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Comment by jillesvangurp | Hacker News Reader

Having moved around Europe, I stick to US international. As a programmer, all these weird keyboard layouts that put their locally preferred characters in places where a US keyboard layout has all the things that programmers use all the time, is just really inconvenient. I've met more than a few Germans, Finns, and Swedish that map their local keyboards to US English for this reason. Keeping the local layout is just begging for repetitive strain injuries. Having to use 3 fingers to produce a { or a [ is just not acceptable or workable. And mostly the working language in a lot of companies is English anyway.

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That's the point of EurKey. Special characters are the same as on the US layout with additional, language specific letters available. At least for writing English and German it has been great for me.

Developer from Norway here and I've used 'US Intl, with dead keys' for about 10+ years.

Our ÆØÅæøå are slightly inconvenient (using AltGR on Linux, and Option on Mac), but you quickly adapt and I find it to be worth it to have all the programming relevant characters like '"{(\| in the super convenient location of the US keyboard.

My extremely made up assumption is that the Norwegian keyboard design was designed for typewriters, and the US is an older design made by and for developers.

> US is an older design made by and for developers

I think it is the other way around. Programming languages adopted the characters that are available on US Intl.

English simply requires fewer characters, and so things that are useful for any programming language, like different kinds of brackets and quotation marks, are more prominent on US keyboards.

> I've met more than a few Germans, Finns, and Swedish that map their local keyboards to US English

Which is impossible to do properly, because those keyboards differ from US keyboards in their geometry, not just in the labeling of the keys.

> Which is impossible to do properly, because those keyboards differ from US keyboards in their geometry, not just in the labeling of the keys.

The only difference is that on US keyboards the enter key is smaller and left shift is larger, leading to the "\" key being moved one down and one left on a German keyboard (and also being duplicated to left of z (German label: y)). So even if you move from a physical US keyboard to a physical German one while keeping the US layout, it's literally just one key where you'd have to retrain your hand. And for people that have learned to type on a German keyboard this is not a problem at all since they have never typed on a physical US one and using a different mapping means a training period anyway.

Source: German who mapped his keyboard to US (+ some AltGr modifiers for the German characters I need).

I don't know about the other European layouts, but I assume it's somewhat similar for them too.

That is not a major issue by itself, just something to get used to. However, it becomes an issue if you have to use multiple designs.

For example: Dell ships all their laptops with ANSI-layouts, but Logitech does not ship ANSI-layouts to Europe at all.

I ended up buying my Logitech keyboard on Ebay in the US, because I wanted my layouts to be identical.

Meh, I use both layouts and it never really bothered me.

The key mapping still works. I prefer the UK layout, e.g. (which has the vertical return key instead of the horizontal enter key in US layouts). If I connect a UK keyboard and use US mapping it still works.

Generally, though, I always try to get any English layout, instead of a European one and map as I desire. For macs that would be English International.

The main issue for me has been the daft L shaped enter key.

Having started with computers and terminals using a simple horizontal bar enter, hence I generally prefer to get a US geometry keyboard when possible.

Stuff like the split pseudo-L of say the Framework keyword is acceptable, since there is still a horizontal enter.

Others at work tend to get confused by the (UK geometry) keyboard on my desk operating with a US keyboard map, simply because there are 2-3 key caps in the "wrong position"...

Keymap layout and physical layout are two orthogonal issues.

Keymap layout (e.g. US /other language vairants) is primarily user-preference software setting, unrelated to the physical hardware (except for labels, but these are not relevant for function).

Physical layout (ISO / ANSI / backwards L-shaped enter) are unrelated to its logical function.

The EurKEY post seems to offer a keymap layout, not specific physical layout, so physical geometry is irrelevant.

I do this (US keyboard layout on German keyboards) since the mid/late 90's without problems. The physical differences are not very relevant (it's just things like the size of the Return key and related to that, the location of the Backslash key).

I seem to remember that the Amiga had a German keyboard layout which was much more convenient for programmers (at least I only started the habit of using the US layout after I switched from Amiga to PC).

The Amiga layout was truly made for programmers.

As a Belgian I simply use US intl and damn AZERTY to hell and back. The biggest problem is the size of the left shift which is only "right" on the Apple US intl keyboard and just wrong on anything else in Europe.

I also hate the extra big enter key, I mean what the hell? Give me my backslash above the enter any time of the year.

Thank god I got my escape key back BTW. I needed an external keyboard just for that crap.

> I've met more than a few Germans, Finns, and Swedish that map their local keyboards to US English for this reason

Native french speaker here and I do the same: it's QWERTY for me. Also there's just sheer insanity: like in Belgium, which is a tiny country, you have different layouts. And "french french" layout is different than "french belgian" etc. It just makes zero sense.

So I just use a QWERTY layout.

And I just set up a compose key for when I need to write in french. But then the thing is: I can write without any special character and then use a spellchecker to instantly fix everything so...

I do the same qwerty intl US.

It's about placement of;'\ :"|?>{}[] all nearby

in locales its different, every programmer should just use intl us.

mac lets you switch per app the locale too useful for writing apps

I routinely write in English, Spanish, French, and Finnish, and I code several hours a day. For me, the best layout (other than my Dactyl Manuform's, which is layered) is the standard ANSI US, with a compose key. The compose key gives me easy access to all diacriticals and accents, and I don't need to switch contexts at all.

See qwerty-fr[1] for a keyboard layout that is based on QWERTY but with a sane placement of keys contrary to US international.

[1] https://github.com/qwerty-fr/qwerty-fr#readme

That is if you are lucky enough to have a choice of hardware provided by your employer, but usually "easily" fixed with an external keyboard if need be :/

Germany is pretty grim here, most not-even-huge companies will just order QWERTZ.

The Z is irrelevant, the only physical difference is the big enter and the fwslash/pipe key just very slightly rearranged.

The main problem with the German layout IMHO, and all layouts in its family, is the infuriatingly tiny left shift key. The Netherlands has the same disease. I map the useless key next to it as a shift as well, at least that way I can type without getting pinkie arthritis.

I think most European layouts suffer from tiny-shift. Mapping it to shift is a good solution.

I have a similar problem with a laptop but with Ctrl/Fn, but thankfully the BIOS let me remap it (the Fn key is not a "real" key to the OS).

I didn't say the Z was relevant, it's just how most people I know identify this layout, but fine. "German ISO keyboard?"

And no, it's also not "just" the big enter and pipe (and the left shift). It's different, and cool if it works for you, I'm thrown off nearly as much when switching to a US layout on one of those as when I had been typing on US Intl for a while and then switch to the German layout.

You can still map it to QWERTY, you just have to remember where the special characters are. It's worth it.

This is me, an Italian: US keyboard or death.

Reallz well said ;)

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