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)?
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.