I’m personally not convinced by the theory of ortho.
It seems to stem from the idea that stagger is a hangover from the typewriter, in which it was required to make room for the mechanics, and that if we didn’t need to make them like that, we wouldn’t have.
Hence the keys should be lined up so your fingers just move up and down.
However I think this has 2 problems.
1) Most ortho keyboards have 5 columns for 4 fingers.
2) In stagger I use different fingers to strike the same letter dependent on what the preceding letter was, so that I almost never use the same finger twice in a row. You can’t do this in ortho if the 2 letters are in the same column, leading to more repeated strikes from the same finger.
Which I would expect is both slower and more straining.
But maybe my technique is weird, or haven’t given the ortho enough time.
(if you like ortho, good for you, not trying to spoil your fun, just musing)
Vertical stagger is where it's at. Shifting key height per column put keeping columns straight.
The comfortable level of stagger is individual. I just can't with ortho but I guess it's a good fit for some folks' hands. For most of us, middle finger rests comfortably in a higher spot than pinky does. Just look at your hand. You won't really know until you try yourself.
What theory of ortho? It's merely a rejection of stagger. Stagger represents our unwillingness to try new things even if the old thing makes no sense whatsoever.
OK, attitude aside now: for me it's partly about the ability to find keys by feel. With stagger you can learn touch typing one row above the home row and one row below the home row, no problem. But when you start trying to learn touch typing for the number row the difficulty jumps up significantly, because the nonsensical stagger makes it difficult to feel your way up the column.
So the benefits of ortho, according to me:
- It's easier to touch type once you eliminate the stagger, especially when deviating more than one row.
- Being better able to feel your way around helps with gaming, as does removing the stagger from WASD.
- Being straightened out allows you to map a numpad over the keys, to be invoked with a function key. I tried this with stagger and it was awful.
- I just dig the way it looks. It's like a lazy cartoon drawing of a keyboard.
Is it similar to NixOS? Recent convert, would be interested to read a comparison to fuchsia from someone in the know of both.
If it’s anywhere close Google might be sat on a huge opportunity to tread the same ground while solving the ergonomic issues that NixOS has. (I’ve never been more happy with a distro, but I’ll admit it took me months to crack)
NixOs is built on Linux kernel, Fushia is built on a new (micro-ish) kernel called zircon, they are not interchangable.
They are working on some components/layer to run things from Linux, but you would not expect all things built to work directly or as well as thing designed from the get-go for Fushia in mind.
Thanks - I figure its step away in terms of target platform.
I meant a little more in the way that software is packaged and run. My understanding is that theres a similar mechanism for storing and linking shared libraries that means multiple versions can go exist and be independently linked depending on the requirements of the calling package.
There’s no doubt better docs will help improve the state of Android Apps.
But this is about stemming the flow of shovelware into the store, (todolist tutorial no 800000, but I changed the name) where the problem isn’t that devs lack the tools, it’s that they simply have no serious intention of maintaining their product.
If you can’t find or don’t have enough belief in your own app to find 20 people to download it for free, is it fair to promote it in a way that my gran might come to rely on it.
It’s not nice to be exclusionary, but end users having to pick through that stuff just isn’t great for the platform. There might be a better place for hobby code.
If you don't meet the requirements your app becomes unavailable to users.
> If you can’t find or don’t have enough belief in your own app to find 20 people to download it for free
I can guarantee you, many large companies, some whom I have worked for, and some apps you have likely used, do not have anywhere near 20 human QA / testers vetting their releases.
And if you look at the '20 tester' requirement closely, following it does not guarantee any outcome whatsoever.
> is it fair to promote it in a way that my gran might come to rely on it.
What your gran does is none of my business. If I have an idea which a few people may find useful, what your gran may or may not do with it should not impede my ability to release it.
Google already has strict guidelines about malicious apps, etc, which everyone must follow.
For activists working on causes where powerful people would like to unmask them. You can use mixers to end up with crypto for VPNs and other privacy services that aren't connected to your identity. Obviously you have to take 20 other steps as well. But this is in my opinion a very legitimate use case for this technology.
Meanwhile we know that these mixers are being used enmasse to sell exploitative content, fund terrorist organisations, evade tax, run scams, hacks, the list goes on, and on, and on, and on.
The problem is that the existing financial system also allows all these things. I have personally known many people who have lost money from a scam that their bank allowed them to transfer ridiculous amounts of money to. I also know people who have had their bank accounts arbitrarily frozen without prior notice.
If I have the risk of running into both these problems with the existing financial system, why not use Bitcoin? The problem is if I'm using Bitcoin, and want dollars to buy something from a vendor who doesn't accept it, I have to use a potentially hackable exchange that will then have my on-chain and personal information.
If I want a separation from the rest of my on-chain funds from those I send to an exchange, it's only logical to use a mixer. Even if I were Bitcoin only, I'd still want this level of privacy (unless all my transactions were digital and my on-chain identity was pseudonymous to all).
I agree that you never escape the requirement to have knowledge of how your application is deployed. Things like autoscaling, security, performance etc, all intrinsically effect how you actually write your application.
I think there's a broader point though, in that very often, infra teams will pursue solutions that solve problems in the perspective of their own lens and interests without good oversight from the broader organisation, for developer experience, and economies of scale.
I've seen and worked in environments at both ends of that scale and the gap in dev-ex, and agility as a result can be absolutely staggering.
So often its to avoid 'vendor lock-in', only for infra teams to become the 'vendor', its complex, so they grow by necessity to be expensive, but then still lack the resources to be able provide a clean experience that can be easily migrated off of, resulting in lock-in.
As a dev, the cost isn't my concern, but whats frustrating is knowing that its possible to deploy a new service, with all the bells and whistles, in an hour, and being unable to.
They're trying to leverage the advantages the terminal brings:
- Portable API.
- A directory context, stack based workflow, in which unrelated programs are be executed together.
While working through the major disadvantages 'traditional' terminal apps have:
- Lack of visual hints, memory prompts, discoverability in the UI design.
Those disadvantages aren't a problem for everyone, have stood in awe of many a terminal wizard as they fly through tasks that would take me much longer, terminal or not - and if that's you, you have my envy.
But for me, my brain just isn't wired to be able to quickly recall all the flags, shortcuts, workflows, and other nuances of 30+ terminal apps, of varying usage frequency.
That's why I like k9s as alternative to kubectl, it guides me, reminds me. Could 'k9s' be a native GUI? Of course, but it probably wouldn't exist if it had to be.
It seems to stem from the idea that stagger is a hangover from the typewriter, in which it was required to make room for the mechanics, and that if we didn’t need to make them like that, we wouldn’t have.
Hence the keys should be lined up so your fingers just move up and down.
However I think this has 2 problems.
1) Most ortho keyboards have 5 columns for 4 fingers.
2) In stagger I use different fingers to strike the same letter dependent on what the preceding letter was, so that I almost never use the same finger twice in a row. You can’t do this in ortho if the 2 letters are in the same column, leading to more repeated strikes from the same finger.
Which I would expect is both slower and more straining.
But maybe my technique is weird, or haven’t given the ortho enough time.
(if you like ortho, good for you, not trying to spoil your fun, just musing)