<story><title>New Bloomberg Terminal Keyboard</title><url>http://www.bloomberg.com/professional/hardware/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>davegauer</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve often found it very peculiar that while many industries have specialized input hardware, it is still the norm for developers to type awkward key combinations* for common programming symbols such as (,),{,},[,],=,&amp;lt;,&amp;gt; etc. which are be used in mass quantities all day, every day.&lt;p&gt;I understand how we got where we are, but it&amp;#x27;s nevertheless surprising that something like a modernized space-cadet keyboard isn&amp;#x27;t standard for developers.  Or at least a programmable keyboard with a thumb-activated modifier key plus a home row key for the most commonly used symbols.&lt;p&gt;* SHIFT+&amp;lt;anything other than letters&amp;gt; is awkward if you have to do it enough.  Especially laptops, which enjoy deviating from ANSI or ISO layouts. I&amp;#x27;ve also heard it told that some international layouts make &amp;quot;[&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;]&amp;quot; especially unhandy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>consto</author><text>Honestly, symbols such as (, {, [, =, &amp;lt;, etc... are no harder to type than CaPiTaL LeTtErS. However, I have bound countless mathematical symbols, arrows, diacritics and the entire Greek alphabet to AltGr combinations. Heck, I have even made a AutoHotKey script to let me input Unicode codes when I hold down the fn button. I&amp;#x27;m probably not the best person to judge difficult key combinations, and I don&amp;#x27;t even use vi!&lt;p&gt;The best part of using the mentioned symbols is that they are found on virtually every keyboard, you don&amp;#x27;t need a specialised input device.&lt;p&gt;You mention laptops being awkward to type on and yes the travel is bad, and the layout is often cramped, but it really depends on the laptop in question. I&amp;#x27;m not a 3d modeller, accountant, or anyone who actually uses a num pad, so I am glad to not have one. With that said, my current laptop (Lenovo U430p) has my favourite keyboard layout yet - I miss it on my desktop.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not flawless. However, if I was to make changes I would basically change the fn modifier layout, and the labels. Reason why is that AutoHotKey is awkard compared to a custom keyboard layout. Maybe I should make a custom mechanical keyboard for my desktop.</text></comment>
<story><title>New Bloomberg Terminal Keyboard</title><url>http://www.bloomberg.com/professional/hardware/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>davegauer</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve often found it very peculiar that while many industries have specialized input hardware, it is still the norm for developers to type awkward key combinations* for common programming symbols such as (,),{,},[,],=,&amp;lt;,&amp;gt; etc. which are be used in mass quantities all day, every day.&lt;p&gt;I understand how we got where we are, but it&amp;#x27;s nevertheless surprising that something like a modernized space-cadet keyboard isn&amp;#x27;t standard for developers.  Or at least a programmable keyboard with a thumb-activated modifier key plus a home row key for the most commonly used symbols.&lt;p&gt;* SHIFT+&amp;lt;anything other than letters&amp;gt; is awkward if you have to do it enough.  Especially laptops, which enjoy deviating from ANSI or ISO layouts. I&amp;#x27;ve also heard it told that some international layouts make &amp;quot;[&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;]&amp;quot; especially unhandy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>snuxoll</author><text>There has been some effort to make a keyboard layout better for programming, namely Programmer Dvorak. It&amp;#x27;s certainly not amazing by any means, as the reordering of the numerical keys really stinks, which is why I stick with the traditional dvorak layout (which actually has some disadvantages in curly-brace languages since the {} keys are right next to backspace and require moving my entire right hand off the home row to reach comfortably, whereas the traditional QWERTY locations can easily be hit by my little finger).&lt;p&gt;As much as neat devices like the data hand and other input devices make waves on HN every now and then, I feel most programmers are just like the rest of the world, they just use QWERTY because that&amp;#x27;s what they learned and never saw anything wrong with it.</text></comment>