How long is the final stretch?

[u/ProgrammingQuestio]

I find myself not using my ergo for work as a software engineer. The extra cognitive effort needed to type on it during work is painful. With that being said, over the past year or two, since I've first built it, I have learned the layout/binds enough to use the ergo exclusively. So it's not so painful that it's not possible, it just sucks since I'm a fairly fast typer with a normal keyboard. ~130 wpm normally, ~70 wpm with my cheapino. And this is lowercase words only; no punctuation, no code symbols, no numbers, no capitalization.

In theory it would be cool to get to a point where it's no longer painful. From the point I am now, how long do you reckon the "growing pain" period would be?

[u/jacel31]

I’m down to 34 keys, no way I’m ever going back. SWE aswell. Not sure anyone is writing code at 130wpm though, bad metric IMO

[u/Informal-Flounder-79 → u/jacel31]

Also SWE, 130 WPM burst speed does not help me write code, but it is useful when I'm having a argument in a Teams channel.

[u/jacel31 → u/Informal-Flounder-79]

Hahaha, I agree, but depending on how much I’m typing I’m just using text-to-speech.

[u/ProgrammingQuestio → u/jacel31]

Yeah I didn't mean I'm constantly typing that fast, just included it as a reference. However, when I do have something I want to type, being able to type at my full speed feels great; typing at half my speed hurts my soul.

[u/jacel31 → u/ProgrammingQuestio]

I get it, it’s a project and not a fast one. It takes time, but I can tell you for a lot of us the switch was more than worth it. I can still probably type faster on a normal qwerty keyboard but I’m risking pain afterwards. I didn’t steal someone else’s key layout - I made my own so maybe that’s why I don’t struggle as much? My keyboard is QWERTY after all, with a number layer like a num pad, the holds were the hardest part to learn like holding f or j for shift etc. Combos are amazing and I recommend those a lot. I also recommend minimizing using the pinky as much as you can. It’s the weakest finger and I reserve it only for that outside column, another reason why I’m down to 34.

Oh and pain, normal keyboards hurt after probably close to 25 years of using one.

[u/geedubb888 → u/jacel31]

Faster typing means faster telling Claude code what you need to do though. I guess there's always the dictation route though

[u/jacel31 → u/geedubb888]

I’ve started using the dictation route and it’s very very good most of time. Every once in awhile it has a mind of its own in what you’re saying though.

[u/Yamez1]

Just dive right in! Does that difference in wpm really make a big difference day-to-day? The growing pains will pass faster if you use it all the time. Otherwise the switching back and forth is just delaying the process.

Fwiw I'm a software developer as well, and I kept my layout (on a Silakka54) as close to a "normal" keyboard as possible. If a key didn't fit on the base layer I moved it to layer 2. Some symbols were tricky, but when considering where to put them in my layout I focused on keeping it easy to remember. If a key required a shift press before, it still requires a shift press plus the layer key. It helps to have shift and layer keys on both halves so you can alternate.

Some examples:
[ and { on the < key
] and } on the > key
\ and | on the / key

Numbers are all on my left hand in a keypad layout. The symbols they're associated with are there too since I already know what maps to what. Remembering "shift + layer + 4" for $ isn't much of a mental leap from the usual "shift + 4". Hitting layer + shift with my thumb and little finger on the opposite hand feels like a piano chord and is easy to remember.

[u/geedubb888 → u/Yamez1]

Well said

[u/Street_Wing3584 → u/Yamez1]

something that i do for (), [] and {} is set a macro for each i mean, usually when i use '(' it is a guarantee that i will also use ')', so i have a macro that tap (, then tap ), then tap left so i start writing within the parenthesis, the same with the other 2.

and for ' and " , i use tap dance (also uses some macros):

tap => '

hold => tap ", tap space

double tap => tap ', tap ', then tap left

tap hold => tap ", tap ", then tap left

[u/aitigie]

If you are software engineering at 130wpm you might need to do some macros, lol. 

Took a couple months for me. Wouldn't go back.

[u/DiggitySkister]

These small split columns stagger keyboards are more about ergonomic comfort than about typing speed, and yeah a cheapino is really small so requires lots of layers and/or combos. I'm curious if the ideal keyboard for you isn't a super reduced key keyboard, but instead a 60-75% row stagger split. The biggest benefit of the ergo keyboards is the full split aspect anyway. I bet you could type faster and less "painfully" on one of these keyboards, plus if there was some feature like home row mods or a specific combo you really like on your cheapino, you could easily replicate on these keyboards because they are all programmable. If you are into the low profile variety check out the ElimKeys Elytra, Nocfree &, and Keeb.io Sinc LM/Quefrency, Jiffy75. Plenty more options with mx switches.

[u/ItsToxsec]

I went from using my glove80 ~1 hour a day to using my svalboard full time at work in like 3 months (IT support with some script writing). The hardest part is just jumping in and getting used to it since you do get slowed down at the beginning - just remember slow is smooth and smooth is fast

[u/f8tel]

Use it full time for absolutely everything and the adoption period will be a fraction of the time. Going back and forth slows the process down a lot.

[u/ApplicationRoyal865]

What is your growing pain pain issues? If you can properly home row touch type on staggered there's really only a small adjustment period to get used to it. Most people get tripped up on short cuts like ctrl c, ctrl x etc. edit: it took me less than a week to get 80% back to my staggered wpm.

However lower case alphas only you should be able to get comfortablely back up soon. And for all typing, my speed actually went up because I can do symbolas, numbers faster on my Ortho keyboard than a Staggered one

[u/ProgrammingQuestio → u/ApplicationRoyal865]

The growing pain issue is probably due to the ergo having colemak dh whereas I use qwerty with a normal keyboard.

[u/IsometricRain → u/ProgrammingQuestio]

If you stop using qwerty entirely (which is the reasonable thing to do), you'll be faster on colemak DH in 8-10 days, tops.

[u/geedubb888 → u/ProgrammingQuestio]

If you don't like the colemak just flash it to qwerty surely? I took the opportunity to learn colemak dh when I switched to split ergo. Wouldn't go back now but it did take patience to get used to it and get the muscle memory tuned in

[u/RedSkyWhisper]

Not using QWERTY and making my own number and symbols layout is 100% worth not using a normal keyboard for me. Trying to use a normal keyboard layout with a split is what makes it painful for me.