Keys To A Dream Software Development Setup 

Ok many have been asking for my QMK/ZMK configs, here they are: Corne - github.com/Me163/keyboard_layouts_qmk/tree/master/corne Iris - github.com/Me163/keyboard_layouts_qmk/tree/master/iris Kinesis Advantage 360 - github.com/Me163/Adv360-Pro-ZMK Glove80 - github.com/Me163/glove80-zmk-config Chocofi - github.com/Me163/zmk-config-chocofi I'm not making the Piantor available quite yet as setting it up was a bit of an oddball compared to the rest and I'm not sure if I did it right. But the layout I use on the Piantor is identical to the one I use on the Corne.

Every time I see anyone going split ortholinear I regain faith in humanity. You reaching up to the glove80 really impressed me

One year ago, having switched to vim, I decided to go one step further and try out a Ferris Sweep v2 (34 keys) with a custom layout and put my mod keys on the home row. I liked the elegant minimalist design. It's so comfortable to work with it, I'm never going back to a traditionnal keyboard, ever.

I've been using a plank but now I'm ready to get a chocofi keyboard. Thank you so much for such a high quality video and awesome introduction to these next-gen keyboards!

If you like cool keyboards, that's fine, i do too. But if typing speed is your bottleneck, you aren't developing, you're doing data entry.

Having that money spent on keyboards deserves at least a like & comment 😅

Really high quality video. Pacing and script was on point

Wow, this video has been quite interesting. I dont think that I will use a split keyboard ever, but those home row mods sound so good. Thats right up my alley of keyboard optimization. I will definitely try that one.

This video is on par with a Project Farm tool comparison video. Super well done. Great research and presentation of each keyboard, as well as your journey.

I recently got a ZSA Moonlander, I've been very happy with it so far. This video has given me some great ideas on new layers and macros to try. Thanks!

I have KinesisAdvantage2, Moonlander and now, you have convinced me to buy Glove80, just bought it, and can't wait for delivery :)

I've spend so many hours researching keyboards. Ended up with the sofle(corne + number keys). It's a great starter board for those of us who could not commit to only 3 rows. Super expensive to get it imported here to Sweden, but totally worth it! Having vim arrow keys is just the best!

Happily been using Corne for bit over 2 years now. Love it.

While I appreciate the information and will definitely take a look at the glove80 as a starting point. I just do not understand the keyboard minimalist things for software devs, 99.9% of the time typing is not my bottleneck it's thinking about what I'm doing, also I can't be alone in having a very physical muscle memory that doesn't like key locations switching purpose (AKA layers) same reason I don't like virtual desktops and do like many, many monitors. I think I'd consider the glove80 split 3 ways with a numpad and extra keys on the sides for little used functions. I swear that I'd prefer to have no overloading on symbol keys at all

Great video. thanks for digging into the details!

glove80 truly is the endgame. I love mine.

I’d like to go deeper down the rabbit hole, but I’m afraid of not being able to use a laptop anymore. It’s great to just have a single device to carry around and do some work.

So if you are a dev and you have extra keys that you don't use for typing. Build macros on those keys. Like write out default function/class structures, logging, etc etc. Saves a lot of time

This is such an incredible video. I have been looking into purchasing a split keyboard and this video is huge help. Thanks a lot!

I ended up buying the piantor after a month of looking through options. It should be here in a month or so, and I'm excited to try it out. I wouldn't have known about it without this video. I think it is the fewest keys I could go to without previously using a next gen keyboard.

I’ve never watched a video that excited me annoyed me and wowed me all at the same time… When I say that I would never buy a keyboard again, I accidentally watch your video. How dare you?

No regrets, there are ways to spend even more money - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-m53_jtJR-Ig.html But on a serious note, video feels a bit unfinished. Any plans, any options you've skipped, what would be a cheapest approach do diy something like Chocofi, etc.

Amazing. Efficient, effective, informative and fast. Well done

These keyboards are really cool. the way you explained every keyboard is very good

I got a Lily58 as my first split board and I'm quite happy with it. It took an adjustment period but after a month or so I'm quite proficient with it and I don't see myself going back to a regular keyboard ever.

I was curious about the corne and was leaning towards that to start my nextgen keyboard journey. After watching this, I think the Kinesis and the glove80 would suit me better. Thanks for the video man!

Down the rabbit hole I go! I ordered a Piantor after watching this vid - I've wrestled with touch typing ergonomics for a lot longer than necessary, it seems.... I'm going to give Colemak-DH a try while I'm at it, - this should be a fun journey!

This is my favorite keyboard explanation video I've seen so far! It's the one I'm going to send to my physical therapist so he doesn't have to listen to me ramble and gush over keyboards. I've been just getting into mechanical keyboard and I had a similar religious experience when I bought my first upgrade to the Womier SK71 recently. For maybe about 8 months I've had my eye on the glove80 but haven't been able to bring myself to get it. And then very recently I find out the "unsoldered" version isn't hot swappable, just sans switches soldered in. Nuuuuu, not my perfect grail/endgame keyboard gone off and made me go back to square one. I was really interested in the pro red linears since I have some finger joint issues, but if they end up being too light I'll bottom out and it'll be worse. At that price point, I really wanted to get to try out different switches and if I ever need to lube them I'm not down to solder them all. I'm a little torn and I'm considering buying something like the glove80, iris, or moonlander which all aren't exactly what. I want... and going off the rails and going full dactyl manuform mode. I think for me per-key RGB is a must to help show a layer noob like me which layer I'm on and where the keys are on that layer. I'm trying not to lose too many keys at once and I'm not even sure if I'd do better with the regular switches or the choc. If only Best Buy were full of these and I could stroll down and give them a try 😅

I've been looking into split keyboards and I'm glad you seem to have confirmed that Glove80 is a great choice, it's the one I'm leaning towards.

This dude is just good at typeing hands down. The fact that you can adapt to the different layouts like that is kinda crazy.

Highly recommend the moonlander. To me, it just feels like some of the best of everything shown here. Like the Kinesis with the tenting and thumb clusters, but way less expensive, linear keys with stagger for finger length, pretty good portability with the only real downside being the need to untent before you go. Also Oryx is by far the best customization software I've used

I went from wooting to planck to corne. I did not expect to like the ortholinear layout as much as I did. I was wishing my wrists weren't so cramped while I was daily driving the planck for a few months. So I looked at some options and the corne just spoke to me. This is coming from a gamer, not really a programmer. (I like the added functionality of being able to pocket the keyboard, love being able to throw them in my pockets and have a ton of functionality in such a small package). I can see why people wouldn't be able to enjoy 40% boards, it's a learning curve not a lot of people are willing to learn. You have to basically take the leap unless you have a friend that has one of these keyboards. There's also the fact that it's expensive if you don't have soldering experience.

Thank you. Just ordered a lily58 and this gave me somehow a preface of my future spendings (and lengthy explanations with my wife why this is such a necesssry expense 😮)

$40 full sized Chrerry MX Red mech keeb from 5 years ago still going strong 💪 The key to making it perform like a $400 keeb: Space Cadet like mappings through karabiner and xmodmap

You got into the rabbit hole. I started off with a refurbished Corsair K70 and now I'm writing this on a mountain everest keyboard with lubed and filmed holy pandas switches and pbs keycaps. It's an amazing keyboard but this is the hobby you want if your thing is loosing money.

Great video. We need to see more of these types of videos . I would add two very important things. 1. The corn keyboard now comes in low profile version. 2. I think very aggressive pinky staggers are a mistake. The corne is more ergonomic for sure... The very aggressive pinky staggers cause you to pull down your pinky further which is quite unnatural when done repetitively. Again great video.

I'm actually upgrading from an ergodox I built to a glove80, so this video was interesting to me.

I've spent my remaining funds on a Piantor clone and now I'm broke, but with a nice keyboard!

I've loved ergo boards since the original off white/grey Microsoft Natural keyboard that I used for a very long time. My first foray into split boards was the Kinesis Freestyle RGB. And what really got me to find it was a RGB. At the time I was using a black MS 4000 and the only thing I didn't like was not being able to see the keys when I had my room dark. I kept looking for an ergo RGB board now and again until the Kinesis finally showed up on the scene. I liked the board overall and being able to do a shoulder width split and tenting was just awesome. Still a staggered board though. It wasn't until a few years later that the ergo world took off and like you, my number of boards has grown. I got a ZSA Moonlander, which I really love, and that was my first experience with columnar and QMK. Like you, I hooked a lot of my layers to hold down home row keys and that's completely changed how I interact with the computer for the better. It makes it kind of hard to use a normal keyboard now, like on my laptop. It's like I forget what a lot of the combos for certain shortcuts are now because they are just baked into the layers I created, which is awesome. Hold down F to change my right hand to arrow keys and other cursor movements like home, end, move forward word, move back word, is just awesome. The Moonlander lead me to splurge on the Planck EZ Glow, which I like for completely different reasons and has almost the same layer setup as my Moonlander. Then the Voyager came out, which I'm using right now and is my first experience with Choc switches. I really like the Voyager. And I'm waiting on a Dygma Defy to show up. Crazy how expensive a keyboard hobby can get. Not as bad as rediscovering Lego as an adult, but still pretty bad.

I have a corne but I'm in love with the charybdis nano, the one without number row, 6 columns (just as the corne) and with a trackball. It has a curved dactyl form but it's so expensive and hard to get!!

My guy, our mech key journey began almost exactly the same, only I bought Defender's, and it had wireless capabilities to boot, but for a price hardly higher Redragon's device. It features 7 color backlight with adjustable brightness and where applicable - speed of the light show.

I'm an Iris user myself.. been building them since the rev2 days where you soldered like 300 things to each half. Took about 4 to 6 hours to make one. The latest rev8 with the solid aluminum hefty frame is so nice.. keyboard doesn't move at all. That Glove 80 looks interesting though but I wouldn't want more than the keys I have on the iris with the exception of a pointer (index) finger set of two keys on each half in the center. I got used to that layout on my Model 01 (have you checked that one out??) and liked it because to your point about less finger travel, having tab/enter and/or a few other keys is very nice. I would absolutely love to go to the 3 row keyboards.. just not sure I am willing to spend the time to learn how to remember to use home keys to shift/hold in to numbers, etc.

I've been transitionning to split keyboard since two month ago. And I'm loving it ! Bought the Voyager zsa, it small enough to take everywhere, beautifull and pretty reliable. It takes some time to configurethe layout to your liking, but once it's done there's nothing that will make me come back to a traditionnal keyboard

really appreciate the time and effort put into this video .

I like that they worked for you, but I have a big beef against "ergo" keyboards. First, the home row is bs, we don't have naturally horizontal-lined same size fingers, when centering your index fingers on the home row your fingers land in AWEF/JIO; respectively, so you fingers moving one key span an area that covers 4 rows, so 3 is too little/less efficient. Also it is better for your health to move and shift your position frequently when working, instead of staying at one fixed position, which these keyboards are focused on. Sure you can move the ergo keyboards, but that is longer than shifting your body a little, and requires that you take your hands off the home row (OMG). It's nice that it works for some people, but to really reduce getting tired and avoid getting injuries I always recommend using a smaller keyboard (personally I settled on 65%) and getting a good wrist rest for both the keyboard and mouse to avoid getting carpal/cubital tunnel syndrome.

I basically only like Clicky switches. The heavy glass trigger effect keeps me from making (more) typos, and it helps me to tell when I've fully pressed a key.

6:28 Thank you so much for showing this! After watching the video I looked it up and it's a game changer for me!

ESC at its usual position is still the most satisfying key to slam. Change my mind!

Insane how loud those "silent" switches are

I ended up with 3 moonlanders all in 40 keys configuration :) I have one at home, one in the office and one spare for testing new ideas..

Thank you for this video! I'm a little while out of college & decided I wanted to invest in a quality keyboard as a software engineer since I use it so much awhile ago. Well now, Im going to order a piantor to take a leap of faith to help with wrist pain and a better typing experience since Ive never been fully comfortable with QWERTY

Actually a really good informative video. Although I couldn't help but notice the "H" and "G" key were the wrong way around on the Corne v3. I just couldnt unsee it haha

- Doctor I have a problem, please help me. - Sure thing, please take a seat and tell me everything - Hold on, let me take my 78 split keyboards that fit perfectly in my pockets - Oh, I see....NURSEEEEE!

I respect your commitment.

I love the sound of my keychron, but I'm excited for the delivery of my sofle later this month.

I converted to both split column staggered keyboard and colemak (and learnt vim) at the same time 10 months ago and it's one of the best decisions I ever made. I always take pleasure typing anything on my keyboard now. Now that I'm there, I really don't get the keyboard channel that stay in the old typewriter realm. I am using a keyboard that is very similar to the piantor but has an additonal thumb key in the exterior of each thumb called the claw44 (though it's only available from Japan I think).

Here an user of two cornes, (one MX and a choc), Happy to know about other compact kbs and even happier about the home row. Great explanations and video as always.

For all the ppl who aren’t ready to commit to the ortho lifestyle but still don’t want carpal tunnel, I have to say that I really do like my Cloud Nine split keyboard with 10 key. Having grown up with old school mechanical Apple and IBM keyboards for many years, eventually settling on the Microsoft Natural (PS2 version) for more than a decade, unfortunately it slowly died (not to mention the fact that PS/2 is difficult to support on modern systems). I tried some of Microsoft’s “new” versions, but they were all pretty bad and not at all an improvement. I tried the Cloud Nine, and it gave me a lot of the original Microsoft Natural ergo and good enough keys/switches at a decent price. Maybe one day I’ll bite the bullet and go with a Kinesis or glove80, but not yet.

The thumb is not just for the spacebar but for the trackpad as well on laptops. Thats what these keyboards are missing if you ever use the mouse. You would have to take your hand all the way off the keyboard to use the mouse, kind of negating the whole efficiency of these keyboards (if you use the mouse)

Dude, what if each key individually was wireless and had a very strong magnet under the bottom and you positioned them on a flat iron plate to your heart's content, however you want to space them. Place them. and the magnets being strong enough they will never get moved unintentionally! For a flat keyboard layout that would replace so many products.

I feel like you're me, but further along the journey, I got the Q1, loved it, got the Iris, loved it, experimented with removing the top row ... loved it and started looking into a corne... Haven't pulled the trigger yet because I wanted to try removing the outer column first, and I dont want to buy two keyboards, well I do, but theyre expesive and a hazzle to buy from europe. Currently in the process of swiching to Colemak-DH, and once I feel comfortable with that I'm going to try a 36 over 42 to see if I should get a Corne, or something else. Great video!

"dream software development setup" while the video is actually about keyboards... But I'll watch anyway !

2:00 - some people, including me, never pressed space bar with their thumbs, but with their index keys, because, you guessed it - huge hands [:

The mini42 and mini36 by controllerworks are some other boards similar to the corne, chocofi, and piantor layout. The RP2040 MCU circuitry and OLED display are embedded onto the board making it as small as possible. The top half of the case is CNC aluminum designed to fit the board and switches with a nicely designed bottom plate for RGB light diffusion. It's very nice If you want something premium feeling in addition to ergonomics. In addition to that, they've integrated esd and over current protection for the trrs cable design so you don't accidentally short the board(s) when disconnect them while powered. For around the same price as most presoldered, it's not a bad deal.

I've definitely gone down the keyboard rabbit hole... but have not been as brave as you to tally up how much I've spent on it lol. I wish I had this video when I was starting out. I don't know if it would have the same effect as going through the motions myself and eventually settling on one of the keyboards in your list (I love my corne wireless keyboard!) but it would've been nice to have something to compare my experience to along the way. For anyone starting on this journey, I'd re-visit this as you explore choices and see if they're similar to yours. You could save quite a bit of time and money.

I'm waiting on my first proper keyboard It's a buckling spring Mini M TKL. I don't have any wrist pain and I'm still young so I'll stay away from the quirky layouts for now. Primegen is poggers, fellow Neovim users unite.

Just ordered parts for an ergo travel. I like the look of the inside keys for brackets instead of having extra keys on the pinkeys

My game dev friend saw this and is in the process of building a ferris sweep, which is like the chocofi but with 34 keys instead of 36

oh no... a new rabbit hole to dive into

took me too long to realize that the title is a pun as well.

I hate you, now! :) I had my eyes on the Kinesis for months but you introduced us to the Glove80.

Planning on getting the Dygma Defy

great video and a better list of what is available than what i was able to find when i was looking into it. you might want to look into different key layouts. im using a modified version of halmak. there is a bunch of misinformation, like travel being bad. what you really want is clustered travel. those buttons on the top of the keyboard that you dont use often would be great global control for your layers. so no matter what layer you are on you can navigate to the typing mode with the push of one button. these families of infrequent buttons matter but dont fit with the current paradigm. what we really should use is space on left hand pointer, and backspace one to the right. my current loadout uses that one for all punctuations. single press is apostraphee, double is semi, double hold is colon. but while i use colon more frequently than expected, i rarely use apostraphe. so there is a small stretch for mistakes. and it would be better if we could macro in 'delete word' to the backspace. on the right hand home row of halmak is the main vowels : aeoi. on the left hand of my modified halmak is : shnt from left to right. what i noticed and changed in terms of layout is a shift from simple likelyhood to treat consonant clusters together. having nt next to one another is great. and st is also nice. also it is nice that since words have small clusters of consonants and then vowels, i can alternatively pater pressing down with one hand then the other. you mentioned wanting to avoid using the pinky, but i find it easiest cause you can use your whole hand slightly rotating it. your pinky and ring finger share mostly the same muscles so your pinky is probably more useful. but some of the layout is ucky. i have w in the pinky collum of my non dominant hand. and it is bad. also i moved the tab away which was a really bad choice. emacs is a bit over rated but the different navigation and text in modes seem nice. i put the arrows on the bottom row of my loadout is emacs layout and it is... okay. better than an inverted T. there have been solutions for navigating uis without directly using a mouse and that seems to be the bigger jump awaiting us. i started with moonlander and moving the mouse with the keyboard is painful. they have special move mouse in cardinal directions commands but they dont go to items on the screen it is just pixel adjustments. i think we need to have a new generation of more context aware boards.

I spent a ton of money on keyboards too. Eventually settled on the UHK. Only gripe is that the arrow keys are chorded, and you have to hold another key to use them.

I love someone with a passion for something. I use a Dygma Raise, but _only_ a Dygma Raise. Meaning: I can still look at myself in the mirror every morning. 🤣

Biggest problem for me during (yikes) 45 years of on-and-off typing has been having to twist my arms unnaturally, i.e., pushing thumbs down toward the desk. Same has been true for mouse usage. I find that if I can tilt a keyboard or reorient my hand on a mouse such that the position is more natural (just lay your forearm on the desk, relaxed, to see what's natural for you), that it completely eliminates any RSIs, which I used to suffer from constantly. Of course, this isn't possible with a standard keyboard, but could be relatively easy with split keyboards.

Love your channel. Especially when you dig into the hard-core, what non-devs usually don't do, like these keyboards (made a chocofi myself lately). But most of the programming concepts you touch don't rise above a senior backend engineer level. I dare you to do a DDD episode 😂 Or a deep dive into functional programming, with blackjack and monads :)

Best split keyboard comparison currently online! Question please: How does the “height” (curvature seems the same) of the keycaps influence your tactile “situational awareness” between the Kinesis Advantage360 vs Glove80? As you move your fingers back and forth, is one keyboard easier for you to get back to the home row or locate some far-away key? I speak from my own experience of “normal height” vs “flatter” keyboards. It seems to me like the “edges” and “walls” of the taller keycaps to aid as a reference on the Kinesis (non split… haven’t migrated to the Advantage360 yet). Sorry for the metaphors, hopefully I’m sorta-kinda understandable? Also, have you noticed any touch-typing speed difference between the Advantage360 and the Glove80? Thanks so much for the effort you put into buying, comparing, shooting, editing… As a film guy, I realize how much work such a condensed 13 minutes require!

I'm used to the ANSI layout, but I bought my last laptop with the UK layout. I am still not used to it. Imagine if I had to entirely switch to that strange ergonomic double keyboard. I am too old for such a change.

Seriously thinking about shelling out some money on a split keyboard, to me it needs to have bluetooth with at least 2 devices sync, totally hating wires... the Glove80 looks like the perfect cadidate but I do agree with you, removing those 2 extra rows would be the get go for me.

For boards like the chocify, piantor, and corne, you can build them for $100 if you really try and stick to budget switches and keycaps. I built my choc corne for $150, but printed the case and soldered it myself though.

rebind esc to caps lock rebind backspace to C+h rebind return to C+j until you can get a split, that is

great video! For me, an integrated pointing device is the future killer feature of any split/ergo/mech keyboard. Luckily it starts…. slowly.

The aggressive colum in piantor is peter than corne layout with typeing or there is no different ?? especially with pinky finger ❓

Thanks for sharing, and it was very informative.

Corsair K100. That's all I will ever need.

3:00 I disagree on the numbers: most people type them so rarely that is okay to have them on the top row, unless your job is data entry or accountant (ZSA Voyager owner here)

My path: Logitech G710+ with Cherry Browns, Keebio KBO-5000 with Kaihl Hako Violets and Chosfox x Kailh Arctic Fox for function keys, and now resting on a 3D Printed hand-wired Dactyl 5x6 with 4 thumb clusters, using a mix of Akko Jelly Lavenders and Kaihl Owl Whites for function keys, with some spare Hako Voilets on things I want more friction on. I'm thinking about building a split Planck next for portable use, though I'd really love to just build a Corne. That said, the Glove80? Looks amazing, but dear lord the price...

Just came across this video, however, our starting and ending keyboards are the same. The only difference is that I skipped the middle steps and went directly from Red dragon k552 to Glove80. Just ordered it a few days ago and still waiting on it.

I used ergo boards for several years until I discovered true mechanical keyboards and since then have reverted to normal 80%/TKL layouts (Keychron Q3 Pro, but not the SE). I spent a little time with QMK/VIA putting some regular productivity shortcuts in place, but other than that I spend most of the time on my keyboard using it to do actual work. A question that always comes to mind when watching the extent to which some people go with their layout experimentation and customisation is … how much time is spent on chasing the perfect layout (physical or key mapping) and how much more productive would it be to simply become familiar with a “good enough” layout and spend the rest of the time doing real work (and accelerating the familiarity process in, um, the process)? WPM metrics can be seductive. But PWPM is more important (Productive Words Per Minute). i.e. Words typed in doing actual work vs words typed in a synthetic WPM metric.

I have a keyboard that I bought for 2$, I've been using it for programming almost for 10 years.

this has inspired me to just further tweak my mac keyboard. also I'm realizing I cannot type to save my life

Honestly, I am surprised that you didn't end up with that "claw" gamer keyboard (AZERON Cyborg Gaming Keypad), which basically wraps around your fingers so that you can have multiple keys at your fingertips (literally). It is for gaming, in theory, so it is only for one hand, but I wonder if you could just buy two. Actually, just one gets very close to be enough: You have 5 keys per finger, except for thumb, which have a couple only. I bet there are some tricks to get it to work as a single hand keyboard. EDIT: Apparently there is a claw keyboard that is designed to be an actual keyboard, the DataHand personal.

It’s amazing how similar our keyboard journeys are, i went sofle where you went iris, i went 36 key choc corne straight away after. My next step is a chardybis nano though, 36 keys like the chocify but sculpted like the glove. you sure you don’t need a new board? 👀

Code to Moon, do you feel the Glove 80 thumb cluster more comfortable than on the Kinesis?

I would love to be able to try a keyboard like one of these, but cannot being myself to spend that amount of money on something I might end up not wanting

I have a Corne but am looking at a premade called the Defy by Dygma Labs that is about to ship. It has a lot of optional features including built in tenting and an interesting thumb key design.

How many lines of code or documents do people create per day? Solid and functional lines. Never understood the ADD obsession with typing speed, as most tech guys don’t create more than 200 lines per day of solid code.

The only common thing in all these boards - terrible sound. It may be comfortable to save time, but you can type much longer with please on usual zoom 65 keyboards or smth similar

unless its for like a laptop i dont know why you’d want less keys available. even if you dont use them in the preferred layout, they could potentially be assigned for programmable macro keys. this would be a great incentive for digital artist or gamers.