Re:From VS Code to Helix
by thaumasiotes on Wednesday October 29, 2025 @11:43AM
(#45748377)
> on both US QWERTY and Colemak when you constantly type [];:{}| and so on, your pinky has to reach over to do it. At least for me that meant contorting my hand a bit to reach over. On my split keyboard all the symbols are behind a layer on the home row, and I barely use the pinky for anything, which fixes the issue.
On a completely standard rectangular-block keyboard, I don't use pinkies to type. Actually, I do use my left pinky to hit left shift. But that's it.
Re:From VS Code to Helix
by dugidugout on Wednesday October 29, 2025 @12:05PM
(#45748748)
There is a subset of split keyboard layouts which solve for this by moving the modifiers to the thumb area, which is often void when a keyboard is split. Quite a pleasure to use and has much less buy-in than QWERTY alternatives.
Maybe my hands are small, but to type []|\+= and not use my pinky I would either have to move my entire hand over or contort it even more to use my ring finger
Re:From VS Code to Helix
by thaumasiotes on Wednesday October 29, 2025 @11:06PM
(#45756009)
Move your hand.
After switching to a split keyboard my pain went away, and I think I learned that at least for me it was caused by exactly these symbols - on both US QWERTY and Colemak when you constantly type [];:{}| and so on, your pinky has to reach over to do it. At least for me that meant contorting my hand a bit to reach over. On my split keyboard all the symbols are behind a layer on the home row, and I barely use the pinky for anything, which fixes the issue. I also learned to hover while switching to the split keyboard, but that did nothing for my wrist pain when going back to my laptop's built in keyboard - after a full day of programming there the pain is back.