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submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Whether you, like me, beleive that QAZWSX keyboards make far more sense, especially in a machine learning world, I think we all agree a layout designed to circumvent jamming typewriter keys doesn't make sense in modern society on modern devices.

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[-] [email protected] 50 points 2 months ago
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[-] [email protected] 34 points 2 months ago

It makes perfect sense, we've been using it forever, it's the standard, almost every person that's taken a typing class for the last 150ish years (in the English speaking world), has done so on a qwerty keyboard. Why bother changing something that just works?

[-] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

Just because you're used to something, doesn't make it good.

[-] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago

What evidence do you have that QWERTY is bad?

[-] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Honestly, it's a mere shower thought, so I didn't come prepared with notes and statistics in hand, what I will say is the amount of screen real estate is by far the worst issue.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Use something else, try coming back.

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[-] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

Sure, and we've tried a lot of alternative layouts over the decades.

None of them stuck around, by and large. Some have ultra-niche followings, sure. But overall, the latin-script world has stuck to (Q|A)WERT(Y|Z). For a reason!

[-] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

True. But the rule of thumb is that in order to replace an existing working solution, a new model needs to be at least ten times better in quantifiable ways. Otherwise it's worth staying with the established solution.

What's ten times better than qwerty?

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[-] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

People rode horses for millenia until someone built a car.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Because touch screens are very different from typewriters and having to precisely press tiny keys without making full use of their capabilities is extremely inefficient.

[-] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago

I have enough difficulty when a UI decides to use abc layout, no way would I want to learn a new keyboard layout. QWERTY it good enough

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[-] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago

QWERTY Keyboards on a touch screen are still the stupid!

I know what you are trying to say but the more times I read your post title, the more I feel like I'm having a stroke.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

a layout designed to circumvent jamming typewriter

Or are you have... the stroke?!

[-] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Now I'm having another one. I heard if I keep stroking I might go blind (ノ゜ー゜)ノ

[-] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

a layout designed to circumvent jamming typewriter keys

BTW, the supposed origin of the QWERTY layout is uncertain, and the story about it being based around avoiding adjacent bigrams has been called into question often enough (PDF, see pg. 169ff). You can see there plenty images of typewriters that had O next to U still (I was left of U), which if you think about bigrams makes no sense as especially back then it was one of by far the most common ones.
The supposed slowdown is also false as explained in the PDF, as early typewriters were used to receive morse-code, and could type at 60-80 words per minute while the best morse senders capped at ~30, meaning that no slowdown would have been perceivable anyways.

One proposed origin could be that the early still-not-quite-there developments were based on most people using 4-8 fingers to type not all 10, and alwys the inner fingers and discarding the outer ones.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

I seem to see a story I believed for years get debunked almost weekly now, thanks

[-] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

It's the layout I know by heart so switching to anything else would just be worse. No thank you.

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[-] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

I don't want to use a different keyboard layout every time I switch devices.

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[-] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

Hey OP, could you send some links about QAZWSX? I coulndt find anything

[-] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Same here, especially something with AI?

I'm currenly using Unexpected Keyboard with dvorak layout which works insanely well (especially for Termux and such)

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[-] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

everywhere I use 10 fingers to type, I use dvorak; but I still use qwerty on my phone.

I tried dvorak on my phone keyboard, but my thumbs kept bumping into each other. It was too annoying so I switched back.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Exactly the same here. Since I swipe type, I have to imagine that would be a nightmare on Dvorak with all the vowels clustered together.

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[-] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

What is a QAZWSX keyboard (couldn't figure it out by web search), and what does keyboard layout have to do with machine learning? I'm genuinely curious.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Just an alternative keyboard layout

I broke the concept down in more detail here https://lazysoci.al/comment/9715945

[-] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Thanks for replying. It sounds like you basically get two (or some number well below one keys per character) keys and the set of possible characters gets somehow distributed between the two "real" keys, then the keyboard uses a predictive algorithm based on previous input to guess which keys were meant to be pressed.

IMO I'd be willing to try out an implementation of such an idea so long as I could run the predictive algorithm locally on my phone. I do think that current autocorrect + predicting which keys were pressed would require a lot more training data than just a generic autocorrect to get it working sensibly, and I think it would take a lot longer to converge to the user's "style" if it ever does.

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[-] MrScottyTay 6 points 2 months ago

Qwerty is bad for physical keyboards, but it's actually pretty good for mobile especially for swipe typing. I use coleman-dh on an ergo split keyboard but i still use qwerty on my phone because it just works better.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

We live in a world whereby we're lucky enough to have options.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

you had me until machine learning. Nope

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I'm taking my pink hatted reindeer off the shelf!

[-] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

For most people its not worth switching

[-] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

What I found when I first learned about DVORAK and other layouts and why we use QWERTY, there were some studies that had shown that there wouldn't really be any significant increase in proficiency using different layouts, and the time needed to readjust to a new layout just isn't worth it.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I use Dvorak, but it has nothing to do with statistics for me. When I switched to Dvorak, it felt more comfortable on my hands. My typing speed is essentially the exact same, for example, and I don't think you could find a measurable difference depending on which I use. But qualitatively -- it feels more comfortable.

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[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

There is plenty of evidence qwerty is slower there are also plenty of alternatives that get minimal to no use cos well standards.

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this post was submitted on 15 May 2024
-42 points (24.4% liked)

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