Great mechanical keyboards for coders – updated for 2019 | Hacker News Reader

Great mechanical keyboards for coders – updated for 2019

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22 pointsohjeez8 comments

This [0] is an excellent resource for ergonomic keyboards.

The common myth is that programmers type a lot. We do not. We spend a lot of time in front of keyboards, but most of that time is spent thinking.

People who write a lot of emails type way more characters per day than programmers.

Still, ergonomic keyboards are nice. I think Microsoft wireless one is quite good and affordable. I would love me a kinesis, but never managed to pull the trigger.

[0] http://xahlee.info/kbd/ergonomic_keyboards_index.html

There are some factual errors there. I only know the Kinesis Advantage, but contrary to what the table on that website says, it is available with MX Brown and MX Red switches and it does have an integrated 2x USB hub.

Also, describing its portability as 'poor' while describing the portability of the fully split Kinesis Freestyle as 'good' is a little odd - I don't see how having to deal with two keyboard halves and more cables can be considered better in this regard. For me, the portability of the Kinesis Advantage is just fine.

FWIW my spouse has a few of these keyboards. He expressly went out of his way to buy the split Freestyle because the two pieces fit into his (hefty) laptop bag. When he traveled with a different keyboard it was so long that it needed to go into his checked luggage.

This article was a little goofy, apparently as a daily user of the EegoDox EZ, I'm a "coder who is actively working to bring about the singularity." ... Ok, cool.

Back to reality, though I couldn't recommend the ErgoDox EZ more. It's a quality piece of kit; built well, the graphical configurator is convenient, and the support is top notch. I had a keychatter issue early on, and they responded immediately with updated firmware that solved the issue. I've gone back to it as a daily driver multiple times over any other keyboard.

Goofy is good, no? There's just so much you can say about a device with keys on it.

Private Keys or Cherry MX Blue?

Get or build a dactyl keyboard. It's basically the kinesis but even more ergonomic. The fact that it's not on this list is pretty disappointing.

I agree with your opinion about the dactyl, but I can see why they wouldn't include it in the list: it's not really commercially available. Sure, you can pay somebody to 3D-print and hand-wire it for you, but even then it's still very much a DIY product.

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