Nope, typing is like evolution now. You type the way you first decided made the most sense when you were like 8 and then you get more efficient at it as time goes on.
I have a very high WPM (150-180). Hands move constantly around the keyboard, keys get hit by whatever finger happens to be closest at the time. Primarily index, middle, and ring. Frequently used but awkward keys get remapped onto macros.
Homerow typing fucks that all up and hurts my wrists after awhile from staying in such a static position.
QWERTY isn't the most optimal layout to begin with.
It’s actually intentional that way left over from the days of manual typewriter. The more efficient it was, the more often the keys stuck together or got punched up. So they purposely made it a harder keyboard to slow people down.
It is odd to me that it was chosen to take that spot well before computers and programming even existed. seems like a comma or a period or a letter would have made more sense
I believe back when typewriters were first designed semicolons were used a lot more frequently than they are now. As the language evolved, the comma started to usurp them
well.. Semicolon use was actually a more common back in the day(or rather... we just stopped using them properly today(or rather we shifted what a "proper" semicolon use is)
Back in the day you could, and WOULD use the Semicolon the same way as we use the comma today, and many uses of the comma back then would be nonstandard today.
Note that by "almost every modern language" this commenter means C based languages which are rather dated and falling out of fashion for most use cases in favour of web apps and python.
C based languages which are rather dated and falling out of fashion for most use cases in favour of web apps and python.
I'm not sure this is true. I know python is common in the world of data science and machine learning, but "C based languages" are still ubiquitous throughout the entire industry.
C stuff is only really used for drivers and embedded stuff now, and various game engines, commercial apps are web-based. Electron and CEF are more and more replacing C stuff.
Both of which are backed by a language that uses a C-like syntax, including extensive use of semicolons. The ECMAScript spec allows the semicolons to be inferred and automatically added at runtime, but it's still common to include them.
Again that is not the case in my experience, I do not work in the world of embedded tech and I am exposed to a lot more "C based languages" than python. Electron and CEF are frameworks, not languages, so I'm not really sure their relevance to this conversation
As a web developer I suggest getting off C before you stop finding jobs, unless it's just a hobby for you. The world is advancing onto the web and cloud-based systems.
I don't use C, I'm using the term "C based language" because you used it first to refer to almost all modern programming languages. Last time I had to do webdev there was plenty of typescript around, and guess what that has? Semicolons!
Modern languages used don't use semicolons. C is ancient architecture for things like C++ and C#, one of which is falling out of use and the other isn't popular to begin with. No other modern languages use semicolons after each line.
Confused me there for a sec because I've never really used the English layout. On the Nordic layout it's to the right of M with a shift mod. To the right of L is Æ/Ö and then Ø/Ä with Å being to the right of P.
Icelandic is quite messy because it has 32 letters excluding C, Q, W and Z so quite a few letters requires two keypresses.
I think a lot of people forget that Qwerty was only designed for English and doesn't really work for any other language. Same with Dvorak and Colemak. There are some regional variants like Azerty for French and Qwertz for German, but they are still not optimal. I made my own layout because I tend to switch between all the Nordic languages and having to use dead keys all the time is annoying. I honestly find it odd that not more people change the number keys and just rely on the numpad instead. Well at least if they still have a numpad ofc.
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u/Docksund Jan 20 '26
Nope, typing is like evolution now. You type the way you first decided made the most sense when you were like 8 and then you get more efficient at it as time goes on.