That is very true with some of the issues I mentioned, I did think about them not being
present on something besides the standard keyboard, something actually shaped well.

Pinkies are short but on a standard keyboard with a bad shape I actually think they're
fairly good at hitting the upper row, actually better then the longer index finger.

Might just be years of typing dvorak training my right hand pinky to hit that upper row L key.

And years of spamming ice lance bound to the colemak/qwerty Q in world of warcraft,
that has trained me to use my pinkies well. lol

typing dvorak comes so easy to me that after years of using it I might be blind to some
of its defientcies since I can still type the hard parts of it without thinking.

In the end, I don't like too much same hand, I can't even think of a word typing in dvorak
that types four characters or more in a row on the same hand, and I like it that way.

optimizing more for hand alteration rather then diagraph (but not excluding it) as well as just
being a good layout with common keys on the home row has provided me with years of comfort while typing.

It seems to me that optimizing adjacent diagraphs on the same hand has less room for optimizing the total layout of all
the keys while used, then basing the optimization on alteration, on alteration you can ensure
that the total layout is more balanced, easy to use, and comfortable, rather than sacrificing layout parameters
in making sure keys are laid out in easy near adjacent (diagraphs?).

When I type dvorak while I'm pressing the first key, my fingers are already moving to the third key I'm going to press,
as my fingers are moving to the second key I'm going to press, and that just flows out nicely.

And I can't think of how diagraphs wouldn't but slow that down, since that is not possible as much typing (diagraphs?),
especially dual diagraphs on the same hand like 'st' 'ar'.

I need to look that word up.

Oo, an eth Drey! :D

"The bones"? I suggest you learn a little more about your hands before making these statements, hehe. What would make same-hand sequences difficult is tension arising from the inability to relax your muscles between strokes, which in the worst case may lead to tendonitis (CTS).

I don't mind the word 'start' at all, but 'starts' starts to be unpleasant as you've noticed. However, there will be awkward words in any layout so that in itself isn't really a compelling argument. Indeed, Dvorak has more hand alternation which lets you rest one hand as you use the other – however, the rolls of Colemak can be mighty when they work for you and on a great many words they do. The best would be a roll of 2–3 keys and then alternation, as lalop found.

Many on these forums got it all wrong about the word 'digraphs'. Correctly used, that term describes two letters making one sound like for instance 'th' in English (instead of using the monograph 'þ' or 'ð' for that sound like they still do in Iceland). What most people here seem to think it means, is a bigram – any conjunction of two glyphs. So bi- and trigrams is what we really ought to be talking about on these forums!

'Dia' means something that's against something. Since we all like typing here we have no 'diagraphs' I guess? ;) Or maybe that's a good name for the glyphs on the most awkwardly placed keys.

This is more a random observation I've only just noticed than an attempt to reignite the argument:

Even accepting that ranking, a comparison has to take into account what Dvorak in turn puts on those index spots, in this case g and f. 

Colemak:
Letter  Frequency  Period
     j      0.16%     630  [QWERTY Y position]
     l      4.07%      25  [QWERTY U position]
                         
 Total      4.23%      24

Dvorak:
Letter  Frequency  Period
     f      2.40%      42  [QWERTY Y position] 
     g      1.87%      53  [QWERTY U position]
                         
 Total      4.27%      23

Colemak actually seems an improvement in this respect, due to its avoidance of that even-harder-to-reach QWERTY-Y spot. 

(I'm going to b̶l̶a̶m̶e̶ attribute my not noticing this previously to lack of available data.)

It's funny to read this topic, since when I am starting to be a fluent Colemak user, "start" is the word I love to type. Your fingers start to dance with that word.

I start to feel sorry for the thread starter, since at starting to learn Colemak all difficulties are so enormous.

amen to that - changing layouts is ridiculously frustrating

i think you have to be a bit odd to see it through, the sort of person who might try and hold there breath for 5 minutes just to win a bet and end up in A&E with a heamotomal abdoma