finger
Most useful symbols for programming are on the right pinky finger, which is not very comfortable.
Con Doesn't account for finger length
The keyboard layout doesn't account for E being easier to press than C for example on a QWERTY layout, this can be seen for example using the workman key cap scores done here.
Con Not actually faster than QWERTY
Maybe it's more ergonomic, but that's debatable. You'll certainly get more benefit from an ergonomic keyboard than a change in layout. Dvorak's reputation for speed is due to a typo in the initial press report, and a biased (and since discredited) study run by Dvorak himself. Dvorak is all hype and no substance.