I've used a US-QWERTY keyboard layout my entire life. I've seen other layouts that do things like reduce the size of the enter/backspace keys, move the pipe operator (|) and can't wrap my head around how I would code on those.
What are your experiences? Are there any layouts that you prefer for coding over US English? Are there any symbols that you have a hard time reaching ($ for example)?
UK layout is the GOAT. It isn't that much different from US layout at first, but there are so many more special characters readily available. Particularly useful for multiple languages like Spanish, German, Swedish, etc.
I use this too, and find it better in almost every way.
Swapping
@and"is a mixed blessing since the quote is used quite a lot when coding, but then so is the@. In prose I prefer to use US-style double quotes for quotations and leave single quotes for contractions, possession, etc, so I have to do that awkward shift-2 combo a lot.Having an extra key is great for us coders since we use most of those weird glyphs (never used
¬) and having easy access to#is chefkiss.png.ISO layout's tall enter key is great for touch typing since you don't need to be very accurate with your little finger and moving the
| \key next toZis much more convenient. I like the symmetry of the slash keys, too.Alt-Gr make loads of shortcuts easier, although occasionally I want that key to be a normal alt instead.
Top one is ISO-UK: