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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)?
If I have to work on an American QUERTY keyboard, I have to look for each and every special character. Because our QWERTZ-keyboard has them in other places to make space for all the interesting characters an American keyboard simply fails to offer.
I'm columnar-ortho now, but for standard it's ISO or bust. You can keep your shitty enter key and your overly long shift key
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.
Yes, I've been on Norwegian Dvorak since 2002 or so.
Biggest problem I've had is with keyboards and OS'es (cough 🍎) that don't support the Insert key, because (a) I cut my teeth on the DOS editor and (b) XCV are all over the place on this layout.
I will always use a proper full size keyboard if at all possible. Those 60% and whatnot are not for me (it's bad enough when they move the arrow keys).
Oh, and the languages insisting on ${} characters are a pain on any non US layout.
ABNT2 here, this layout is necessary due to many brazilian portuguese words containing accents. Plus, having ç as a separate key is great. For coding, the \ | key is left to Z and the : ; key is near the right shift, with brackets and curly braces usually around Enter, while ' " is left to 1. It's very good for programming, I'd say.
The British want a stupid as fuck they moved the tilde into a weird spot and you're basically can't do it
I used to use the Brazilian ABNT-2 layout, it's pretty much just a US layout with accent keys that activate like a second layer for some specific keys to display specific Portuguese language characters such as ç á à â ã é è etc. It's surprisingly ok for programming as it doesn't get in the way because you have special keys to activate the 2nd layer and most of them you need to spread shift + something in order to activate them. I'd say it's a good layout.
Pro tip for fellow yuropean devs: you can change the layout, and learn it easily.
Pro tip for fellow ISO enjoyers living in yurop: a keyboard on Amazon costs 20$. 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.
I'm using a sligntly modified Niro layou (in a way that makes it more ergonomic with vim). Though I might need to adjust it since lately I began feeling disproportionate strain on my right ring finger.
ANSI all the way. I get irrationally angry about any other layout 😡
Using the JIS layout. One thing I miss from ANSI is the single and double quotes on my right pinky.(on the same key) Other than that, JIS is a nice layout to do programing with.
