Comment by sedachv | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sedachv | Hacker News Reader

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> Except for that minor technical advantage of actually being on a standard keyboard.

The IBM/Unicomp APL keyboard is a standard PS/2 PC/USB HID keyboard. Literally the only special thing about the IBM/Unicomp APL keyboards is what is printed on the keycaps (which you can buy separately https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/USAPLSET).

I don't understand this - how do people on Hacker News not realize that your keyboard does not determine your character encoding? You can easily remap your keys to whatever you want, have multiple layouts for human and computer programming languages, change the modifier and functions keys, whatever you want. All with the keyboard you already have; laptop, external, it doesn't matter.

Somehow multiple layouts are not a big deal for multi-lingual people, why is it so confusing for programmers?

> Somehow multiple layouts are not a big deal for multi-lingual people, why is it so confusing for programmers?

I don't know. I would totally do it if others did it. There just isn't a critical mass enough.

Maybe the next APLish language needs to have both modes of display similar to how java editors fold old constructs into new ones. That would allow the extra symbols to be slowly adopted.

Sounds like a lot of fluff added because some people want a slower ramp. I think there just needs to be more example material out there for beginners.

People realize that of course, but I don't think simply buying keycaps is an option for everyone. Will they work with my slightly non standard ergonomic keyboard?

None of my keyboards have Russian keycaps on them. I still somehow manage to type in Russian. Do you look at your keycaps when typing? If you want to, you can put stickers on your keycaps (you can purchase sets for foreign languages, and for APL), or use a quality permanent marker. A reference chart is also an option.

I don't look know that I know where everything is, but I'm guessing it takes awhile to learn where 72 weird APL symbols go when you're first learning you know?

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