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Many years ago I made a conscious decision to stop correcting typos and spelling mistakes in my casual semi-real-time communication. Basically chats, messaging, and social media. It was a conscious effort I made after years of being pedantic about my spelling.
Because I can type very fast correcting my spelling before sending would usually mean x3 the amount of time wasted on messaging. In fact I was so weird about it people would remark when id correct myself after the fact how they knew what iw as saying so it wasnt needed.
Since I made the choice I realize this was the smartest thing I could have done for one reason I didnt expect. I mean sure it saves me time in casual communications where formality isnt important. But it also filters out a very certain type of people, the kind who assume typos determine the value of your message. Like there are actually people who will say "he had typos/misspellings, therefore he must be the one is wrong"... its astounding but its common. I realized eliminating these people from my feed has left a much better quality crowd who are much more productive and enjoyable to interact with.
@freemo Something else you might consider is the Dvorak keyboard layout. I switched about a decade ago and haven't looked back. All the vowels in one place under your resting left hand. Letters that are commonly paired close together. It allows you to type blazingly fast without making mistakes.
Interesting corollary: Did you know the QWERTY layout was designed to *slow typists down* so their typewriters didn't jam?
@LouisIngenthron I have always really wanted to move to DVorak, and Irecognize the advantages. Though people have convinced me not to for several convincing reasons.
@freemo I love it. I consider the QWERTY->Dvorak upgrade to be similar to the upgrade from membrane to mechanical keyboards. At this point, I've been doing it so long that I can mentally switch between the two keyboard layouts at will (and I have a shortcut to do so since there are still a few programs that don't respect it).
One cool thing is that Windows allows you to further customize keyboard layouts, so I'm actually running my own custom variant of Dvorak, optimized for coding in my language of choice, that still uses QWERTY for shortcuts (so cut/copy/paste are where they always were).
If you do ever decide to make the leap, I highly recommend using a blank keyboard (I like the Das Keyboard 4 Ultimate myself). That way, you can apply cheap stickers with the dvorak layout to the top that act like training wheels. When you don't need them anymore, remove them and use the keyboard blank to (a) reinforce your memory and (b) not trip yourself up when switching between layouts.
I generally accept that Dvorak is objectively superior to QWERTy. The issues i have been told thathad encouraged me not to move is.
1) when working on a third-party computer you often cant change the keyboard (like at a library or a kiosk). Therefore you will get WORSE in these cases as you will have Dvorak muscle memory and continually hit keys as if it were the wrong layout
2) Most laptops wont come with Dvorak layout, so short of custom keyboards (which you likely wont get when traveling or working contract) so you wont get the physical keys labeled correctly most of the time.
3)there will be a prolonged period where you confuse the two layouts, so there will be a long period of time i will get worse before I get better.
@freemo #3 is absolutely true. It does take some time.
#1 is somewhat true, but if you toggle often enough, you learn to switch contexts mentally pretty quickly. I can still write in QWERTY maybe like 75% as fast as I can for Dvorak, and its pretty cool how even the muscle memory retains both tracks.
For #2, that only really matters while you're learning. Once you know the layout, you shouldn't be looking at the keyboard while you're typing anyway (hence why I recommend a blank one).
What I notice most about Dvorak, though, is that I never reach across the keyboard. With QWERTY, I'm constantly cross-typing, but in Dvorak, my hands barely move from the home row.
