Good keyboards matter.
Tags: keyboards, productivity, hardware, writing
Published: 2018-08-23 12:21:56

---
title: Good keyboards matter.
published: true
cover_image: https://i.imgur.com/RWr8ks8.jpg
description: Who cares about your software when your hardware is crap?
tags: keyboards,productivity,hardware,writing
---

We all know it because we all think the same about our own system: You have the world's best IDE (or text editor) running on the only operating system that matters to you, carefully hand-crafted toolchains allowing you to develop and distribute ten applications at the same time, and you even have an adequate display attached to it so you can see *ALL the things* at the same time. That's all that is important anyway. Everything is perfect, right?

Well, have you ever thought about which keyboard to use? If you are happy with whatever comes with your computer or whatever is hyped in your particular community (looking at you, reddit!) without thinking about *why* you do that, you might want to spend a second thought on it.

Being a developer (it is safe to assume that most people reading this on DEV *are* developers), the one thing you need to produce is *text*. Yes, even your smartphone/tablet/smartwatch can *produce text*. But would you do serious development on it without any additional input hardware attached? Probably not, because their integrated "keyboards" are crap for anything that's longer than an average tweet.

In my (non-professional - I'm not a keyboard maker) opinion, a *good* keyboard for developers **must** have these properties:

* A **sane form factor**.
  
    Most people I know don't really use the "ten-key" block most of the time, which is fine. There have been keyboards without one for more than three decades - but that's as far as you should go.

    Yes, "modern" approaches [like this one](https://elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=pfu_keyboards,hhkbpro2&pid=pdkb400w) may be *optimized* for one special thing, but you probably will do more with your keyboard than that one special thing - and you should ask yourself if it's really worth the additional design price tag to be unable to type blindly for *months*. We're talking about productivity here, not about collecting lovely gadgets. 🙂
* A **sane layout**.
  
    This is actually closely related to the form factor.

    You grew up with one (usually QWERTZ/QWERTY/AZERTY) and you can probably use it at a reasonable speed at adult age. We all heard the stories about the Dvorak, Colemak and [even more obscure](https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=67604.0) layouts which would magically make you type 942 words per minute. But they most certainly won't - and you will probably have major problems using other people's computers once you *unlearned* your home layout.

    It is probably not worth it.
* A **good keyfeel**.
  
    Yes, there are differences in how keys *feel*. Your typical flat laptop's built-in keyboard will feel *very* different from an old IBM PC's one, not just because of the height of the keys. You *will* make more or less typing errors depending on two factors: The *size* of the keys (I, for one, can't type on most laptop keyboards without an embarrassing amount of errors) and the *switches* under those keys, requiring very different weights and sometimes even "travels" to register a pressed key.

    Again, a *good [keyfeel](https://deskthority.net/wiki/Keyfeel)* is one that fits *your* fingers. Don't go ask other people about which kind of keys they'd recommend to you. They will just scream their own preferences over each other and you will not have a qualified answer. Try as many as you can. You have friends, coworkers or relatives which have a different keyboard than you? You see a keyboard in a shop or in the scrapyard which you haven't tried before? Excellent. Try it!

    The best keys are those which have a good grip and are *hard enough* to press (most cheap keyboards feel like pressing a sponge and that will hurt your fingers *badly* over the years), but not *too hard*. There is an obvious difference between [20 grams and 80 grams](https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/wiki/ripometer). Your fingers **will** feel even little differences.
    
* A **decent build quality**.
    
    Don't worry. I don't say you should grab one of the late 70s/early 80s all-metal keyboards which will survive the next atomic war. If you haven't got one of those yet, you probably don't want to afford one anyway. ([Or do you?](https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1312.R1.TR11.TRC2.A0.H0.Xibm+model.TRS1&_nkw=ibm+model+f&_sacat=0)) **But** remember that a keyboard is a device which is basically (lightly) hammered by you for hours every day. Having keys which feel awesome does not help you when the case is falling apart. Touch the case. Can you bend it? Does it make noises when you can? If it does, you'd better try another.

I will not recommend any keyboard which "fits you all". There is none. My current personal preference is pictured above only because I finally figured out how to add a picture here. 🙂

I hope I could inspire you anyway.