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Consumer lock-in is a risk. For a professional practitioner, adopting dependence on custom hardware gadgets from boutique hobby ventures is a risk. Speaking fo

Consumer lock-in is a risk. For a professional practitioner, adopting dependence on custom hardware gadgets from boutique hobby ventures is a risk. Speaking for myself, I also depend on having a job where I have a boss. It's an authoritarian relationship. If my skills cannot be applied with required industry standard hardware, it's much harder for me to get/keep a job. For a professional employee, this counts as another risk. These risks are incalculable because the degree of dependence cannot be known until much later once all the quirks of the new system have been accounted for.

snozolli 4y ago
Consumer lock-in is an incalculable risk. For a professional practitioner, adopting dependence on custom hardware gadgets from boutique hobby ventures is an incalculable risk. Just... Unplug the keyboard and go back to your old one! If my skills cannot be applied with required industry standard hardware The only time your boss cares what keyboard you're using is when you hand in a requisition form. Even then, they're likely to be happy to foot the bill to have a productive employee and potentially avoid a future disability claim. Again, you can just switch back to a regular keyboard. The human body is much smarter than you seem to think it is.
- whitemary 4y ago
  The boss will care when you need a couple weeks to adapt your precious keyboard setup to the new company hardware, or when you can't work on the plane or at a coffee shop on work trips, or when you need to haul an armful of peripherals to the conference room for a standard meeting.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - snozolli 4y ago
    when you need a couple weeks to adapt your precious keyboard setup to the new company hardware You mean plugging in a keyboard? Seriously, what are you even making up in your head here? or when you can't work on the plane or at a coffee shop on work trips Your examples imply a laptop, which already has a built-in keyboard. Why would you haul your workstation keyboard into a meeting? Again, you can simply switch back. Learning a new keyboard configuration doesn't eliminate the old layout from your muscle memory. Even going back to QWERTY after learning Dvorak is pretty seamless. To give a similar example, do you normally use a mouse? Do you take the mouse with you to the coffee shop, airplane, or meeting, or do you just use the trackpad while you're there? Same thing.
    - jack_pp 4y ago
      Haven't tried learning DVORAK to see how easy I can switch back but as a 12 year vim user, not having access to vim bindings feels like coding with handcuffs. Luckily all major IDEs come with decent vim bindings but I would be afraid to learn another layout because then I'd become dependent on it and I'm not so sure I'd be able to switch seamlessly without a painfully dreaded time window to adjust. Even if it takes a week to go back, previous comments were talking about being productive in a coffee shop or on a work trip which happen rarely. If you spend hundreds of hours with a custom keyboard / layout but then have to switch for 10 hours every couple of months I doubt you'll be feel at home during those 10 hours and I doubt you'll be productive.
      - leipert 4y ago
        Honestly, not that big of a deal, switching between layouts. At some point I switched between DE and US-International where basically all of the characters used for programming are in different places. I still can go back and forth between them. I know people who have tried a bunch of different layouts, and maybe the best comparison is “swimming styles”. The people who tried like more than two, had no problem switching back and forth. If you are a professional swimmer, you will have no trouble switching between styles. For vim and Dvorak specifically there seem to be macros which map Dvorak to QWERTY under the hood if not in edit mode. So you can use muscle memory for that.
      - snozolli 4y ago
        If you spend hundreds of hours with a custom keyboard / layout but then have to switch for 10 hours every couple of months I doubt you'll be feel at home during those 10 hours and I doubt you'll be productive. As someone with literally decades of experience with alternative keyboard designs and character layouts, I can assure you that your fears are ridiculous. It's not in any way a problem to go from, say, a Kinesis or Ergodox running Dvorak back to a QWERTY laptop for a day. You wildly underestimate the human mind and body. Now, learning Dvorak or Colemak after years of QWERTY, that is difficult. Going back, however, is easy.
doix 4y ago
> Consumer lock-in is an incalculable risk. For a professional practitioner, adopting dependence on custom hardware gadgets from boutique hobby ventures is an incalculable risk. It's literally all open, you can build it yourself. If you really do develop a dependence on it, as long as you archive everything, you'll be able to get another one. You can't say the same about depending on a commercial keyboard. I am slightly worried about my moonlander breaking and then no-longer being manufactured in 5-10 years, but I know I can learn a new layout in a few days, so it's not a big issue. > Speaking for myself, I also depend on having a job where I have a boss. It's an authoritarian relationship. If my skills cannot be applied with required industry standard hardware, it's much harder for me to get/keep a job. For a professional employees, this is another incalculable risk. Where have you worked that mandated you use a standard keyboard? I've had the opposite, when I had bad wrist problems, my employer bought me a whole bunch of different ergonomic keyboards and mice to try (including foot pedals) until I found something comfortable.
philipswood 4y ago
I've been considering a custom keyboard setup and have thought about this for a while now. In summary: the custom keyboard part supply chain seems robust since it's intertwined with the standard keyboard industry. If you stick to components used for normal keyboards or from other stable industries you should always be able to source the parts. Yes, you are committing to building your own keyboards for life, but the construction techniques are usually not that exotic so this should be manageable. (In addition learning to make your own keyboard should teach you some skills that probably has other uses.) Making your own gives you some long term assurance. Unlike e.g. the Data hand, which I understand is now unobtanium, something like the Ergodox will be something you should have available for life should you choose to.
- microtonal 4y ago
  It's very easy to build your own keyboard. Most do miss important ergonomic features though, because they are hard to do without mass-production. E.g. many designs lack good palm rests, many are 2D (except the various Dactyl versions), and tenting options are limited and often not as stable as pre-manufactured keyboards. It is fun to make your own keyboard though.

snozolli 4y ago

Consumer lock-in is an incalculable risk. For a professional practitioner, adopting dependence on custom hardware gadgets from boutique hobby ventures is an incalculable risk. Just... Unplug the keyboard and go back to your old one! If my skills cannot be applied with required industry standard hardware The only time your boss cares what keyboard you're using is when you hand in a requisition form. Even then, they're likely to be happy to foot the bill to have a productive employee and potentially avoid a future disability claim. Again, you can just switch back to a regular keyboard. The human body is much smarter than you seem to think it is.

whitemary 4y ago
The boss will care when you need a couple weeks to adapt your precious keyboard setup to the new company hardware, or when you can't work on the plane or at a coffee shop on work trips, or when you need to haul an armful of peripherals to the conference room for a standard meeting.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- snozolli 4y ago
  when you need a couple weeks to adapt your precious keyboard setup to the new company hardware You mean plugging in a keyboard? Seriously, what are you even making up in your head here? or when you can't work on the plane or at a coffee shop on work trips Your examples imply a laptop, which already has a built-in keyboard. Why would you haul your workstation keyboard into a meeting? Again, you can simply switch back. Learning a new keyboard configuration doesn't eliminate the old layout from your muscle memory. Even going back to QWERTY after learning Dvorak is pretty seamless. To give a similar example, do you normally use a mouse? Do you take the mouse with you to the coffee shop, airplane, or meeting, or do you just use the trackpad while you're there? Same thing.
  - jack_pp 4y ago
    Haven't tried learning DVORAK to see how easy I can switch back but as a 12 year vim user, not having access to vim bindings feels like coding with handcuffs. Luckily all major IDEs come with decent vim bindings but I would be afraid to learn another layout because then I'd become dependent on it and I'm not so sure I'd be able to switch seamlessly without a painfully dreaded time window to adjust. Even if it takes a week to go back, previous comments were talking about being productive in a coffee shop or on a work trip which happen rarely. If you spend hundreds of hours with a custom keyboard / layout but then have to switch for 10 hours every couple of months I doubt you'll be feel at home during those 10 hours and I doubt you'll be productive.
    - leipert 4y ago
      Honestly, not that big of a deal, switching between layouts. At some point I switched between DE and US-International where basically all of the characters used for programming are in different places. I still can go back and forth between them. I know people who have tried a bunch of different layouts, and maybe the best comparison is “swimming styles”. The people who tried like more than two, had no problem switching back and forth. If you are a professional swimmer, you will have no trouble switching between styles. For vim and Dvorak specifically there seem to be macros which map Dvorak to QWERTY under the hood if not in edit mode. So you can use muscle memory for that.
    - snozolli 4y ago
      If you spend hundreds of hours with a custom keyboard / layout but then have to switch for 10 hours every couple of months I doubt you'll be feel at home during those 10 hours and I doubt you'll be productive. As someone with literally decades of experience with alternative keyboard designs and character layouts, I can assure you that your fears are ridiculous. It's not in any way a problem to go from, say, a Kinesis or Ergodox running Dvorak back to a QWERTY laptop for a day. You wildly underestimate the human mind and body. Now, learning Dvorak or Colemak after years of QWERTY, that is difficult. Going back, however, is easy.

doix 4y ago

> Consumer lock-in is an incalculable risk. For a professional practitioner, adopting dependence on custom hardware gadgets from boutique hobby ventures is an incalculable risk. It's literally all open, you can build it yourself. If you really do develop a dependence on it, as long as you archive everything, you'll be able to get another one. You can't say the same about depending on a commercial keyboard. I am slightly worried about my moonlander breaking and then no-longer being manufactured in 5-10 years, but I know I can learn a new layout in a few days, so it's not a big issue. > Speaking for myself, I also depend on having a job where I have a boss. It's an authoritarian relationship. If my skills cannot be applied with required industry standard hardware, it's much harder for me to get/keep a job. For a professional employees, this is another incalculable risk. Where have you worked that mandated you use a standard keyboard? I've had the opposite, when I had bad wrist problems, my employer bought me a whole bunch of different ergonomic keyboards and mice to try (including foot pedals) until I found something comfortable.

philipswood 4y ago

I've been considering a custom keyboard setup and have thought about this for a while now. In summary: the custom keyboard part supply chain seems robust since it's intertwined with the standard keyboard industry. If you stick to components used for normal keyboards or from other stable industries you should always be able to source the parts. Yes, you are committing to building your own keyboards for life, but the construction techniques are usually not that exotic so this should be manageable. (In addition learning to make your own keyboard should teach you some skills that probably has other uses.) Making your own gives you some long term assurance. Unlike e.g. the Data hand, which I understand is now unobtanium, something like the Ergodox will be something you should have available for life should you choose to.

microtonal 4y ago
It's very easy to build your own keyboard. Most do miss important ergonomic features though, because they are hard to do without mass-production. E.g. many designs lack good palm rests, many are 2D (except the various Dactyl versions), and tenting options are limited and often not as stable as pre-manufactured keyboards. It is fun to make your own keyboard though.