What keyboard areas are “sacred” to you, as a developer?
ALL OF IT! Do not remap my keys, add keys or buttons within the 101,2,4 key layout(exception-stick mouse) They get in the way. I had one with 3 media keys below delete end and page down and I got rid of it after 45 minutes, and 4 reboots where I hit Power instead of Delete.
How important are the extra multimedia functions such as sleep, calculator, scrollwheel, volume control, etc? Do you use this stuff frequently? Rarely? Never?
never
Does it really matter if your keyboard is wireless?
I can see the point in my work, where the wiring is often constrained beyond a reasonable measure, but at home, no. For a media center used in a home theater maybe.
Does an ergonomic layout help?
Resounding NO! I have no problems with extended typing(in “correct” and otherwise positions with my home keyboard, some with standard pos keyboards, and much pain with “ergonomic” splts. If I could put the ergo split to an angle which worked for me it might be different.
What keyboard(s) do you recommend, and why?
You have heard from one fo my ilk before. I fall squarely into the “Russian 10 lb” keyboard which doubles as a blunt instrument and works after a double homicide category. Best part:keyboard previously referred to as Russian which says “Made in the USA” on it. I have gone through a total of 1 and am on the second. The first was a used keyboard from a university used equipment center(read heavy use pre me) and started with sticking everything on the right due to cola. Some cleanup later and it worked for years. I have one now I got for $3 from a used computer store, and after a couple of showers(yes, literally. it’s easier than the dishwasher) and 2 days drying upside down it works great. I would also recomomend a previously mentioned mechanical with the IBM trackpoint in it. I used a Thinkpad for quite some time and prefer the joystick to a glidepad or mouse.
I admit to only estracurricular programming at this time, I too am a phone monkey, so at work I have various MS n"ERGO"keyboards with the jacked arrows and ins, del… We also have the cheapest of the free standard keyboards seeded thruought the call center. The job should be 75%-95% entering data and using keyboards to move, but due to poor upper managment and client decisions, we use as the primary account review program a .swx file!. Needless to say I spend a disproportionate amount of time using the mouse. Also, having used the “ergo” ms keyboards I find theat they cause my wrists to hurt very quickly(10-20 min concentrated typing) wheras the pos boards it is 3-4 hours, and with the aforementioned home keyboard have been known tot ype between 20 and 50 wpm for 13 straight hours with no pain, discomfort, or other issues.
If I had the money the Datahand is something I would like to try. Last time I checked, the home version was just shy $1,000.00. It seems to me one of about 3 methods for truely ergonomic keyboarding. The things I think are needed to be truely ergonomic are to adjust for different hand sizes, adjust for different shoulder widths, adjust for different default wrist angles. The ergonomic keyboard from microsoft(all I have used, from expensive to cheap) have NO ADJUSTABILITY! This means they cannot accomodate the differences inherent with someone of a different shoulder width or arm length. I am sure there was a lot of work done to figure ot the angles which woudl be best for the average person, and that for the average size and shape person they should work fine. I am built larger than that, and use of them(except for the numeric keypad, which has no changes other than the built in wrist wrest) honestly causes me pain after a short time. Well, I seem to have wandered, sorry about that.
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