Check out tarmak.  It was specifically designed to ease the transition.

That said, if you literally can't afford any sort of speed hit (which is what you're making it sound like), you won't be able to switch layouts.  You can't realistically expect to be up to speed right away.  Most of the time, people only need to type ~40wpm to work and start benefiting from ergonomic gains after that, but if you're an exception, well, that's the end of it.

Regardless of layout, you should consider an AltGr mod; those could be very useful for programmers who have to use a lot of symbols.  You could also see if you can't make shorter aliases for "ls", "pwd", "cd"; no reason to type them out if you don't have to.

That's still touch-typing; you don't have to hit every key with the exact same fingers as whoever came up with the standard.  It's stuff like what Sean Wrona does (sort of floating around while strictly using the closest fingers at the time) that's probably no longer touch-typing.

And yet android keyboards with a much smaller userbase somehow have well-acclaimed autocorrect for multiple layouts (c.f. swiftkey).  Had they wanted to, Apple could've had plenty of data from its dvorak users by now.  The real reason is probably nothing more than Apple, as usual, following their philosophy of "we know best and you can either have our way or the highway".

In either case, typewriter-style keyboards don't really make sense on touchscreens; see this thread.  Thus, there's no serious loss in lacking colemak/dvorak.  It's more the messagease-type keyboards that lead to actual improvements - so much so, that they don't even really require autocorrect!

No pain, no gain.

Totally understand the wall you felt you were up against.   Perhaps you learnt to touch type gradually, so can't remember the keyboard being a barrier to text entry.  I think the keyboard is a huge barrier for text input for millions of people.  It's a huge problem.  Social networking posts, and page comments - suffer as such, and that all results in a huge dumbing down of the general populous.

Not being able to freely express yourself is a horrible feeling.

As @Tony_VN said though, most of us are up against it to begin with when learning an alternative layout - or going against the flow - it isn't a nice feeling, but it's normal - and you can ride on past it, given the time and energy.  That's why it's suggested that you choose a holiday - or time where you have a break from work to learn.

If  you don't have current issues and are not thinking about what your hands are doing and have a great WPM (around 80); then I'd be happy with that.  It's probably best not to rock the boat.

You didn't say why you wanted to use Colemak in the first place.

Actually, I kind of sympathize with the OP because the dumbing down definitely has a bigger role than people normally assume. I also think that a lot of us have this irrational fear of losing a well-trained skill that is not easily dismissed by saying that the alternate skill is superior to it, but requires unlearning the first one..

Besides, if you're not strictly touch typing, namely using all 10 fingers as they were meant to be used, then analysis of the usage of fingers and hand strain as a result make no sense at all.

Here's my take on the whole "alternate layouts" issue: http://harishankar.org/blog/entry.php/a … t-business

I am not dismissing outright the benefits of colemak or other layouts superior to qwerty. Just that, for non-touch typists, the benefits might not be as great because the principle of alternate keyboard layouts is based on minimizing the strain of touch-typing.

lalop you're probably right at one level, but then I think the incentive to learn alternate keyboard layout is decreased if you don't have a problem typing in qwerty and use some improvised technique that reduces the strain in the fingers and hand. That was the main point of my post. I think we disagree mainly on the "number of people" who touch type on computers. I don't have any stats myself, so I won't press the point.

Also psychologically, we fear losing skills that have been honed over years, or maybe even decades. And clearly the experience of many of the users here indicate that qwerty typing speed would be lost if one started using colemak or another layout regularly. The similarities seem to add to the confusion.

I replied to the blogpost to try to avoid "jumping discussions" - those are always hard to keep track of ;)

(Incidentally, is it just me, or does my first [ quote ] never seem to be rendered correctly?)

I asked why the OP was wanting to dabble with Colemak in the first place.  To no answer.

Without surveying people to grab their motives I'll dare suggest that those that eek out alternative layouts are:  the optimisers, the injured (Qwerty/typing casualties), the alternatives (those that like to be different), new touch typists and perhaps; the inquiring minds.

I'm always curious to find out why a proficient typist that has no typing issues and problems would be looking at alternatives.