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)?
Never used a US keyboard in my life. Why would you think US keyboard is the norm?
Always used it. You have instant semicolon instead of Ä, which you don’t use when coding, and brackets and curlies are a breeze, the comfort is well worth it
I am German and I use the German keyboard layout…
I use the German Layout Neo which has especially nice layers for programming https://neo-layout.org/
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?
How does that work? Umlauts can totally change the meaning of a word.
Konnte - was able, könnte - could, musste - had to, müsste - should, hatte - have had, hätte - would have.
A lot of us don’t live in the US to begin with, so I assume a significant portion of us just use whatever the local standard is. That’s where I’ve been at so far, the Brazilian layout is a QWERTY variant so not that different. It does make some things more awkward, but you get used to what you have to work with.
Brackets and curly braces are less convenient off the top of my head, backticks too. Vim is a tad less ergonomic without some extra fiddling, for instance. In fact, I’ve been considering getting a US keyboard for coding to make that kinda thing less of an issue, US international makes accents and whatnot accessible enough that I think I could make it work.
If you’re cheap like me, just change the keyboard layout on the software side and instead of looking at the now incorrect key caps, look at the American keyboard layout image on Wikipedia instead. It doesn’t take long to relearn the few differences. And the parentheses are more ergonomic on the us keyboard layout IMO.
Edit: compared to the German layout. Brazilian looks ergonomic enough for programming without having to switch.
I use a variant of the Neo-Layout called Bone. It’s an ergonomic layout optimized for German and English text. The base layer is already different (see the linked page), but I also really like it for programming, since there’s an entire layer with easily accessible symbols:
I should try that out. I’ve been using DVORAK for a while but have been thinking of switching to NEO
Oh, yeah you should. I mean I’d advice against it, but since you already know the pain of switching layouts… sure, go ahead! :D
I prefer Bone over Neo, Neo has quite broad software support though. I’m using Bone on Linux and macOS without any issues.
Could you please give a few insights into why bone over neo? I’ve used neo now for a few years, curious if it would be a fun extension to switch again!
(dead thread I know, but whatever)
It’s very similar, more like an evolution from Neo than a revolution. They switched a few keys and if you’re starting fresh I think I’d recommend Bone, but if you already know Neo I’m not sure switching is worth it. It could be fun though (if you consider learning a new layout fun ^^).
Especially because the thread was dead your answer is highly appreciated!
Appreciate it <3
I use Colemak where most punctuation is at the same place as in the US English layout, which programming languages seem to be optimized toward. For the layout I prefer ISO for the larger Enter key.
I use UK-Layout, with some remappings for my precious umlauts
q+altgr ->ü
a+altgr -> ä
s+altgr -> ß
z+algr -> öbonus: in contrast to the peasentry I have an uppercase ẞ (altgr+shift+s)
