With all the recent keyboard posts I thought it would be cool to discuss other layouts. This one seems interesting, but what is a good layout for programming?
I use https://www.normanlayout.info on my hardware keyboards (previously an Ergodox and Plank, probably a Levinson or Let’s Split next + for a long time). Norman is pretty similar to workman in history + goals.
I’ve also heard of “programmer’s layouts”, that swap number keys and punctuation, so by default you get !@#$% and can press shift to get 12345. The wonderful qmk firmware that’s very popular for homebrew keyboards makes this sort of thing very easy. I really appreciate the way one-shot keys and permissive hold work; they’ve nearly eliminated my biggest source of typos (not coming off shift/ctrl/etc fast enough for the next key).
I use dvorak instead of workman, but TBH basically any non-qwerty layout is going to be so much of an enormous improvement over qwerty that the differences between dvorak, norman, workman, etc is basically a rounding error.
edit: the programming-specific improvements come more from having a better physical layout than having a better logical layout. for instance, a keyboard which puts ctrl under your thumb instead of your pinky, or having a thumb-based fn key which can let you move brackets to the home row.
As a programmer, I spend most of my time reading and thinking. If anything, I type more when I’m not programming. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate efficient input methods though.
With all the recent keyboard posts I thought it would be cool to discuss other layouts. This one seems interesting, but what is a good layout for programming?
I use https://www.normanlayout.info on my hardware keyboards (previously an Ergodox and Plank, probably a Levinson or Let’s Split next + for a long time). Norman is pretty similar to workman in history + goals.
I’ve also heard of “programmer’s layouts”, that swap number keys and punctuation, so by default you get !@#$% and can press shift to get 12345. The wonderful qmk firmware that’s very popular for homebrew keyboards makes this sort of thing very easy. I really appreciate the way one-shot keys and permissive hold work; they’ve nearly eliminated my biggest source of typos (not coming off shift/ctrl/etc fast enough for the next key).
I use dvorak instead of workman, but TBH basically any non-qwerty layout is going to be so much of an enormous improvement over qwerty that the differences between dvorak, norman, workman, etc is basically a rounding error.
edit: the programming-specific improvements come more from having a better physical layout than having a better logical layout. for instance, a keyboard which puts ctrl under your thumb instead of your pinky, or having a thumb-based fn key which can let you move brackets to the home row.
As a programmer, I spend most of my time reading and thinking. If anything, I type more when I’m not programming. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate efficient input methods though.