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> As an aside, why why why do people use the international keyboard layout?

Like you said, you'd prefer to keep the keys you need close to the home row. So when a language has extra letters (compared to English), you preferably put those letters in the three letter rows, and carve them space as needed.

> As an aside, why why why do people use the international keyboard layout?

That's like saying "why do characters outside standard English exist?". I honestly don't understand what you're complaining about. People use international keyboard layouts because they want to write another language than English.

UK and Netherlands use an international keyboard with a tilda ~ key where the return key should be, and a backslash key where the left shift should be.

To hit return requires actually moving the right hand to reach return. How often is that tilda needed? That is a poor trade.

Moving the shift key away is even worse, because it's a modifier key. Now you cannot press shift with your left pinky finger while also reaching several of the left hand keys.

Which left hand keys can't you reach while pressing left shift? (I can quite comfortably reach up to J column with my index finger, at which point it's about 50-50 which Shift to use if I have to navigate left-handed.)

Also, being used to it, I find a large Enter key more convenient than a wide one.

I will accept that adapting to a reduced width left shift is possible, but I cannot accept the suggestion that a taller return key has any value.

Unless you are doing something really "interesting", you should be hitting return with your right pinky finger. And assuming your other fingers are on the home row, your pinky finger has an easier reach to the US return key (on the left edge) than it would the international return key on the row above.

Now, if you suggested expanding the return key to exist where the { key does, then I could agree that it was an improvement. { is immediately accessible to a right pinky finger, and arguably { is less often needed than return - even in programming.

>> How often is that tilda needed? That is a poor trade.

That tilda is needed every time I need to access my home directory on Linux, and the backslash key is also a pipe key when you press shift - so I can use a pipe in command line using a single hand.

I actually come from a country with US keyboard by-default. Now, whenever possible - I switch to UK layout even on MacBooks. UK layout is actually wonderful for development.

I can obviously see though why one can ask why is it this way.

Seriously, are you suggesting that you reference your home directory so often that it is a more frequent need than hitting Return?

Every single command you type ends with return. Unless you are typing long paragraphs in a word processor with line wrapping, you will be hitting return once every 80 characters or less on average (much less in the case of commands). Do you really need to reference a unix home directory once every 80 characters you type?

But I do have a return key, don't I? I don't particularly care about the size of the keys since I will remember their placement anyway, by a certain time.

I do care about their placement, however - since that's where my fingers are physically limited.

> UK and Netherlands use an international keyboard with a tilda ~ key where the return key should be, and a backslash key where the left shift should be.

That is actually the original IBM PC XT layout from 1981: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IBM_Model_F_XT.png

Then in 1984 USA moved to their own layout with the PC AT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IBM_Model_F_AT.png

But the rest of the world stayed with the original.

> As an aside, why why why do people use the international keyboard layout? There is no possible way that it is more efficient given that two of the most used keys - left shift and (right) return are reduced in size and pushed further out of reach from home position. Worse yet, their lost space is taken by less frequently used keys. I cannot fathom why that design has remained popular outside the US.

This doesn't make much sense for the UK keyboard layout, where I agree that the US layout is a bit better from a common use perspective. It makes more sense when you start looking at other variations of the international layout, though. Live in the Baltics? You're going to use the Nordic layout that has several of the most commonly-used letters with diacritical marks. The physical layout (number of keys, position of keys, etc.) are all still the same, so not only is it easier to manufacture but all a touch-typist needs to do is alter the software layout to be able to use any keyboard they happen to stumble upon.

> why why why do people use the international keyboard layout

speaking as someone who switched from DE_DE to US_INT_W_DEAD_KEYS it was to actually programming easier.

i did not need special german keys (äöüß) often while coding so having programming relevant `[]{}'\"|` at their expense, while still being able to access language specific symbols via dead keys, was preferable.

international layout also gives me the ability to type specific other-language symbols like `Øçµ` or special typography like `…‽¿` way easier compared to german

Sorry. So that's my blind spot... English-focused keyboard needs. When I encounter a UK or Dutch international keyboard, I find them almost identical to US keyboard except for a couple of keys; so the layout makes no sense to me.

For people who need more modifiers and accents, my experience is less relevant.

> return [is] reduced in size and pushed further out of reach

Actually, that's how the return key originally was on the PC/XT model F keyboard, except that it was only 1 unit wide on both rows. It actually changed in the opposite direction with the PC/AT, and largely only on the U.S. variants if memory serves. The non-U.S. variants retain the PC/XT's original double-row return key, and make it wider (and make the keys next to it narrower, down to 1 unit).

The ISO layout is possibly not more efficient, but, like QWERTY vs Dvorak, it's probably not so much less efficient that it's worth changing now that it's become some kind of a standard.

> Worse yet, their lost space is taken by less frequently used keys.

Which keys are these in my international layout and how often do I use them?

There are many different international variants, but I was referring to the one common in the UK and Netherlands.