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Keyboard question to European programmers

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ataradov:
Here is an abstract question that came to mind. I've been looking at European keyboard layouts and they are all over the place. But one thing that stood out is that special characters (!@#$%^&*) are not as easily accessible on all layouts as they are on the US layout.

So I have a question for users of those keyboards and especially programmers that might need to type those characters a lot depending on the programming language used. Do some character choices by the language designers make it more annoying to use? Or it makes no difference and you just get used to type on whatever keyboard you have?

For example, Pascal uses ^ for pointers, and this specific character seem to be on random combinations of keys on different layouts. Does this make it harder to use Pascal? And XOR in C, but I guess you don't use XOR as much.

How do you even type ^ on a German keyboard? Wiki says it is an accent key used for combing with other characters.

Also, it looks like Polish people though about that a lot and have separate layouts for typists and programmers. They also have some nightmarish expanded layout, which is a bit much.

PlainName:
Never really thought about this, but aren't most programming languages in English? So when programming would it be too much hassle to switch the keyboard to US layout, or whatever is most comfortable? 'Course, could be a drag to keep switching back and forth as you send off emails or whine on Facebook when you're meant to be programming ;)

pdenisowski:

--- Quote from: ataradov on March 08, 2023, 12:28:47 am ---How do you even type ^ on a German keyboard? Wiki says it is an accent key used for combing with other characters.

--- End quote ---

With the German keyboard in Windows, I type "3^2" by typing "3", then the [~/`] key (right above Tab) and then 2.

Not much call for the circumflex (^) in modern German, although it comes in handy for typing medieval German (Mittelhochdeutsch) :)

ich saz ûf eime steine   
und dahte bein mit beine
dar ûf satzt ich den ellenbogen
ich hete in mîne hant gesmogen   
daz kinne und ein mîn wange.   
dô dâhte ich mir vil ange
wie man zer welte solte leben
deheinen rât kond ich gegeben

ataradov:
So it does not combine when no valid combination possible? But it would hard to type "b^a"?

JPortici:
Italian layout.
The only difficult symbol to use is ~: alt+5 on OSX or Press alt + type 126 on numpad + release alt on windows, on some IDEs like Qt Creator i have to remap a bunch of stuff because they decided to use Alt + Number

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