We all know it because we all think the same about our own system: You have the world's best IDE (or text editor) running on the only operating system that matters to you, carefully hand-crafted toolchains allowing you to develop and distribute ten applications at the same time, and you even have an adequate display attached to it so you can see ALL the things at the same time. That's all that is important anyway. Everything is perfect, right?
Well, have you ever thought about which keyboard to use? If you are happy with whatever comes with your computer or whatever is hyped in your particular community (looking at you, reddit!) without thinking about why you do that, you might want to spend a second thought on it.
Being a developer (it is safe to assume that most people reading this on DEV are developers), the one thing you need to produce is text. Yes, even your smartphone/tablet/smartwatch can produce text. But would you do serious development on it without any additional input hardware attached? Probably not, because their integrated "keyboards" are crap for anything that's longer than an average tweet.
In my (non-professional - I'm not a keyboard maker) opinion, a good keyboard for developers must have these properties:
-
A sane form factor.
Most people I know don't really use the "ten-key" block most of the time, which is fine. There have been keyboards without one for more than three decades - but that's as far as you should go.
Yes, "modern" approaches like this one may be optimized for one special thing, but you probably will do more with your keyboard than that one special thing - and you should ask yourself if it's really worth the additional design price tag to be unable to type blindly for months. We're talking about productivity here, not about collecting lovely gadgets. 🙂
-
A sane layout.
This is actually closely related to the form factor.
You grew up with one (usually QWERTZ/QWERTY/AZERTY) and you can probably use it at a reasonable speed at adult age. We all heard the stories about the Dvorak, Colemak and even more obscure layouts which would magically make you type 942 words per minute. But they most certainly won't - and you will probably have major problems using other people's computers once you unlearned your home layout.
It is probably not worth it.
-
A good keyfeel.
Yes, there are differences in how keys feel. Your typical flat laptop's built-in keyboard will feel very different from an old IBM PC's one, not just because of the height of the keys. You will make more or less typing errors depending on two factors: The size of the keys (I, for one, can't type on most laptop keyboards without an embarrassing amount of errors) and the switches under those keys, requiring very different weights and sometimes even "travels" to register a pressed key.
Again, a good keyfeel is one that fits your fingers. Don't go ask other people about which kind of keys they'd recommend to you. They will just scream their own preferences over each other and you will not have a qualified answer. Try as many as you can. You have friends, coworkers or relatives which have a different keyboard than you? You see a keyboard in a shop or in the scrapyard which you haven't tried before? Excellent. Try it!
The best keys are those which have a good grip and are hard enough to press (most cheap keyboards feel like pressing a sponge and that will hurt your fingers badly over the years), but not too hard. There is an obvious difference between 20 grams and 80 grams. Your fingers will feel even little differences.
-
A decent build quality.
Don't worry. I don't say you should grab one of the late 70s/early 80s all-metal keyboards which will survive the next atomic war. If you haven't got one of those yet, you probably don't want to afford one anyway. (Or do you?) But remember that a keyboard is a device which is basically (lightly) hammered by you for hours every day. Having keys which feel awesome does not help you when the case is falling apart. Touch the case. Can you bend it? Does it make noises when you can? If it does, you'd better try another.
I will not recommend any keyboard which "fits you all". There is none. My current personal preference is pictured above only because I finally figured out how to add a picture here. 🙂
I hope I could inspire you anyway.
Latest comments (141)
We need more keeb content on here, keep it coming!! :)
I'm one of the few people who actually uses the numeric keypad. It's handy with NumLock off so that I can move around an editor with the numeric keypad keys. Plus the Home, End and other special keys are right near the arrow keys organized in an intuitive layout, since some keyboards have the PageUp/PageDown keys shoved at the very top right of the keyboard which is inconvenient to reach many times.
This is the exact reason I use off-site (cloud but I am never giving in to that marketing con artistry and using the term) storage instead of an overpriced laptop when not in front of my main rig. The processors also suck but that doesn't matter at all if I can't furiously type out several paragraphs in a few seconds time thinking about what an idiot you have to be to spend money on a gaming laptop (seriously stupid was the conclusion on that one)
I heard Apple's new keyboards really suck, but its overpriced Linux anyway and I for one would never spend a red cent on their hardware (its garish)so looks like I will never really know.
I own a (2018) gaming laptop - those are nice for compiling stuff. And I attached an external keyboard to it, of course. :-)
Actually, macOS 10.x is loosely based on NeXTSTEP which was a distribution of the Berkeley version of Unix ("BSD"), rooting in the (late) 1970s. Linux is a poor implementation of some of it. Meanwhile, both SysV UNIX (illumos, formerly known as OpenSolaris) and BSD (Free/Net/OpenBSD and their various forks as well as Apple's Darwin) are free software.
It must be nice to be able to sink an extra thousand dollars into a computer that you don't really need and has components that defeat the purpose of laptops like portability and not making noise... I'm still getting my foot in the door and grew up a little too lean to be wasteful but if that's your work flow, have it. I'm also a little too aware of the dark side of life to ever have had time to game so I may just not get some vital aspect of the whole "gaming laptop" that's heavier than a micro atx gaming build thing anyway 😁
As for macOS (or OSX as it was) sure it maybe based on BSD and I know what it is, that doesn't mean your average Dev does Saying Linux is pretty much the shorthand for anything not MS or Apple, but thanks for clarifying for the community.
Since we are going that way should I just call it GNu/Linux or can we agree that level of sperg is excessive?
I grew up with high-quality business laptops that could survive contact with my clumsy hands. Sadly, they just don't build these anymore outside the gaming community... also, my desk is usually too full for desktop computers. :)
Hm, I'd prefer to use proper terms so people can learn from me. - Actually, there are Linux distributions which don't rely on GNU, so I would just say "a Linux distribution".
I thought the BSD family was based on Unix, not Linux.
It is. BSD started as a AT&T (Bell Labs) Unix distribution in the late 1970s. Today, they don't share much code (except that Version 8 Unix was basically BSD, backported to run on the VAX) for licensing reasons.
If you type for work or hobby, don't settle for a staggered keyboard. At the very least get an ortholinear grid.
The switches are Cherry MX Silent Red
Also notice the camera positioning to replicate that modern up-the-nose camera in laptop screen's bottom bezel.
I'm sure I'm in the small minority but I can't stand mechanical keyboards. Every model I have tried has too much force required per keystroke and too much key height.
I prefer typing on my XPS-15 laptop as the key height is minimal while still being somewhat tactile.
Does anyone have any recommendations for a desktop keyboard with low key height that is still tactile?
daskeyboard here. Nice post.
I was trying to figure that out as well. Can you point me in the right direction?
Yup: RTFM! (I did it too late...)
Hey look! A manual. Thank you sir.
Having used Colemak for the last four years, you're kinda right, kinda wrong. Sure, it can be a pita to use Qwerty again (but not that much - it's all muscle memory anyway). The side benefits are the amazing security system you get - fools wonder why they can't type on my computer...
More useful than that craziness is some of the additional craziness you can add by using something like Karabiner or xmodmap to unleash some truly epic keyboard hacks. Capslock becomes useful as both Escape and Control Shift keys can also write parentheses... it's fun.
You're right - it probably isn't. But, then again, just because Qwerty is popular doesn't make it right (it was designed to slow typing down). And learning a new layout is an awesome opportunity to learn to touchtype, if only because all the keycaps now have the wrong letters on them.
Thanks for the great post.
I felt the urge to do research on that:
I found out that you might be right. So, at least, I learned something today.
Colemak, Dvorak etc. seem to be optimized for people who use ten fingers and mainly type in English. (The Colemak website claims that "for other languages Colemak isn't optimal", and, oh boy, do we need those umlauts!) - Despite being a confident QWERTZ typist, I can't deny that I sometimes take a look at alternatives. Neo would probably be "my" recommended layout if I was interested in using all ten fingers. ;-)
I might try some of those on Android. I don't have a good keyboard there anyway.
Yes that true all hail mechanical keyboard! :D
I'm using my cute and humble Logitech k380 :) much better than my macbook pro keyboard
As a Windows user going to a Mac book pro, I figured I'd do things the Apple way... Why can't I do that on my keyboard Apple!?!? I'm not picky about which keyboard I use as much as I'm crazy about being able to do everything from the keyboard I have. And this coming from a late bloomer in the world of command line all the things!
I disagree with several of your points. I credit the Colemak layout along with the Kinesis Advantage 2 to saving my career. After 10 years of typing 10-12 hours a day I started having wrist problems. These two changes allow me to type as long as I want with no pain at all.
I found my dream keyboard. ThinkPad with Czech layout. I had one, broke. They do not make it any more. Damn. Managed to buy another. after that i send broken to seller and get brqnd new. Now I have two. One with S/N around 530, second around 970... imagine, 1000 made, lol. What if i after years destroy both? :-O :-D
I love my keyboard. It's
IKBC G104withMX Cherrybrown switch.I'm really happy with my Pok3r and Das 3, both with MX Blues. Although the Pok3r looks like a gaudy Christmas ornament...
I'd love to try a board with Topre switches. They sound like rain. youtu.be/7EnzFbLKIGg