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Programming on 34 Keys (2022)

• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• stephendause 1y ago
  My coworker has a similar setup and loves it. Personally, it feels diametrically opposed to the way that I like to use my keyboard. I don't even like holding Shift to type `{`, `_`, etc when programming. I wish I had dedicated keys for those and other common symbols. I don't mind moving my hands a few inches at all, but for some reason, it feels cumbersome to me to hold down a key to activate another layer. To each their own, of course.
  • _def 1y ago
    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
    • Hojojo 1y ago
      This is definitely the case. Since the layer key is at the thumb, it doesn't require moving your hand and you barely need to move your thumb. As somebody who suffers from wrist pain, this makes a huge difference.
      • layer8 1y ago
        Unfortunately I developed beginning arthrosis in my thumbs, so pressing space is about the most I can subject them to.
        • linsomniac 1y ago
          Foot pedals?
          • layer8 1y ago
            Those are slower than fingers and can’t be used as fluidly, in particular when using them as modifiers for keys typed with the fingers with normal typing speed.
            • Jeff_Brown 1y ago
              Drummers do it. It takes some training because the nerve to your foot is longer than the one to your hand, but with good audible feedback it can be done. (If your feet are a meter farther from your ears then the sound from them takes 3 ms longer to be heard. Nobody types that fast but I'd you wanted a truer signal you could generate one in software.)
              • layer8 1y ago
                Not sure about the drummer analogy, because we don’t type in a rhythm. Hands and feet can maintain the same rhythm, and that has the effect that their actions can coincide with high precision. For arhythmic actions, my experience is it’s more difficult to synchronize to the typical subsecond precision for typing. For example, drum your fingers on a table in sequence, and then try to replace one of the fingers with your foot. It is magnitudes slower. While training will improve it, I don’t think it will be able to match the finger drumming, unless you introduce a longer-running rhythm. Keyboard shortcuts are similar.
    • James_K 1y ago
      What actually has way more of an impact that that is having the home-row keys set to the modifiers. The best part is that it works even with regular keyboard, you just need to have some kind of hot-key tool running on your computer.
  • theroncross 1y ago
    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.
  • Hojojo 1y ago
    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.
  • layer8 1y ago
    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.
  • lawn 1y ago
    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_cybershard_layout/ https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2024/11/26/the_current_cybe...
• FrankWilhoit 1y ago
  Are there, really, developers whose productivity is first and foremost constrained by how fast they can type? If so, what else is known about them? What class of problems are they working on?
  • spooneybarger 1y ago
    I use a layout like this and I'm slower than on a traditional qwerty layout. OTOH, I also have far fewer RSI problems. Speed is rarely a consideration in the community.
    • bowsamic 1y ago
      Changing keyboard ergonomics is absolutely not the way to deal with RSI. You should instead go to the gym and do proper physio exercises
      • jerrygenser 1y ago
        If you have small hands and you are stretching for delet/backspace and a small kb allows you to hit this key without strain, it absolutely helps with strain on fingers. I tried many things over the years including other ergonomics and gym etc. Changing to a smaller split keyboard helped the most and I have not had pain since. Granted mine has about 50 keys or so so it's not as extreme.
      • jpc0 1y ago
        If you hand is in a position that is putting any of your anatomy at a weird angle no amount of exercise is going to sort that out.
        • bowsamic 1y ago
          It’s the opposite, actually
      • microtonal 1y ago
        Going to a split, key well board, solved my wrist issues. I had severe issues on a traditional row stagger keyboard and they have just gone. The only time I feel discomfort is when I type on a row stagger keyboard again for two weeks (e.g. when taking my laptop with me during a trip).
• xkriva11 1y ago
  ColorForth environment uses only 27 keys. See https://www.greenarraychips.com/home/documents/greg/cf-editor.htm https://www.greenarraychips.com/home/documents/greg/cf-edito...
• gryn 1y ago
  I started using (programming and everything else) with a 34key keyboard with miryoku layout with inverted T arrow keys & native mouse emulation layer enabled around 2years ago and I haven't looked back. it's more comfortable, it fixed my pathological touch typing too. for those a want to give it a try, here are my the problems I encountered so far: - stuff like Figma where you need to keep holding the space bar to change editing modes, won't work you need to make you custom (single purpose) space button if you want it. - you can't play video games, unless you make you own custom layer or give each game a custom key bindings. I don't game much and when I do I use a gamepad so this haven't been much of a bother for much of bother for me but if you do It's something to keep in mind. - the MCU boards that are available are very finicky, the nice!nano breaks easily I bought multiple replacements, they are very heat senstive. I had pins die, the charging circuit die on multiple ocasions in different boards. also I think using the mill-max pin was a mistake on my part even if it was the recommendation, they more expensive, annoying and you can't just plug them in a breadboard to test & debug them. on the web there's also an alternative commendation to use the leftover metal parts of the resistances/diodes. I would also recommend against it, with time the connections to the board start disconnecting since you probably won't cut all of them to the same exact length and that they wiggle inside the mill-max pin sockets. just use the standard ones that are used in most PCBs even if they are bigger. - avoid using jack connectors to connect the sleeves, they can fry your MCUs and when they don't with time they give out and they start to disconnect and need time to reconnect and it makes for a bad user experience. - if you make a wireless keyboard don't add LED backlights or individual per key LEDs they significantly drain your battery life even when you're not using them. - Bluetooth connection is still somewhat unreliable, having something with wireless 2,4ghz would be better but I don't think there's an open source solution for that which is off the shelf, so if you want it you'll probably to make your own or tweak something from somewhere else. I want to make a keyboard like the one that was submitted here a few weeks or months ago that takes these notes into account but I haven't found the time or the motivation. EDIT: this one https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43255529 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43255529 I've also seen some people sell some open-source versions in ali express recently for around 60eur pre-assembled. I haven't ordered one so I'm not recommending it, just curious if anyone here ever did.
  • 1y ago
• microtonal 1y ago
  Some observations from someone who has also used minimalist layouts on similar keyboards for a while: - Thumbs can also get overuse. I would generally only recommend to use one key for each thumb very frequently to avoid too much lateral movement. Also don't go overboard with layer holds on thumbs. - The thumb key placement on some of these boards, e.g. the placement of the inner thumb key on the Ferris-based keyboard in the linked post, is quite disastrous. Unless you have very small hands, the thumb will be very close to the palm or even under the palm, and this can get very painful over longer periods. Even worse is that if you type very fast, the index finger can cross the thumb. Just try it a few times. If you keep your thumb on the thumb key while doing that, there is a lot of tension in the fingers. - The obsession with minimalist layouts is to minimize finger/hand movement. But I could find not much evidence in the scientific literature that less movement is actually good. It's also a huge trade-off, because you end up with a lot of holds (which are probably not great for your fingers either) or additional key presses (Callum mods). There are also other ways to decrease finger travel, like using a key well keyboard, which not only reduces distances, but also puts your fingers in a more natural resting position and makes the finger movements more natural (since keys are laid out along the natural arcs of the fingers) [1]. I went away from small keyboards and minimalist layouts. I certainly use far fewer keys than most people and some layers. But I have found that key well boards make more keys reachable and have superior ergonomics. Also, if you have a finger/hand issue as a result of keyboard/mouse use, visit a medical expert, not /r/ergomechkeyboards . (I am not a health/ergonomics expert, just speaking from experience. Though it's probably best to ignore this and consult an expert.) [1] There is a lot of pseudo-science in the whole ergo keyboard community, with folk wisdom like "Dactyl-style squeeze thumb clusters are better, because we naturally squeeze our thumbs to grab objects", meanwhile a lot of folks had thumb injuries from that type of cluster. The only types of keyboards that I could find research papers about were Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard-style boards, which seem to have their design decisions grounded in actual human trials and some of the early Maltron keyboards.
• cenamus 1y ago
  The navigation and symbol layer (not the limited number of keys) seem very reminiscent of the Neo layouts. In german, but should be clear enough: https://www.neo-layout.org/ https://www.neo-layout.org/
• pandastronaut 1y ago
  I am always amazed by the dedication and craftmanship that keyboard enthusiasts put in their creation. In the meantime, I have spent my life following the opposite path : minimizing all form of customization so that I can switch computer at any time without feeling lost or missing something ( I have to use computers from several clients all the time).
  • whartung 1y ago
    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.
    • CTDOCodebases 1y ago
      I'm 100% this for software. Living off the land with minimal customization.
  • eddd-ddde 1y ago
    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.
  • CTDOCodebases 1y ago
    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.
• mrbenjihao 1y ago
  I feel that most tend to not realize that typing on a keyboard like this actually forces you to type correctly. In the past I've gotten by through my own typing style, however since moving to this type of split keyboard I've found myself using every finger to a much greater degree - especially my pinkies.
  • ivanjermakov 1y ago
    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.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
• hackernudes 1y ago
  I didn't see any way to type function keys (f1, etc...). I see some of the allure of minimalist keyboards but when I imagine myself using it it seems painful.
  • ivanjermakov 1y ago
    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.
  • CTDOCodebases 1y ago
    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.
• dang 1y ago
  Discussed at the time: Programming on 34 Keys - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32648245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32648245 - Aug 2022 (69 comments)
• James_K 1y ago
  I've been doing a similar thing for a while now, but I have a 36-key board. I take a slightly different approach to the one in this article, namely I just have the space key on the left thumb cluster to raise to a layer with the numbers on the home-row keys, and then I have the Shift+Number combinations that you would have on a normal keyboard. I mainly do this so that I'm not completely at sea when typing on a regular board, though one of the great advantages of a 36-keyer (and mine uses low profile laptop switches) is that you can just put it in your pocket and take it around with you. You can cover all of the standard typing symbols in just two layers which are nicely similar to that of a regular keyboard (and if you use Vim keys, that's all you need).
• lolive 1y ago
  Remapping my CapsLock as a layer activator has been the best idea of my life. [CapsLock+Space=Enter, CapsLock+jklm=arrows, CapsLock+uiop=Backspace,PgDn,PgUp,Delete. CapsLock+1-9=FunctionKeys. All that on a 60% AZERTY keyboard.] Highly recommended ! [Just added CapsLock+f=. and CapsLock+ù=/ , as they are particularly impractical characters to type on a french keyboard]
• userbinator 1y ago
  Looking at things like this is like gazing into an alien world. I wonder if people who do this are able to use a regular keyboard layout, or if their muscle memory has been completely replaced with that of their custom input device. A standard full-size keyboard works best for me, having experienced the frustration that is modern laptops' castrated layouts.
  • magarnicle 1y ago
    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.
  • dylan604 1y ago
    I met someone that could switch between QWERTY and DVORAK without issue. I'm pretty sure they were not from this planet
  • tom_ 1y ago
    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.)
  • toomanyreps 1y ago
    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.
  • wishinghand 1y ago