I everyone - I'm da "new guy" here but, not new to ham radio - been a ham since 1974! Wow, I'm ancient!
Anyway, I would recommend the basic straight key for beginners since learning to send and receive really go hand in hand. Way back in the mid 60's, we had electronics class in high school and our instructor was a cool guy who offered a 1-semister class in Morse Code and the next semister was basic radio theory and practice. So, what else could we do? Most of us got our Novice licenses near the end of the class and some upgraded to General as soon as our code speed went up. (Got my novice license, good for just 1 year and never owned a station, never upgraded due to other 'distractions' (read: girls)....
Our teacher's method of learning the code was to start with the simple letters, E, T, A, N then D, U, B, V. See the pattern? All of them are mirror images of each other. We learned the 'opposite' symbols in Morse Code which eliminated a lot of the confusion from the start then once we could write the entire alphabet we started working on speed. It worked for me and CW has been like a second language. I would drive down the road and spell out road signs and billboards in Morse Code in my head or sound out the letters verbally which made recognition much easier. I had code tapes at one time but, found that about the 3rd time through them, I had memorized much of what was on there so they were not nearly as effective as a random generated program is.
We all learned on straight keys for sending and practiced good formation of the code, a dash 3 times longer than a dot with proper spacing between letters for the speed we were sending. There's a LOT of very sloppy code being sent on the air and some of it with 'bugs' that are poorly adjusted for he speed they're sending; long dashes and dots at 25-wpm just don't work well together.
The bottom line is practice, practice and more practice. Find a buddy and to send and receive with and it's always better to have someone better than you that can challenge your capabilities so you have to work at it. Morse Code is really a natural for me after all these years of using it. I was not using it for about a year once and my speed capability came down but after a few hours on the air, it came back fairly quickly. I don't care a lot for 30+ wpm since no one can write that fast. I like to operate around 17-18 wpm which is comfortable for me and when needed, I can write things down. Now when in a QSO, I pretty much write down what is important and copy the rest in my head.
Anything worth learning is always worth the effort put into it to learn. Some take longer than others. If you hate it, you won't learn it. If you enjoy it, you'll do well with it. I think it will be around for a long time since the hams are the only people still practicing CW on any regular basis any more....
My $.02 worth of wisdom....
Paul - K7IN
Key Gap-Tension 
Code Stuff 
Linear Mode
