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A Real Keyboard for Programmers?

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Re: A Real Keyboard for Programmers?

#41

Post by ChuckMcM »

bhauer wrote: post #8

I agree with what I take as the underlying premise of this blog entry: if you're going to call something a "keyboard for programmers" it would be nice if you made concerted effort to improve matters for programmers, moreso than just tactile ergonomics. However, I have mixed feelings with several of the author's specific points. 1. In general, I think a keyboard should retain all legacy keys, including Scroll Lock and…

We're all brown moties [1] Keyboards are fundamentally a personal preference, and perhaps like instruments are a function of both the 'action' (key movement) and the layout.

I abhor the location of capslock/control because when I was first learning to program I only used terminals where control was the key where caps lock is. When I was forced to used keyboards that had control down at the lower left I went from using EMACS to using vi because of the annoyance.

That said, folks can adapt and much of what you do is muscle memory anyway. On your brackets idea I actually like that brackets are matched both unshifted and shifted on my keyboard. so {} and [] are both easy to type. Since I rarely type ctrl-] or ctrl-[ having those keys map to ( and ) might be useful but I don't look at my keyboard when I type so I really can't say.

For me it is all about reliably hitting the key I mean to hit. If I can do that I can adapt to most things.

[1] See "The Mote in God's Eye" by Pournelle.

Re: A Real Keyboard for Programmers?

#42

Post by eliasmacpherson »

tjdetwiler wrote: post #11
bhauer wrote: post #8

I agree with what I take as the underlying premise of this blog entry: if you're going to call something a "keyboard for programmers" it would be nice if you made concerted effort to improve matters for programmers, moreso than just tactile ergonomics. However, I have mixed feelings with several of the author's specific points. 1. In general, I think a keyboard should retain all legacy keys, including Scroll Lock and…

My impression is that PS/2 is desirable mostly for NKRO

I don't think USB precludes NKRO, see this:

http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=17458.0

Re: A Real Keyboard for Programmers?

#43

Post by doktrin »

jasonkester wrote: post #13

Things I learned from reading this blog post: There are people who use their thumbs to press Alt (or cmd on a mac). That would never have occurred to me (either to do, or that anybody had ever done so). I imagine that explains why keyboard manufacturers are so happy to put garbage keys I don't care about right next to my Shift, Ctrl and Alt keys. Personally, my ideal keyboard would have those expanded and the windows…

> * There are people who use their thumbs to press Alt (or cmd on a mac). That would never have occurred to me (either to do, or that anybody had ever done so).*

What finger do you use for your left alt key? The thumb has always felt very natural to me, since the use of any other finger would require a significantly longer (and more awkward) travel distance, given the other 4 fingers are somewhere near the home row.

Re: A Real Keyboard for Programmers?

#44

Post by __mharrison__ »

I've blogged a bit about what I want in a keyboard [0]. What I'm currently missing is chorded keys for symbols. (ie having them on the home row with a modifier key). I think that would actually help programmers. The problem is is that my Python specific symbols layer is going go be less than optimal for a C/Java/... programmer.

0-http://hairysun.com/blog/2013/04/02/oh-ergonomic-keyboard/

Re: A Real Keyboard for Programmers?

#45

Post by jerf »

bhauer wrote: post #8

I agree with what I take as the underlying premise of this blog entry: if you're going to call something a "keyboard for programmers" it would be nice if you made concerted effort to improve matters for programmers, moreso than just tactile ergonomics. However, I have mixed feelings with several of the author's specific points. 1. In general, I think a keyboard should retain all legacy keys, including Scroll Lock and…

"Very much agree that Caps Lock should be diminished in importance.... Many of my colleagues and I simply disable the key outright."

Augh! Don't do that! Remap it to something useful! CTRL is popular, but I'm loving backspace, personally. It's a key that never comes up if you just count keys based on taking text file samples, but I for one like having it available where it does not rip my fingers off the home row. (Since I use Dvorak, the home row is actually meaningful to me, since it is useful, unlike the standard QWERTY homerow.) But I don't really care what you remap it to, just don't leave such valuable space sitting there!

Backspace (the original one) I remapped to switch active windows. I've really been eyeing that Tab key, too; it is not unused (many emacs programming modes use it as "reindent this line to the proper level"), but I've wondered if it couldn't be a bit more effective. Not sure what to reassign it to yet, though.

Re: A Real Keyboard for Programmers?

#46

Post by 9999 »

kylec wrote: post #27

It sounds like the author is describing the Happy Hacking keyboard: http://elitekeyboards.com/products.php?pid=pdkb400b Control where the caps lock key is, escape moved down, and elimination of all unnecessary (and some debatably necessary) keys. It actually looks very close in layout to the diagram in the article of the keyboard that vi was developed on.

I have an HHK Pro 2. The Topre keys are great, but they are considerably different than the Cherry MX keys that most mechanical keyboards use (and they're more expensive). The layout is absolutely fantastic. It led me to remap the control key to the capslock key on all of my laptops as well. If anyone is looking to buy an HHK, I would highly recommend buying it from amazon jp to avoid the high markup. Even if you use a third party shipper (like Tenso), you'll still save over the prices that elitekeyboards charges.

Re: A Real Keyboard for Programmers?

#47

Post by 1qaz2wsx3edc »

bhauer wrote: post #8

I agree with what I take as the underlying premise of this blog entry: if you're going to call something a "keyboard for programmers" it would be nice if you made concerted effort to improve matters for programmers, moreso than just tactile ergonomics. However, I have mixed feelings with several of the author's specific points. 1. In general, I think a keyboard should retain all legacy keys, including Scroll Lock and…

More on PS/2 vs USB speeds: http://superuser.com/questions/16893/do-usb-or-ps-2-keyboard...

Re: A Real Keyboard for Programmers?

#48

Post by SkyMarshal »

walls wrote: post #4

> And what is that “Print Screen” key doing there?! > Stupid keys like Page Up, Scroll Lock, and Insert are gone. Surely I'm not the only person regularly using the "page" and "print screen" buttons?

Print Screen is the Magic SysReq Key [1] on keyboards without an actual SysReq key, for *nix systems at least. Maybe the author has only ever programmed on Windows machines, but he's not describing any kind of Coder's keyboard I'd ever use.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reisub

Re: A Real Keyboard for Programmers?

#49

Post by RazerM »

chch wrote: post #14
RazerM wrote: post #9

What's wrong with caps lock? Only when using an editor is there an easy shortcut to capitalise multiple characters at a time. Typing a word in caps using the shift keys is uncomfortable due to alternating which hand presses shift.

As someone who uses left-shift nigh exclusively, does this mean you use different shifts for different letters? In general, for typing in ALL CAPS for me, I just rest my little finger on the shift key and then type as normal (at normal speed), but I've never had proper typing form. ;)

Yeah, I type 'properly' with every key belonging to a specific finger. I can only press a few keys belonging to my left index and middle finger while pressing shift, the others require an awkward hand position.

Re: A Real Keyboard for Programmers?

#50

Post by eliasmacpherson »

walls wrote: post #4

> And what is that “Print Screen” key doing there?! > Stupid keys like Page Up, Scroll Lock, and Insert are gone. Surely I'm not the only person regularly using the "page" and "print screen" buttons?

I use them everyday, to suggest the apple laptop keyboard is superior is blasphemous. It's an abomination before god.
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