Use the right tool for the right job

So, you are a software developer and have computer to code, so what’s wrong with that? Well, I will tell you that writing code is a craft. You create code with your bare hands (Literally and figuratively) and like any craftsperson you need the right tools for the right job, for sure you can get things done using whatever you have but, you can make the process a little bit more productive and pleasant.

What do I need to change?

My mother language is Spanish; hence my keyboard is in Spanish. It has one additional letter in comparison with an English layout (ñ a.k.a. n tilde), we have two types of two types of accent marks (´ and ` even if we only use one 🤷‍♂️) and the most annoying thing: the keyboard is designed to write not to code, so brackets are different keys and I need to press Alt gr + the key to use them, this piss me off so I decided to change my keyboard, at the end we all code in English, right?

The right tool for the right job

I took advantage that my keyboard was damaged (Poured a glass of water on it) and decided to buy an English layout keyboard, the next question was what type?. There are several types of keyboards (TKL, 75%, 60%, etc.) and the best solution for me was buying a 75% membrane keyboard (Maybe I’ll buy a mechanical in the future but not for now) and the chosen was the Perixx Periboard 409H. I loved the fact that has 2 extra USB ports that comes in handy given that my Mac only has one USB port on each side of the laptop.

Using the keyboard

Muscle memory is strong, like VERY STRONG, but after a couple of weeks I find my new keyboard very confortable and the most important thing of all: brackets are in one key, if I want to use curly brackets, I just press shift instead of Alt Gr, I don’t have to press shift + anything to have the semi-colon, and since I selected U.S. International I still have the accent mark (Only one, yay!!). Decided to get rid of the num pad because I barely use it, I have arrow keys to navigate through the code and this keyboard takes little space (My desktop is a mess, and I don’t have space for anything more).

Conclusion

If your current keyboard layout is pissing you off, buy an English keyboard, or even better buy a Laptop with English keyboard layout, is up to you in the end but I really think that if you are a software developer, you definitively need an English Keyboard layout.