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Programming on 34 Keys

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Re: Programming on 34 Keys

#21

Post by jweather »

immigrantheart wrote: post #4

Do you retain standard qwerty staggered layout muscle memory? I heard using colemak and stagger column makes your muscle memory confused because it is similar with staggered row qwerty.

I've typed Dvorak for years on staggered rows, and retained my ability to switch back to Qwerty at ~70% of the speed. I just switched to staggered column 58-key Dvorak though, and I have noticed it takes me a minute to go back to staggered row on my laptop keyboard in either layout. I think it has more to do with the key positions than the layout.

Re: Programming on 34 Keys

#22

Post by 100011_100001 »

I have to share my story, because I read the comments here and the post and I fell into a similar trap about a year ago.

It all sounds good. Compact keyboard has always appealed to me, so did ergonomics, I bought a split keyboard (36 keys) with Miryoku layout and went to town. I lasted about 1 month and quit.

What happens is the amount of keys you have to type concurrently increases forcing your fingers in weird positions.

For example, typing the following 48 characters

   if (needle in [a, b, c]) {
      println('found it')
   }
In a standard keyboard you have to press 53 key presses (parenthesis is Shift+9 so that's two keys for a single parenthesis etc)

In a Miroyoku layout it's 59 key presses. This might not sound like a lot but it's a ~10% increase.

It also doesn't account for a very big problem, arrow key navigation for non VIM users. Since pressing the arrow keys requires two button presses in smaller keyboards, and done repetitively it's a huge slow down in navigating text. Now there are solution to this, most IDEs can support VIM keybinds, or have their own hot keys to skip words etc. To me the arrow key navigation is what got to me long term and I opt4ed out of it.

Re: Programming on 34 Keys

#23

Post by kitsunesoba »

For my usage I’ve found the happy spot to be somewhere in the realm of HHKB/Tsangan/60%. 65% can be OK too assuming it’s using the HHKB Backspace placement (where the pipe key is on typical ANSI boards) and Control is in the Caps Lock position.

The F-keys just don’t get enough usage to justify dedicated keys, and while dedicated arrows aren’t bad the reduced hand movement of layered arrows with the HHKB layout is nice. Numpads are useful occasionally but not often enough that I want one permanently integrated into my keyboard eating up desk space and being unmovable, so I have a standalone numpad that sits to the left of my keyboard when it’s needed so I can mouse around and use the numpad at the same time.

These layouts are also similar enough to typical laptop keyboard layouts that I can still use those without much trouble, so I don’t need to tote around a keyboard.

Re: Programming on 34 Keys

#24

Post by chrisBob »

100011_100001 wrote: post #22

I have to share my story, because I read the comments here and the post and I fell into a similar trap about a year ago. It all sounds good. Compact keyboard has always appealed to me, so did ergonomics, I bought a split keyboard (36 keys) with Miryoku layout and went to town. I lasted about 1 month and quit. What happens is the amount of keys you have to type concurrently increases forcing your fingers in weird posi…

It is interesting that you think arrow keys are a likely blocker. I have a Kinesis Freestyle Pro and my favorite feature is having the arrow keys on the second layer as vim style HJKL. I also have backspace, esc and del on the second layer with the right half of the space bar as the layer shift key. Moving these common keys made a huge difference to me, and was an easy transition since I exercise them so much.

The reason I couldn't move to a much smaller keyboard is that the less common keys that I use a few times a day like `{}\? feel like they would be so much harder to retrain. Similarly I am only passable at touch typing my number row, and I don't think I could survive without the labels for the symbols that are usually over the numbers.

Re: Programming on 34 Keys

#25

Post by guidoism »

100011_100001 wrote: post #22

I have to share my story, because I read the comments here and the post and I fell into a similar trap about a year ago. It all sounds good. Compact keyboard has always appealed to me, so did ergonomics, I bought a split keyboard (36 keys) with Miryoku layout and went to town. I lasted about 1 month and quit. What happens is the amount of keys you have to type concurrently increases forcing your fingers in weird posi…

I'm at 48 keys right now, but I would like to counter that it's not just key presses you should care about, but also movement of the hands. My setup definitely isn't perfect but your example is exactly the kind of key sequence I have optimized for. Having parenthesis and the various brackets on the home row or very close is super awesome for programming.

Honestly, you don't need to go down to so few keys, just program your keyboard to have one more layer that puts those special characters into a better place for you and I think you'll get 90% of the benefit of the OP's keyboard.

Re: Programming on 34 Keys

#26

Post by rgoulter »

donio wrote: post #16

Overloading Space, Tab and Enter to be used as a modifier when held means that you can't get auto-repeat on these keys and they are activated on-release instead of on-press, correct?

I get auto-repeat on space by doing tap-then-hold of the key. Apparently not for tab/return. - I presume the behaviour is configurable if that's something that suits you.

Re: Programming on 34 Keys

#27

Post by ZeroGravitas »

guidoism wrote: post #25
100011_100001 wrote: post #22

I have to share my story, because I read the comments here and the post and I fell into a similar trap about a year ago. It all sounds good. Compact keyboard has always appealed to me, so did ergonomics, I bought a split keyboard (36 keys) with Miryoku layout and went to town. I lasted about 1 month and quit. What happens is the amount of keys you have to type concurrently increases forcing your fingers in weird posi…

I'm at 48 keys right now, but I would like to counter that it's not just key presses you should care about, but also movement of the hands. My setup definitely isn't perfect but your example is exactly the kind of key sequence I have optimized for. Having parenthesis and the various brackets on the home row or very close is super awesome for programming. Honestly, you don't need to go down to so few keys, just progra…

What actually tipped me over to doing this 'layers' thing, was exactly these keys being in different places on different keyboards.

Having (){}[]-+ in the same place and easily touch-typable was much better than having them in different places depending on what I was typing on (dvorak already has , ' and " period and comma in a sensible place).

Re: Programming on 34 Keys

#29

Post by insane_dreamer »

I've found using Dvorak on a standard keyboard (until split keyboards became available) is quite efficient -- haven't found the need to switch to anything smaller. Back in the day built a mechanical foot pedal that would activate the control key for programs that required a lot of Control-key combinations (like WordStar), but fell out of use over time. Been using this setup for 35 years now.

Re: Programming on 34 Keys

#30

Post by chaorace »

donio wrote: post #16

Overloading Space, Tab and Enter to be used as a modifier when held means that you can't get auto-repeat on these keys and they are activated on-release instead of on-press, correct?

QMK firmware has a handy feature for this called Tapping Force Hold[1]. If you hold the key normally, it modifies the layout, but if you tap it once (or more) and then hold, you'll get the normal repeating behavior.

Example A:

Hold Backspace => Activates layer overlay

Example B:

Tap Backspace => Input backspace

Hold Backspace => Input held backspace => OS handles repeating as configured

[1]: https://docs.qmk.fm/#/tap_hold?id=tapping-force-hold

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