On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 06:30:09PM +0100, Marco Leise wrote: [...] > Why didn't I think of that before! The perceived ease of use depends - > in parts - on the spoken language you use, because different keyboard > layouts are used. To pick up your example, I don't mind := because I > have to hold [shift] already for a normal =. I just compared the > default US and DE layouts. Here are some characters that can be > achieved with one key stroke in either layout exclusively: > US: =[];'\/` > DE: #+^ยด > > So while the US layout lacks XOR and even + (wow), I'm a bit jealous > on =, array operations [], end of statement ;, division /, character > delimiter ', and raw string delimiter `.
You're right! The keyboard layout matters a lot. I remember on older keyboards [] and {} were in hard-to-reach places and require holding down the shift key. Today at least [] are easy to reach, so D's array notation is very convenient. > Then I remembered what happened when I enabled Pascal as a language > for aichallenge.org: > http://aichallenge.org/language_profile.php?language=Pascal > A flood of users from countries with a Cyrillic keyboard layout joined > the competition using Pascal. Back then I thought it was just a random > prevalence of Pascal for reasons like, that being the language taught > in schools. Now I wonder if - aside from what is taught at schools and > aside the fact that they mostly use English layouts to write code - it > is the lack of keys for | and & on a typical keyboard that makes > Pascal look more appealing: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#Cyrillic That's just a > wild theory. I think that theory has some truth to it. For example, I learned Cyrillic keyboard layout as part of learning Russian, and I felt the inconvenience of certain symbols like / (needs a shift and located in an awkward corner), esp. when typing paths in Unix. Basic things like ; requires a shift key and reaching to the upper number row, which makes typing statements quite awkward. I still don't know how to make certain symbols in Cyrillic layout. (Good thing I configured X11 to switch between EN and RU in a single keystroke: makes a huge difference in usability.) Imagine if your programming language required those hard-to-type symbols in the most common places. It would be a great turn off. > I might look into tuning a keyboard layout towards D programming a > bit. :) I thought the US/English keyboard layout is already very well suited to D. T -- Ruby is essentially Perl minus Wall.