Programming

DVORAK all the way, baby. Hardware-based via Unicomp 104.

Does Dvorak count? I switched over when I made an egrodox style keyboard which in itself made typing generally more comfortable.

Being Norwegian i code on the Norwegian keyboard layout. I get confused every time I get defaulted into English.

It's all usable when you get used to it, but this is a great thread to link for people who develop scripting and programming languages, or just text-based technical interfaces. Because yeah, all that crap is designed with the US layout in mind and screw whoever chooses to use ~ and | as commonplace characters.

FWIW, I don't even code and I still keep a US layer in the background. I forget which one I'm using constantly, it's all muscle memory. I just Win-space and try again whenever I type a character and it's not what I expect.

I use a 42 key layout modified from bépo (french dvorak inspired layout) with the altgr layer of ergol. Go check this altgr layer it's awesome for programming, and there is a version compatible for qwerty and lafayette.

╭╌╌╌╌╌┰─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┰─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┰╌╌╌╌╌┬╌╌╌╌╌╮
┆     ┃   ¹ │   ² │   ³ │   ⁴ │   ⁵ ┃   ⁶ │   ⁷ │   ⁸ │   ⁹ │   ⁰ ┃     ┆     ┆
┆     ┃   ₁ │   ₂ │   ₃ │   ₄ │   ₅ ┃   ₆ │   ₇ │   ₈ │   ₉ │   ₀ ┃     ┆     ┆
╰╌╌╌╌╌╂─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────╂─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────╂╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌┤
·     ┃     │   ≤ │   ≥ │  *¤ │   ‰ ┃  *^ │     │   × │  *´ │  *` ┃     ┆     ┆
·     ┃   @ │   < │   > │   $ │   % ┃   ^ │   & │   * │   ' │   ` ┃     ┆     ┆
·     ┠─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────╂─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────╂╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌┤
·     ┃     │   ⁽ │   ⁾ │     │   ≠ ┃  */ │   ± │   — │   ÷ │  *¨ ┃     ┆     ┆
·     ┃   { │   ( │   ) │   } │   = ┃   \ │   + │   - │   / │   " ┃     ┆     ┆
╭╌╌╌╌╌╂─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────╂─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────╂╌╌╌╌╌┴╌╌╌╌╌╯
┆     ┃  *~ │     │     │   – │     ┃   ¦ │   ¬ │  *¸ │     │     ┃           ·
┆     ┃   ~ │   [ │   ] │   _ │   # ┃   | │   ! │   ; │   : │   ? ┃           ·
╰╌╌╌╌╌┸─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┸─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┚ · · · · · ·

I just use the Swiss keyboard layout. Here's an image from Wikipedia.

Don't have any experience with any others.

I'm italian and I'm absolutely ashamed to say that I use an italian ISO keyboard for programming. It's missing some symbols like the backtick but I can't get used to US ANSI so I just configured some macros to type the missing characters.

I use the German Layout Neo which has especially nice layers for programming https://neo-layout.org/

I used to use ANSI, but then moved to England and bought a laptop and returned it because of the “weird” ISO keyboard, then forever bought dell because I could customise it.

Moved back to ANSIland, but will still probably just buy dell.

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.

I use Canadian Multilingual on a ISO-style keyboard, mostly because my main language is French and typing accents on a US keyboard is horrible.

Coding makes a hefty use of Alt ("option" on mac), but they're relatively well-placed (see the labels on the bottom-right of the keys in the pic)

My main annoyance with it is that the ANSI-style keyboard puts "ù" to the left of "1", instead of the "/" you get on that key on a ISO keyboard (where ù is between the left shift and z). You can see how annoying this would be when programming or using the command-line. And of course, Apple stores only stock MacBooks with ANSI keyboards...

I use a plain 34 keys layout based on qwerty for letters, comma/dot/semicolon. The numpad and symbols layers are handcrafted so that every symbol is easy to reach, it's also optimize to type things like <- and -> easily

I use UK standard layout, and Apple UK for work. It always takes me a few minutes to switch between them, but both are absolutely fine for programming. Just the odd placement of # that bothers me a little, but I tend to use that only for Python comments - which I tend to do more commonly from a keyboard shortcut anyway.

You can adapt to a new layout pretty easily. I already did it twice due to moving to new country.

They wouldn't be using them if they didn't think they were superior. Even if it is just because they are used to them.

French keyboard azerty has easier accents, cant live without em now.

Used to have a qwerty so sometimes the muscle memory derps a little, but when I accidently change the layout Im always mildly impressed that I can remember which key is which.

Spanish kb here

The British want a stupid as fuck they moved the tilde into a weird spot and you're basically can't do it

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.

I began programming java climate model with UK keyboard. When I moved to the continent, switched to swiss then belgian keyboard to better type emails/docs in french, but it was so tedious for code brackets {[()]} and some other punctuation, eventually switched back. Recently converted whole codebase to Scala 3 (here's the model), now can drop most of those brackets. I speculate whether one motivation for creating scala3 (made in in Lausanne) was swiss/french keyboards.

I use a sub-40% layout that I love. I wrote all about it here: https://natecox.dev/lets-talk-about-keyboards