Switching to Dvorak

In the past 4 months or so, I have switched to the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard layout. This post documents the specifics of the journey.

Motivation*

*Added at Will’s request.

I never really learnt to touchtype properly. Thought this would be an interesting skill to have.
I was a little bored, and feeling a little crazy.
I wanted to be a l33t dvorakista. Work in progress.

To learn, I don’t think you can get any better than Dan Wood’s ABCD. It has been a joy to use!

It is lowtech, so you will need to gauge your own accuracy; for me this worked out better. What you type out is also fairly entertaining!
ABCD does not list finger positions visually, so google a guide accordingly.
ABCD — it rocks. This is the only guide I used during the learning phase.
For general Dvorak information, check out Marcus Brooks’ Dvorak Page, very useful.

Practice at home for about 2-3 weeks for 30 mins to an hour. It will take you at least that much time to complete an ABCD lesson at first!
After 3 weeks, use Dvorak exclusively at home, at the cost of feeling like a retard when chatting with friends. And crying each time I had to code.
After a month or so, switch to Dvorak at work. I am a programmer, so this was risky, I had to be confident enough to use it. Code completion was indispensable. Having a dev/team/architect lead who also uses Dvorak is likely even more indispensable. (Is “indispensable” subject to gradation? Also google “indispensIble” vs. “indispensAble”, what a mess.)
Around 2 to 2.5 months later, finally feel comfortable typing with Dvorak, though by no means fast. Around this time, reached 40-45wpm. Enough to stick to Dvorak!
Due to disuse, Qwerty muscle-memory began to fade!
3.5 months or so later, likely covering my previous qwerty speeds. Able to chat without being considered a keyboard noob.
Qwerty muscle-memory gone.

I found using sophisticated typing tutors, especially those with beeps very annoying. Visual cues are fine and useful, but beeps are frustrating and counterproductive IMO.
It will be painful at first, have no doubt about it.
It helped that I never learnt to formally touchtype, so this was a skill learnt from scratch.
Actually memorising the layout was extremely intuitive to me, all my attempts to learn qwerty touchtyping had failed in the past — it just made no sense. Dvorak actually has, for the most part, a logical system to the keyboard.
Shortcuts are one case where I have had to visually mind-map qwerty keys to Dvorak, so I do not have to move to the home keys just to execute a shortcut! It honestly is not that much effort though.
Passwords are another pain-point, you need to really let go and have your muscles do their thing, instead of relying on visual feedback too much — which you obviously don’t have when entering passwords.
Shell-foo: special characters and shell commands, some not being English words per se takes practice. I am still not as fast as I wish on the shell, unless I am in the zone.