The whole 'ls' debate is a bit silly. I think the change is just difficult, if you have typed 'ls' a g'zillion times in the shell. It's one of those rare times when typing feels good under qwerty!
Think though about the hyphen's placement, it is on the home row with Dvorak not a million miles away as with Colemak or Qwerty. So surely that's got to make up for any disadvantage caused? How about an alias of 'dir' instead!
There is some good reason for the l's placement. I really love typing should, could, and would. A lot of words with the l involve a rocking motion on the right hand, right pinky, left hand, right index, left hand. There certainly feels like some logic to it. Take the word 'logic' for example. There is a niceness about it. Vowels are on the left hand with Dvorak.
I don't think it's a Dvorak error placing the l where it is, I think there is some design there, perhaps the master stroke?
I blame any abuse done to the pinky down to the added responsibilities bestowed upon it. Think backspace, enter and all the other punctuation. These add up to an added pressure on the poor fellow.
Why this strange non symmetry on the keyboard anyway? Some punctuation has an upgrade under Dvorak to the top row on the left hand: '",.<>. I'm not sure if the question mark get's a better placement with Dvorak - that's probably arguable. I can't remember the original placement for these keys on typewriters - however there are no doubt less keys.
As for Dvorak being radically different to Qwerty, it kind of is, and it kind of isn't. If the e and the a was to jump sides it would be a little like a reflected Dvorak, but if my typing is anything to go by, then the left would end up doing more work than the right, which is a little odd for right handed people.
Perhaps the punctuation with Qwerty doesn't feel so bad as the right hand precisely because the right hand gets cut a lot of slack. Perhaps the right hand feels underused with Qwerty now we aren't using mechanical typewriters - you'd need some force to hit the carriage return, I doubt the pinky would have been nominated for that, as it would just roll over and die.
The 'l' key feels odd to a Qwerty user (and I'm just guessing here), because they simply aren't used to using the pinky! I'd never used it to type at all, I don't think before I learnt how to touch type. Some people's pinky's are just plain pathetic, I've seen some really small and short pinkies. Having said that I've seen people type pretty quickly even with their lame extremities.
I personally wonder if the pinky pressure causes some upper body discomfort, in a strange an subtle way. If that is true then placing any keys on the pinky is bad design.
Last edited by pinkyache (22-Oct-2011 14:49:49)
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Physicians deafen our ears with the Honorificabilitudinitatibus of their heavenly Panacaea, their sovereign Guiacum.
