Don't you mean ls? ps is rather easy on Dvorak. Almost like a reflex.
I never found any of those much of a problem when I was using Dvorak. There is pretty much a bit of same finger movement with Colemak as well when you look at certain words.
I don't know.. I'm tempted to go back to Dvorak when things keep acting up with Colemak. But I kinda like the placement of 'l' and the fact that all the shortcuts are so easy. I guess I need to give up easy, accurate and fast typing for that. :(
Can never have it all.

@knightjp, rather than 'ps' I meant the placement of the p!  Perhaps it should have been "p's" (damn apostrophes.)

@lalop, regarding html, at the end of the day having to shift for something is a bind (for me anyway).  I think (though it's hard to remember now) that it's marginally better than the bottom row placement.  I'm not really a fan of one handed chords (perhaps it's easier for you pianists).  I don't care for the one handed shortcuts.

Thinking about it, the obscure placement of the angle brackets probably hasn't helped anyone learn and write html.  For many they never will have a need so these character placements are moot.  If I was really bothered I'd probably be better swapping the number row for symbols.  The double quote doesn't move under UK Dvorak, so it's still crappy (SHIFT + 2).  But you can wrap your attributes in single quotes.

Perhaps the placement of , and . is a little too good.  Maybe the e should have stayed in it's qwerty spot.  I don't know.  I find the stagger difficult on the left hand side (and would even, with the mods).  That's why I'm not thrilled about the top row on the left hand, or the bottom row for that matter.  I find it a stupid physical bottle neck.

Now, I must confess that my reasons for staying on Dvorak are mainly personal. To me it is more or less just as good as Colemak, but I do like it for its punctuation, and the right hand keys. When the Co and Dv layouts come close to the same bottom row % like in the "Alice in Wonderland" example, where they are within less than a 1% point of each other- on Dvorak the majority of bottom row usage is all gonna be the right hand which I actually like, as when I am firing away on the right hand regardless of which row- I am going to be riding the momentum already created, resulting in a smoother right hand combo execution for me, since I am right handed and my right hand moves more deftly. This is important to keep in mind since as the Colemak bottom row is evenly displaced between both hands, the right hand in Dvorak is doing the majority of bottom row movement. For me even though the right hand is doing more work, it is still in a much much more ergonomic positioning than qwerty, so the comfort is still felt regardless of the slightly lopsided key displacement.
      Regardless, my advice is still to shoot for Colemak mastery, before attempting Dvorak. More times than not you are going to be more than satisfied with its layout and for new alt. layout users I recommend Co, and then after you've mastered it or whatever you can switch to Dv if you're bored with Qw and Co. In this year of 2013 there is no simpler choice, besides the fact that it is a hard choice to discover. I only recommend Dvorak if you are truly disdained with Qwerty and possibly even spiteful of it, which I think is gonna be rare as most people enjoy the hotkeys.

Before Dvorak I was typing Qwerty and trying to improve my speed. I was really disappointed with the difficulty of progress, and somehow stumbled upon Dvorak. Can't remember how, but after a couple days of deliberation, i switched my whole keyboard layout on my laptop. I then delayed any real practice for about a week until I got my Mavis beacon software. Since about ~9 days ago I haven't looked back. So honestly I've been practicing for about ~2 weeks really, first week was just being able to type up to 20WPM, only using the Dv layout for basic tasks because I forced myself. Now its about speed and accuracy as I am nearly ready to transition from 30wpm to 40wpm. I am considering switching to left thumb spacing to more evenly displace hand alternation, however right thumb spacing in Qwerty is more evenly displaced as the right hand does much less work in that layout, so maybe I will train my thumbs to be ambidextrous. And yes I am still going to maintain Qwerty layout just not as fast or important as Dvorak speed, but accuracy yes. As of now my Qwerty speed has dropped to ~15wpm from my original ~55wpm. But to hell with qwerty anyway! We can all agree on that together.
    Once again I must say that layout preference is personal, and it truly is a contest between trade offs. Which is awesome as there are now officially typing techniques. My aim is to become a blackbelt in Dvorak.

I'll admit, that the only reason I'm sticking with Dvorak is because I found it before Colemak. Starting yet another layout after getting the hang of this one 2 weeks in is just too much for me, it was hard enough committing to anything new in the first place, plus I am going to have to get my qwerty back up to speed. I only just found this forum after discovering Colemak shortly after getting the hang of Dvorak.

Search "better layout than qwerty" on google, and you will see that colemak isn't even on the first page. If my first encounter with alt layouts had Colemak listed along Dvorak, I probably would have had alot more to consider, but ultimately would have gone with Co. The irony is that most of these links promoting Dvorak have been inactive for years. What the hell! But I am young and flexible, it was fun changing layout, and I may do it again. My goal is to reach 90-100wpm, ultimately. Pretty lofty, as I am a very average joe, but if i plateau too fast in Dvorak, i will definitely move on. I am not tied to any profession or anything. I have all the time in the world, for now....

Finding Colemak before Dvorak is the real issue in switching. I had no idea there were so many layouts until after researching Dvorak more and more- then more alts came up. Capewell, Workman, and Colemak. Then my eyes were really opened. Now I'm just happy that I've taken the leap into alt layouts. Thats really the biggest and hardest part of switching. For me, once you switch once, switching again is easier.

I found Dvorak before Colemak too. I only switched before I was 100% with Dvorak is because I liked the way Colemak retained the shortcuts and added some more.

I'll admit that the only reason I'm trying to stick with Colemak right now is the shortcuts. But it gets so frustrating having used it for so long and I still can't type a single word properly without making a single mistake. I know where the letters are. Its there imprinted on my brain. Its just getting my fingers to follow suit that's the problem. My mind wants my index finger to move and its my pinky that does... SO FRUSTRATING..
I had the same problem with Dvorak but that was soon gone after a month of constant use. I don't see why after almost 3 - 4 months of constant Colemak, its not getting any easier.

If I were to guess, I'd venture that it's your layout hopping that got you. I was frustrated too when I switched from Dvorak to Colemak, but I felt it was the right thing to do for me and eventually when I had forgotten most of Dvorak it all started feeling natural again.

Eventually when the dust settles, you may find that Colemak makes your life in a QWERTY world easier. I don't mind so much having to use the odd QWERTY keyboard now, and I remember how much more alien they felt when I was using Dvorak. Not just shortcut-wise either.

Some people seem to be able to hold a bunch of layouts in their motor memory at the same time, and they claim to learn them much faster than I could. Others struggle to learn a layout in a year or more. What constitutes a long time depends a lot on who you are and where you are mentally.

Also, from my piano practicing days I know that if you let errors settle they're hard to uproot. Maybe you've gotten some bad habits while learning Colemak? Try to stop completely sometimes when you make an error, and feel within yourself why you might've made that error and if that particular error happens a lot. For me, most of my errors these days are transpositions in which I type letters in the wrong sequence. I shouldn't think that these errors are heavily layout-related but I don't know for sure. And I notice that my state of mind plays in a lot.

My advice would be to not cultivate your frustration. Play typing games if they appeal to you, or just use Amphetype or similar tools to type away. After typing through a couple of books I felt wonderful and reveled in a newfound typing flow!

Yeah, maybe strictly rhythmic, mindful typing could be a good exercise to break some bad habits? Amphetype's somewhat oddly named "viscosity" stat is a measure of how evenly you type so you could use that while practicing.

My altgr layout consistently ranks #1 when plugging in programs (no huge surprise there, really).

I̶m̶p̶o̶r̶t̶ ̶i̶t̶ (edit: use this one instead) into KLA's configurations tab, then try plugging in your code.

You can probably get it even better by optimizing it for your favorite languages.  Objective C is most definitely not one of mine.

For programming, the letter layout shouldn't matter a lot. AltGr/lv3-4 mappings like Lalop uses matter for bracket placement and other useful symbols, and to me the Extend mappings (see my sig topics) are very important when coding!

I advocate a modular approach to layouts: Letters, symbol keys, modifiers, mapping levels.

Update from above: Fixed some of the behavior of the comparision KLA layout (it was using the number row symbols rather than the AltGr ones, as well as vastly overestimating the AltGr distance) for even further improvements.

https://raw.github.com/lalopmak/keyboar … omparision

The tldr (as Dreymar hinted) is that modifier mappings (e.g AltGr, Shift) beat default mappings when it comes to special symbols*.  The latter have to contend with the usual keys as well.  So just pick the letter and special symbol layout separately.

*Not necessarily common symbols like comma, period.

Sure, for that code snippet (and likely for most code) Dvorak probably has an edge; as I've mentioned it pampers the period and comma beyond what normal text probably warrants for instance.

What I'm getting at is that as a coder that won't be the most important issue. Good hotkeys (and again I recommend an Extend layer!) and other tools will matter more whether you're on Dvorak or Colemak. The majority of key presses will be navigation and editing anyway.