Programming on 34 Keys (2022)

It's not about how fast you can type, it's about how effortlessly you can type.

Programming involves long periods of thinking interrupted by short periods of typing. Anything you can do to reduce the mental effort of typing reduces the impact of this interruption to your train of thought.

Try programming by hunt-and-peck typing -- it's certainly possible, but having to think about putting each individual character on the screen is incredibly tedious and distracting. This is why people learn things like Vim motions or minimalist keyboard layouts -- anything that speeds up the feedback loop between your brain and your code is an improvement. It's not a drastic difference, but it's significant enough that I now feel mildly annoyed using a regular keyboard when I have to move my whole arm to reach the arrow keys rather than having them right under my fingers on the home row.

For me its not how fast I can type, my brain(ADHD or whatever this is) needs certain flow of speed; I think of something and want to type it, if I am delayed (e.g. imagine I change from qwerty to dvorak and am still learning) for whatever reason, e.g. key is stuck, my mind goes somewhere else, and then I have to "bring it back".

Also as I am typing one thing I am thinking of another, or even third, so if something goes wrong with the mechanics of the first thing, then whole set of dominoes fall and I have to go back.

Sometimes for a given thought I even type 3rd of 4th word instead of the first if for some reason my keys are not pressed. And then I type a word from the next thought and etc. It even gives me anxiety.

As I am typing the code, I am thinking about the code that is going to use the it, and then the code one layer up, I also think of the machine itself, its wires, cache lines, or I think of how the variable I am typing now is related to its surroundings, I imagine a ladder to the moon each step with its address, and I think how far are things from "me", and so on.

I cant speak of others, but for me keyboard layout and even key feeling/rythm is important just because it allows me to think uninterrupted.

I'm one of the people that uses neovim, a tiling window manager on nixos, and a weird split keyboard.

It's true that it will lead to healthier wrists and more productivity, but thats not the point. I know people with incredibly unergonomic setups and habits (vscode with membrane keyboard and a chronic overuse of the mouse) that get around the same or more actual features implemented as me. There might even be something to be said for more friction forcing you to think more.

The reason most of us do it (at least if we are honest with ourselves) is because it's fun---and that's ok. Jumping around in vim on a split keyboard gives me the same joy that watching my first lines of code execute in Gamemaker Studio 2 did in 8th grade.

It's always worth investing to make your work joyful.

I used to think that typing speed was not really that important, especially when now we have so many LLMs doing the typing for us. But honestly, now I think it's even more important because the specificity and detail in your prompts are paramount to getting a good response, and something like a dictation tool (which is what I'm using right now) is really good for generating very specific prompts.

In fact, I wrote all this out using a dictation tool in ~20 seconds (258 WPM).

I find fast typing is super important to my programming, not because I need to write walls of text, but because if I get into a flow state, I find it irritating if my thoughts are constrained by my typing speed.

There are developers whose wrists explode after years of holding down the shift and control keys. I honestly can't recommend a split keyboard enough from an ergonomics perspective. It's even more practical than a regular keyboard. You can put drinks or food in between the two halves, and if you get one using laptop-style low-profile switches you can put it in your pocket and take it with you anywhere on the go. Combined with some of those Android apps that give you a VTT and you can fit an entire coding set up in your pocket.

There's a lot of ignoring your question and telling an anecdote - some nice anecdotes, though.

I'd guess the answer is yes. If someone (somehow) gets into a junior dev role, has no to little experience, and hunts and pecks 20 words a minute, they'll have to get that up to 50/60 surely before they can be a more normally functioning member of a team, right? I think in some bad cases it could be priority number one.

If your job is producing text in files, you tend to need basic proficiency in typing.

I guess you're rather imagining a really solid developer, types 70/80 wpm but never put any effort in to typing per se, uses whatever system or IDE is the norm and isn't bothered. Learns a few keyboard shortcuts here and there maybe, but again, who cares.

Imagine a counter to your question - if that last developer could click their fingers and get to an effortless, consistent 100 wpm, would they? Should they? I think the answer is yes, and yes. They can still spend as much time as they want staring at the ceiling thinking, with the notepad out sketching, etc.

Now, not everyone wants to think about it, and that's fine, other things matter more in the end. How pleasant of a colleague you are matters more in many cases. But surely the notion itself of typing faster being preferable is easily understandable - programmers are text file producers.

Typing speed might not seem that important if you're looking at the speed of typing and the overall amount of code that an engineer produces that ends up in a PR. But it might take 10x more code that are ephemeral versions that lead up to the full solution. If you're very comfortable with typing and editor commands to manipulate code efficiently then you can iterate faster, creating more intermediate versions of the code that then lead to better overall solutions just because you've tried out more stuff.

There's a non-obvious, but significant, difference between holding with a thumb in a neutral position and holding with a pinky in a stretched position. Layers become effortless on a keyboard like this.

I have my layer switch key configured to require only a button press, then the next key I type will be from that layer. So I don't have to hold it down. It's so much more comfortable to use special symbols this way. I've also done this for my shift key.

I guess that's why the thumbs get used here to activate the other layers. I have to try it, but thinking about it it seems way more ergonomic compared to the usual position of the shift key

I suggest you look into combos (press multiple keys as an extra key).

For example, I don't hold to type either { or _ or any symbol (O can hold of I type multiple symbols in a row though).

https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2024/11/26/the_current_cybe...

I agree. I also developed serious RSI from overuse of modifiers and cords. Not everyone’s RSI is the same, but just as a caveat.

I am absolutely in this camp.

I won't say I never customize things, but, 99.99% of things, I do not customize.

I just cope with what's there, make do.

E.g. the limit of my emacs customization is Slime for Lisp (and, honestly, it took me several years to pull that trigger).

Same reason I learned vi a zillion years ago, while my friend was pushing emacs. I had to jump around random Unix boxen as a daily thing, and they weren't mine.

You can do both.

I use to type on 60 key boards using layers but when I switched to using a laptop keyboard it would mess me up as I used caps lock to switch layers and I had a navigation layer that used hjkl for arrows.

So what I changed to a TKL 80 key keyboard for QWERTY and then use Colemak Mod-DH on my split (Cantor Remix).

The result is I can type on both due to the context switch. So if I need to use a QWERTY board I am fine.

Also my golden rule with split keyboards is I only use open source designs. I don't want to invest time into a layout if the keyboard isn't going to be available in the future.

Exactly!

Dependence on special hardware instead of generally available ones is the making of future trouble for yourself.

Also in collaborative environments allowing others to work on your computer, assisting you in an easy way, is important.

For people working 40 years alone in a remote cellar the exact very same way throughout, and making several reserve clone of the unique and specialist hardware replacing the worn out ones, this could be ok.

On my main keyboard I can activate custom "layers" by holding some special keys, then each layer turns every other key into a special binding.

I have so many shortcuts programmed that whenever I'm working directly on my laptop's keyboard I found myself pressing wrong keys expecting it to do something different. It's really funny how muscle memory works.

So then you'd have to be comfortable with multiple operating systems, IDEs and to some extent keyboard layouts.

If you use a custom keyboard (and layout) then you only have one extra thing to learn.

I can still use VSCode and a regular keyboard/layout but I still maintain my own custom keyboard layout and highly configured Neovim setup.

My keyboard fits in my pocket. I never have to deal with using a computer that doesn't have it. And, as a bonus feature, you look like a mega-hacker when you take some hand-soldered circuit-board-looking keyboard out of your pockets with blank keycaps and plug it into a computer.

I got my typing style fixed this way. Not because of a split design, but because of ortholinear design. It makes so much sense to have columns vertically align, since there is no ambiguity what key to press.

I switched to dvorak about the same time I switched to using a split keyboard, and it feels like I've ended up with separate muscle memory for these two different arrangements. I imagine something similar could apply for this sort of thing too.

(I don't get all that much practice with QWERTY, but sometimes I use my laptop without an external keyboard, and I've got a couple of retro computers with inbuilt QWERTY keyboards, and it never takes long before my fingers get back into it. It's not very comfortable, and I don't like to do a lot of typing this way, but I'm not hunting for every keypress.)

Its not as crazy as it looks in my opinion. This is about as far as it goes in terms of customization, maybe a few more layers if you have a specialized workload. Once you are used to changing part of a layout once or twice, you pick up new changes much faster. Every layout feels different to me mentally, its harder to confuse them than one might think.

I'm most of the way to OP for my work keyboard, but at home I just use a regular keyboard as it's shared with family members. I have no problem switching, apart from very occasionally holding down f and expecting that to be shift.

I can easily switch back and forth. I have more than 34 keys, but I don't use the number row or modifier keys. My layout is also columnar, similar to the OP's.

I met someone that could switch between QWERTY and DVORAK without issue. I'm pretty sure they were not from this planet

The firmware that is loaded on these devices is very configurable.

There are layers and double/quick/long tap keys that can let you add these keys to the layers.

To use keyboard shortcuts though you need to put a lot of thought into the layout and what shortcuts you use.

The payoff is better ergonomics. No bent wrists (if you type that way) and open chest when typing and less slouching. It opens up a multitude of options e.g. mount the keyboard halves to the sides or arms of your desk chair and code on your loungeroom TV or supine computing.

The downsides is the time spend configuring a layout and learning it.

I have my f key layer set up very similarly to digit layer, so that 1-9 and f1-f9 are the same keys, just on different layers.