troyfletcher/julymak

Julymak is a Colemak derivitive designed to undo Qwerty damage on a 40%

Julymak

Julymak is a Colemak derivative designed to undo Qwerty damage on a 40%

A personal modification of Colemak to bring it more in line with the 40% ergo layout, ease the transition, and apply what I've learned about ergonomics.

With only 5 changes from Colemak, Julymak design goals are:

1. Ease transition from qwerty.
2. Right hand focus to undo qwerty's damage.
3. Middle fingers are strongest and longest.

It is preliminarily based off a heatmap of prose from my personal history, used to push toward low impact swaps that progress the spec.

Personal notes

As a +20 year qwerty user, and vim and emacs user, the transition has been difficult, but rewarding. I'm almost 18 months in, and pain has been greatly reduced. I've only had 2 or 3 short flare-ups in that time vs 1-3 per year week-long sessions before. There's no way to argue around it; movement is always the enemy, and moving commonly used letters to the home row is objectively good. I'm not to my qwerty burst speed 130, but am closing in on my average speed 97 (bursted up to 97 once). Time is on my side as the alternatives are actively damaging, and I have at least 20 more years of typing in my future.

Useful English bigrams for "jk escape" replacement

• vn
• fp
• ,.