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Ask HN: Best keyboard layout for programming?

5 points by Philomath ↗ HN
I'm interested in knowing your opinions and also what keys you modify in case you do (a lot of Vim users change things). I personally use the Spanish Standard and I can assure the position of some important keys is so bad, so I'm thinking of moving to the US standard. Thoughts?

12 comments

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hacalox
IMO US standard. Also UK standard as it's the same US layout but with one more key that it might help you in case you want to modify or duplicate one key like "esc". If you don't want to modify any key it might be better getting a US keyboard as its left shift is bigger and easier to press than the english one.
informatimago
Definitely.

You see, the problem is that programming languages are designed on US-QWERTY keyboard, therefore the choice of syntactic special characters is made according to the characters easily available on a US-QWERTY keyboard.

Indeed, you will never see a programming language where §, ¡ or ¿, are meaningful characters. (Actually, and this is a confirmation, there is one language where you had characters such as ∂§¶⨍, it was MPW scripts, (Macintosh Programmer's Workshop scripting language), because those characters were easily available (using the option modifier) on a Macintosh keyboard).

Therefore, until you invent a Spanish programming language using characters easily accessible on a Spanish keyboard layout, it will be easier as a programmer, to use a US-QWERTY keyboard layout.

Philomath
You are totally right. Thank you for the feedback!
tmaly
I have stuck with the US-Qwerty because you are most likely to encounter it where ever you have to work on a computer.

As to the type of keyboard, I have an ergonomic one that lets me work for longer periods of time.

madamelic
You should use whichever lets you work easiest.

I have a few keybindings on my keyboard because it makes my life easier but others have different keybindings.

I use a Poker2 or Poker3 and I make the Win key Fn and I switch Capslock and F12 and my terminal is pulled up with F12 (meaning I can hit Capslock to get my terminal)

hnjake
How do you find the Poker2? I have one and tried it for 6 months. But I always felt cramped, hard to explain. Might be because it is brown switches, where I use blues for all my other keyboards.
madamelic
Hah, mine is Cherry Browns as well.

I enjoy it. I used a $10 Wal-mart one before this one and I haven't tried any others.

I enjoy it because it is small and light. I used to take mine to work until my work bought one for me.

I bought it mostly for the size. I never really used the number bad, dedicated arrows were pointless to me. Basically the only thing I ever really use is numbers, symbols and letters so a small keyboard works for me.

cprogrammer1994
Disabling capslock is the best I've done to my keyboard.
akulbe
I disable CapsLock by remapping it to Ctrl. Makes for a better workflow when working with tmux.
mod
I've remapped CL as well but I can't remember to use it. It's been a couple of years now.
probinso
ApL keyboard makes it easier to apl