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I've used a US-QWERTY keyboard layout my entire life. I've seen other layouts that do things like reduce the size of the enter/backspace keys, move the pipe operator (|) and can't wrap my head around how I would code on those.
What are your experiences? Are there any layouts that you prefer for coding over US English? Are there any symbols that you have a hard time reaching ($ for example)?
I began programming java climate model with UK keyboard. When I moved to the continent, switched to swiss then belgian keyboard to better type emails/docs in french, but it was so tedious for code brackets {[()]} and some other punctuation, eventually switched back. Recently converted whole codebase to Scala 3 (here's the model), now can drop most of those brackets. I speculate whether one motivation for creating scala3 (made in in Lausanne) was swiss/french keyboards.
Started on US, now using DE for decades. But able to still use us. Slash position is a plus there.
But Swiss, that's the stuff of nightmares! Oh and mac while usable unnecessarily sucks too imo.
But Swiss, that’s the stuff of nightmares!
Ha, that sounds funny (in a morbid kind of way...). What's so bad about it?
I do! ISO-ES the only real annoyance is that / is locked behind Ctrl+7 instead of next to the spacebar. My laptop is also in ANSI despite me using ISO so I'm missing a couple of keys
If I have to work on an American QUERTY keyboard, I have to look for each and every special character. Because our QWERTZ-keyboard has them in other places to make space for all the interesting characters an American keyboard simply fails to offer.
I'm columnar-ortho now, but for standard it's ISO or bust. You can keep your shitty enter key and your overly long shift key
As a German I have to admit that the ANSI US layout is the one American standard that's superior to the European ones. That said, I still need some Umlaute and accented letters from time to time, which is why I use the EurKEY layout, which adds all of those keys back and many morek, most of them accessible without having to use a dead key.
On a Mac you can just type regular ANSI vowels and umlauts are added automatically. There must be some way to get that working on other platfroms?
Yes, I've been on Norwegian Dvorak since 2002 or so.
Biggest problem I've had is with keyboards and OS'es (cough 🍎) that don't support the Insert key, because (a) I cut my teeth on the DOS editor and (b) XCV are all over the place on this layout.
I will always use a proper full size keyboard if at all possible. Those 60% and whatnot are not for me (it's bad enough when they move the arrow keys).
Oh, and the languages insisting on ${} characters are a pain on any non US layout.
Switch to Colemak and that XCV goodness is right where it needs to be.
Never had a nicer typing experience, thanks to DreymaR introducing me to DHm-angle-wide-mod. Colemak FTW!
🐑
ABNT2 here, this layout is necessary due to many brazilian portuguese words containing accents. Plus, having ç as a separate key is great. For coding, the \ | key is left to Z and the : ; key is near the right shift, with brackets and curly braces usually around Enter, while ' " is left to 1. It's very good for programming, I'd say.
The British want a stupid as fuck they moved the tilde into a weird spot and you're basically can't do it
My os is running with a slightly modified us qwerty, which then is mapped through keyboard firmware to a modified us dvorak.
I use the International keyboard because it allows me to type a lot of symbols, but US also serves me fine
Edit: to program, I use the US layout.
I'm using the Czech keyboard, I've put in the time to learn where the various symbols are because I didn't really want to switch constantly between CZ and US like most programmers do. When I write something like těžiště I prefer it not to look like t26i3t2, then delete it, switch keyboards and write it again.
Regarding the various types (like long/short enter, pipe symbol position etc.) I don't have a particular preference, when I switch laptops, I make mistakes for a while, then get used to it
I'm using a Dygma Raise split keyboard with Dvorak as my main layer. The thumb clusters are great for putting difficult to reach keys in more comfortable positions. Second layer has NumPad, Directionals and Functions. Still trying to decide how to make the best use of my other layers.
I'm using Finnish keyboard layout (same as Swedish basically).
I like how AltGr+7/8/9/0 gives me { [ ] }, it's a very nice grouping. The key next to Z is < > and you get | with AltGr, which is very handy.
Only thing that's mildy annoying from programming viewpoint is that for tilde and backtick, the keys do diacritics - you need to press the diacritic key and space. Backtick is especially fun, because it's shift+acute, space. Meanwhile, the key next to 1 does § ½, which aren't that handy most of the time. I often just stick backtick on that key if I'm particularly assed to customise keyboard keyouts. Similarly, shift+4 is ¤, which is another not a particularly useful character (but I don't mind that, because £ $ € all need to be produced with AltGr, which is at least consistent).
Using the JIS layout. One thing I miss from ANSI is the single and double quotes on my right pinky.(on the same key) Other than that, JIS is a nice layout to do programing with.
I can't even wrap my mind around people who use 60% keyboards and use a bunch of extra function keys let alone anything more drastic
I'm using a sligntly modified Niro layou (in a way that makes it more ergonomic with vim). Though I might need to adjust it since lately I began feeling disproportionate strain on my right ring finger.
