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’m pretty sure most people outside the US do that
ANSI all the way. I get irrationally angry about any other layout 😡
If you don’t live is the US, it’s pretty common to not use a US keyboard!
Tried the maltron layout at one point. Nope.
It depends on what you’re used to and the programming languages you use. I learned typing on a German QWERTZ keyboard and while that works for languages like Python and Haskell, which are indentation-based, but for languages which use braces like Java, C, Rust, or similar, it can be annoying to have to use altgr+7 or altgr+0 for { and }. Thus I switched to a US ANSI layout, which was nicer for those specific characters, but caused problems when typing local characters like öäüß. After switching to Linux I set up a compose key, letting me press compose + a + " for ä for example, and while that’s a decent patch, that still breaks the typing flow. So now I’m in my ergo keyboard phase and trying to get my own personal layout going, which meets my own needs for needed characters, based on a colemak-dh design.
I use the FR-AZERTY layout. You honestly get used to the layout you have to work with.
Did you know about the New AZERTY ? I’ve been using it for a few years now and it’s definitely a great improvement, while remaining compatible enough with the standard one so you are not lost when you use a colleague’s setup.
I heard about it, but the issue I usually have with other layouts is that I find myself looking for “infrequent” symbols a lot. Maybe this one would be easier to get used to than other layouts such as Bépo since, as you said, it is relatively compatible with regular AZERTY.
The thing is, this layout moves symbols to places that are much easier to remember (~ is altgr+n, ç is altgr+c, $ is altgr+d, parenthesis/brackets are next to each other, etc…) I got used to it very quickly because the new placement makes sense, and the fact you only have to remember symbols and not alphanum chars helps a lot. Definitely worth trying IMO.
Swedish layout. Not ideal for coding (too many things like curly and square brackets etc are under altgr. And tilde and backtick are on dead keys.
But switching back and forth as soon as you need to write Swedish (for the letters åäö) is just too much work. And yes, in the Swedish alphabet they are separate letters, not aao with diacretics.
I have the same problem in German (ä, ö, ü and ß), and I’ve resigned to using US layout with caps lock mapped as compose key. But then again, I code more than I write texts
In polish we have ź and ż. For ż we use Alt gr + z, and for ź we use Alt gr + x. Same for other non-standard letters. The rest of the keyboard is a regular US layout.
So in Swedish you could use Alt gr + a and Alt gr + s for different variants of a.
Win + space to swap is so fast and simple especially when it also swaps for you when switching apps
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.
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.I use german layout because I’m from Austria
Oha.
I program with the italian layout and i’s fine, the only annoyances are that to use the slash you need to use shift, all while the backslash has a dedicated key; also you need to use alt codes to type a tilde.
Same. Forward slash always annoys me. It’s in the middle of the keyboard, so you have to either 1. make a very uncomfortable move with your right hand, or 2. make an uncomfortable move with your right hand, or 3. use both your hands, which sucks.
Luckily I’m using linux, so I have tilde and backtick (`) as AltGr+’ and AltGr+ì, which are pretty easy to type.
Just a thing for making it more sufferable; i remember that there was a program for linux called xkeycaps to edit keyboard layouts; so you could swap the backslash with the normal one. I used it so long ago that I’m not even sure if it still available and working though
Getting used to it is going to be a hell of a ride, but this is a wonderful thing.
Also using other pc is going to be even harder lol
the only annoyances are that to use the slash you need to use shift
Oof, that sounds really annoying. I can’t possibly imagine how I would use the terminal that way
After a while it becomes muscle memory; the good thing is that you can see if someone is a programmer/linux user because the key for the numer 7 is more worn out than most of the others
I believe most people in Europe use a localized ISO layout. I used ISO for most my life but in my personal opinion ANSI is way better for software development. I just don’t see myself ever going back to ISO.
I wish I was brave enough to try Colemak or Dvorak, tho!
I’m used to the ISO layout, so whenever I type on an ANSI keyboard I miss the enter key and hit the one above. It’s annoyingly hard to find laptops with ISO keyboards.
Yeah I forgot that they do this weird ANSI/ISO mix for laptops.
ISO for life.
You can keep your stupid tiny little enter key.
No way - the two enter keys are about the same size - yours is just rotated 90 degrees and further away. That’s not an improvement. Even worse though is the tiny left shift key - I can’t get used to that.
With an ANSI keyboard you can comfortably reach the enter and left shift without taking your other fingers off the home row. With ISO you have to move your arm which is particularly bad for the shift key since you might need to press other keys at the same time, but now your hand is in the wrong position.
hahaha, no.
On the ISO keyboards I’ve seen, the enter key has way more than double the surface area than ANSI, so it’s definitely not ‘just rotated 90 degrees’. Also these people probably grew up with ISO and struggle with ANSI, just like you probably grew up with ANSI and struggle with ISO.
The enter key I got used to on an ANSI keyboard I had for a while but what actually made the bigger difference was the
\\/|key being above the enter key at the far right end of the keyboard which is hard to reach with the pinky. Rather important key for being that hard to reach.This!
Oh good I hate that tiny little enter key.
quick AZERTY users this is the time to show we exist!
Well, after trying a US keyboard for coding I never went back to a french one. It’s so much easier…
I have read somewhere that france and belgium have a minor code deficit compared to eurooeab countys that use qwerty.
Looking it up its not hard to see why.
Interesting, but I’m skeptical. Couldn’t find anything that corroborates.
I understand your premise as a quality deficit, but really the issue I had was typing speed / convenience.
It’s more of a QOL thing. The final code is the same quality I think.
Also, we spend much our time reading and thinking about the code rather than writing it.
My laptop has an italian layout keyboard because it was a pain to find a good priced one with the US layout. On windows there’s no way to do the ` and ~ symbols without using Alt combinations and on linux you need to use a weird compose key. Also square brackets require you to press Shift and curly brackets require both Shift and Alt.
Pro tip for fellow yuropean devs: you can change the layout, and learn it easily.
Pro tip for fellow ISO enjoyers living in yurop: a keyboard on Amazon costs 20$. If you’re using a laptop you can order one from the UK, it’s mostly the same, except beware of the mental asylum layouts that move this
|key to the bottom left. You can also buy a laptop from amazon.com if you filter by “global shipping”. Power bricks always work with 110/220/240, the cable that goes into the plug is easily exchangeable for 10$.Some premium brands let you choose the layout. E.g. xmg, slimbook.
Pro tip for enjoyers of any layout: You don’t need to buy a different physical layout to type in a different layout. You can just switch it out on the software side. The computer has no idea and does not care what’s printed on the keycaps.
