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Comment by douche | Hacker News Reader

Having a full keyboard and a mouse is a big boost to productivity, over crippled little laptop keyboards and trackpads.

Also, physically, the screen on an Air or many of these new MacBooks is one fourth the size of just one of the three screens on my desktop. I suppose you can get by if you're just doing email or writing, but I'll stick with my full workstation for developing software. Two monitors is an absolute minimum, but the third one is nice for stashing Fiddler or the Chrome dev tool windows in.

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>> Having a full keyboard and a mouse is a big boost to productivity, over crippled little laptop keyboards and trackpads.

I respectfully disagree. I use a 27" external monitor with a MacBook Pro as my keyboard and mouse. I find external mice and keyboards too wide. It's been a while since I used a full sized keyboard but I find they make my right shoulder ache.

Since I can touch type I don't really miss the keypad at all. In fact I remap Caps Lock to Ctrl and use Ctrl-h, Ctrl-m, Ctrl-i (in Colemak) so that I don't have to reach for backspace, return and tab. That saves my right wrist, which seems to be a bit weak.

Then again I spend a lot of time in a tmux window with short cuts to move about, so that might be why it works for me.

[Updates for grammar]

Any feedback on the down votes?

My assertion is still that full sized keyboards and mice aren't necessarily better than laptops with track pads I guess YMMV.

I think the downvotes are for such a subjective setup.

Other thoughts - if you find a full-size keyboard uncomfortable, and prefer a custom keymapping, sounds like you might like the Happy Hacking Keyboard and a mouse of your choice:

https://elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=pfu_keyboards,hh...

It isn't cheap, but the compact nature of it allows you to have your mouse hand much closer. CTRL/CAPS swapping is considered also.

A simple tenkeyless (keyboard ends before the tenkey) might be suitable as well.

Of course if you're happy with your setup as is, that's all that matters. As is the common view in this thread, do whatever works for you.

Always liked the look of the HHKB but think it needs a second ctrl key for the right hand.

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