
Typing stealth: a review of the CODE Keyboard - jseliger
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/09/typing-stealth-a-review-of-the-code-keyboard/
======
ufmace
I've read a lot of posts on programming-related blogs about the importance of
typing skill and keyboards. Maybe it's just me, but at least as far as typing
skill/speed goes, I'm not really seeing it. Sure, a lot of our job is typing,
and you need some baseline level of skill at it, but I don't think I've ever
been hindered in my ability to produce code and features faster by my not-
particularly-great typing abilities. If I could wave a magic wand and make
myself type twice as fast as I currently do, I don't think my overall
productivity would change much at all. The majority of my time is spent
thinking about the best way to create or fix something, researching options,
etc. The actual process of getting the result of that onto the screen seems
relatively quick by comparison.

I might even go so far as to say that, if your typing speed is seriously
hindering your productivity, then your language may have too much boilerplate
to it, and you might want to put together some code-generation tools for
yourself.

On the other hand, I will say that I now prefer those ergonomic keyboards with
the split, down-sloping keys. After extended fast typing on a normal keyboard
(writing documentation), I sometimes get a mild wrist pain, and using this
type of keyboard seems to prevent this without interfering with my overall
typing. They seem to be surprisingly hard to find though, with like 5-10 of
them on Amazon versus hundreds of conventional keyboards.

~~~
mistercow
I have thought about this as well, and with that in mind, I've tried to take
notice of how typing affects me (I'm a pretty fast typist, but I think this
experience is not dependent on any particular typing speed).

What seems to be the main problem is that typing dominates my internal
monologue. I can't continue to keep my ideas fresh in my mental "cache" while
I'm typing, because the part of my mind that would be used for that is busy
uselessly sounding out the text that I'm typing. So every second I spend
typing is a second that I'm not actively maintaining and refreshing my
conception of the big picture. The more code I have to type in between
thinking about a problem and finishing the solution, the more likely I am to
have to stop, rethink the problem, and rework a piece of code I'm writing to
fit some constraint I lost track of.

Put another way, typing is a process that forces me to think through the exact
implementation of a problem at a snail's pace (compared to normal mental
operation). Not more carefully, mind you, but more slowly.

~~~
ufmace
That might be part of the issue. My typing isn't particularly fast, but it is
mindless. I spend virtually no mental effort on typing while I'm actually
doing it, so I'm free to think about exactly what I'm trying to do and what
the best way to do it is.

~~~
mistercow
Hypothesis test (I'll tell you the hypothesis after you answer): What is the
experience of thinking like for you?

------
ocharles
This layout still feels inferior next to my
[http://trulyergonomic.com/](http://trulyergonomic.com/) keyboard. I was
really skeptical at first, especially with the price tag - but I'd never go
back now.

~~~
astrodust
With a layout like that, I bet you can't go back. The shift keys are in such a
very odd position, with Alt, a rarely used key, sitting in the prime spot.

"Ergonomic" keyboards tend to be trouble for anyone who's not a strict home-
row typer. I cross over the middle a lot, like for "keyboard" the Y is for
left hand. Maybe it's more like a piano thing, where you're sort of hitting
chords, pairs of letters in sequence ("e", "y"), hands moving into position to
prepare, versus regimented typing. That giant gulf in the middle prevents all
that.

~~~
scrabble
Have you tried an ergonomic keyboard? I tend to be a bit of a floaty typist as
well, but a couple years ago I used a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard for
a year. To my surprise, I found that I got used to it pretty quickly.

~~~
astrodust
I have. My highly subjective opinion is that they're all wrong.

I've been typing on regular keyboards for long enough they don't bother me.

------
poolpool
My daily driver is the kinesis advantage.

[http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/advantage.htm](http://www.kinesis-
ergo.com/advantage.htm)

~~~
jseliger
Same here. I wrote about it here:
[http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/kinesis-
advantage/](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/kinesis-advantage/) .

------
zerr
Why nowadays keyboards usually don't have L-shaped Enters? I can't imagine
productively working without it...

~~~
antiterra
Steelseries mechanical keyboards generally have L shaped enter keys. It's part
of the reason why I never bought one.

I understand your opinion as a matter of preference, but why does your
productivity require it?

~~~
zerr
I'm a programmer, so as opposed to prose-like text typers, I heavily use Enter
for newlines. And I exclusively use my right hand's pinky finger to press it
without precise aiming/thinking/looking.

It is really hard for me to do this for non-L Enters.

~~~
ars
Funny. I'm also a programmer and I hate L-Enters because the backslash and
vertical bar is in the wrong place.

It also means that either the backspace or the left shift is smaller, and I
hate that too.

~~~
zerr
The only "sacrifice" for me is the small Backspace, and the backslash/vertical
is just left to it. Both Shifts are big.

I have yet to find a mechanical keyboard with such a layout. And I think I can
deal with smaller Right Shift.

------
__--__
I'm partial to my ergodox[1]. It does have blue switches, but if I decide I
want to switch to clear I can do the swap myself.

[1] [http://www.anandtech.com/show/7245/ergodox-review-an-
ergonom...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/7245/ergodox-review-an-ergonomic-
mechanical-keyboard-via-massdrop)

------
mrbill
I just don't see why there's all the hype over this keyboard versus any other
mechanical board (Filco, Leopold, Ducky, etc) other than PR.

For me personally, nothing beats an 87-key (standard 101-key minus the number
pad, but with arrow keys and stuff above them) with Cherry MX Brown switches.
Blues are also acceptable in a pinch (reminiscent of the old Northgate Omnikey
boards). The only superior board is of course the IBM/Unicomp models with
buckling springs.

All this is my opinion and preference; I have coworkers who love the "flat"
chiclet-style keyboards like the Apple models; I can't stand them and they
make my fingers hurt due to lack of travel. Bad habit from learning to type on
a Selectric II in the late 80s.

------
lewispollard
> Atwood designed the CODE keyboard as the answer to all of the touch-screen
> typing we now do.

He designed a physical keyboard to replace a touch screen keyboard (which
arguably no hacker would use for coding) that mimics a... physical keyboard?

------
at-fates-hands
I've been told by several people I''m a "heavy" typer. The old Dell keyboards
I got from companies made my typing loud enough to hear like the author noted.
The only way to suppress the clacking was to type slower and softer.

This keyboard looks like a good fit for someone with my typing style.

Edit: Thanks to everybody for posting links to their favorite keyboards,
hopefully I can find a good one if this one doesn't work out.

------
sivers
For those of us who work on a laptop all day, who don't want a separate
keyboard for it, but could buy a new laptop based on it having a great
keyboard:

Any suggestions for a laptop with a great keyboard?

Specifically any non-Apple laptop?

~~~
peter_l_downs
The Thinkpad keyboards are so great that I bought an external one for work
computer. The mouse nub (or whatever it's called) is great, too, although I
have a nice Logitech mouse for things like photoshop.

~~~
dxhdr
I'll 2nd that. I've only ever had one Thinkpad (X100e, no longer in
production) but the keyboard is amazing. I don't know if other Thinkpads have
the same "chiclet" style keys but it's made me way of future laptop
purchases.. other keyboards just don't compare. The nub is interesting but I
don't use the mouse a whole lot in general. When the need arises I don't mind
reaching for the trackpad.

------
mistercow
This sounds pretty neat; a handful of modest little adjustments that could
prevent a lot of headaches. Being able to instantly take Colemak with me to
any computer would be amazing (although carrying a keyboard around everywhere
I use a computer sounds iffy).

Now I've said some positive things, so I'm going to nitpick. This is HN, after
all.

The first thing that stands out to me is that it doesn't seem like a lot of
attention has been paid to ergonomic details. The lowest hanging fruit here,
which I've never seen in any keyboard, is to put feet on the side _toward_ the
user. In almost all cases, the way I've seen people's desks set up is such
that there is no way for them to have a neutral wrist position (wrists not
bending up). Worse yet, keyboards invariably have those little feet on the
back, and people assume they should use them, which causes them to bend their
wrists up even more. Ideally, a keyboard would let you fine tune its slope so
that you can set it up exactly to your needs, although I have no idea how you
would build that conveniently.

The second nitpick is with something Atwood says on the linked page:

> Nothing lets you get your thoughts out of your brain and into words faster
> and more efficiently than a well made keyboard.

Technically that is true, in the sense that a stenotype is technically a
keyboard. But the reason I'm picking this nit is that as someone who has made
it a side quest to find _something_ better than a standard computer keyboard,
this is a bit of a sore spot for me. The _minimum_ you have to be able manage
on a stenotype to be a court reporter is 225 wpm for live testimony. That's a
$50k/year job where a _requirement_ is typing faster than the all time world
record for a typewriter-style keyboard.

That's a phonetic system, and it's not immediately obvious how to untangle all
of the issues with making it work with programming. On the other hand, there's
Veyboard, which is non-phonetic and more flexible, and seems like it could be
used for programming in its current state. It's slower than stenotype, but far
faster than a traditional keyboard.

My point is that it irks me that we have so many people typing so much and
getting injured, and not much focus seems to be going into adopting a better,
radically different approach. We have a handful of very expensive hardware
options intended for specialized markets, and we have Plover[1] (nothing
similar exists that I know of for emulating a Veyboard), and that's about it.
And on the mass market side, we have less expensive, specially designed
ergonomic traditional keyboards based mostly on shakily researched principles.

Would it necessarily help with RSI just to increase typing speed? That needs
to be tested. But it seems likely that if you reduce the amount of time spent
typing, you'll reduce the amount of damage.

[1][http://plover.stenoknight.com/](http://plover.stenoknight.com/)

~~~
jseliger
Regarding ergonomics, I've been using a Kinesis Advantage for the last couple
years ([http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/kinesis-
advantage/](http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/kinesis-advantage/)), and
I would find it hard to return to a standard keyboard all the time.

The Advantage is absurdly expensive relative to other keyboards but for
someone who spends a lot of time—too much, probably—typing, it's worth it.

~~~
jonhohle
I've been considering building an Ergodox[0], which has a Kinesis inspired key
layout, but does not have the concave key well. In your experience with the
Kinesis, would having a flat layout be a significant impediment to the comfort
of another matrix key layout?

[0] [http://ergodox.org](http://ergodox.org)

~~~
eikenberry
I'm also a kinesis fan having used one nearly exclusively for the last 4-5
years. For me the concave layout is nice, it makes it easier to reach the
keys, but it is not the key ingredient. The thing about the kinesis which
would make it very hard to change back to a standard layout keyboard is the
thumb based meta keys.

I've looked a the Ergodox myself as well as this one [1] which I'm not sure
has a name yet. I read about it originally here on HN [2].

[1]
[http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=44940.810](http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=44940.810)
[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6297356](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6297356)

------
BadassFractal
Would be really neat if it incorporated Topre switches instead, but I imagine
that would make the price shoot through the roof.

------
iancarroll
Has anyone noticed they increased background noise when demonstrating the
volume of the keyboard?

~~~
mramir
Yeah, probably to more accurately capture the noise of the keyboard. That's
why the laptop is so freaking loud.

------
thejosh
How quiet is it actually?

