Phil Hagelberg published an interesting blog post about the Ergodox keyboard. I’m a self-confessed input hardware nerd and have been a Kinesis Ergo/Advantage user for over a dozen years now. I love those keyboards - otherwise I wouldn’t keep buying them - but Phil makes a very good point that they’re bulky, not something you quickly throw into a bag and take with you for a hacking session at the local coffee shop. It’s good to see alternatives out there, especially as there seems to be less of a focus on ergonomic input devices recently.

Will I try to build an Ergodox? Probably not right now. My muscle memory is pretty tied to the Kinesis keyboards but if I find myself traveling more, I’d definitely look into one.

If you are a professional programmer you owe it to yourself, your continuing career and health to check out higher quality keyboards. Unfortunately over the last decade or so there has been a race to the bottom when it comes to keyboard quality. Most users don’t notice the difference and those who would most likely would probably have a good keyboard hidden away or were willing to buy one. Join them.

Yes, I’m a keyboard snob, but then again I had the good fortune to start programming professionally when these were the gold standard. You owe it to yourself to be a keyboard snob, too.