Why I'm hesitating to switch to D

[simendsjo]

On 01.07.2011 00:18, Daniel Gibson wrote:
> Am 01.07.2011 00:12, schrieb simendsjo:
>> On 01.07.2011 00:03, Daniel Gibson wrote:
>>> Am 30.06.2011 23:58, schrieb simendsjo:
>>>> On 30.06.2011 23:45, Daniel Gibson wrote:
>>>>> Am 30.06.2011 23:41, schrieb simendsjo:
>>>>>> On 30.06.2011 23:39, bearophile wrote:
>>>>>>> Jonathan M Davis:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Actually, I find the backticks to be by far the most pleasant way to
>>>>>>>> get raw
>>>>>>>> strings in D.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I don't have backticks on my keyboard, so I use them only when they
>>>>>>> are needed. They have even removed the backticks in the Python2 ->
>>>>>>> Python3 transition partially because of this (and partially because
>>>>>>> there is a more obvious way to do it in Python, and Python tries to
>>>>>>> keep only one obvious way to do things).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Bye,
>>>>>>> bearophile
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yeah, I hate backticks too.. I have to press Shift+` followed by
>>>>>> space.
>>>>>> But often space won't work as the text editor understands that space
>>>>>> cannot be accented or something. So I often press ` twice and
>>>>>> backspace
>>>>>> to delete the last one. This gives me 4 key presses just for a single
>>>>>> character... Wee...
>>>>>
>>>>> On Linux/X11 this could be fixed by disabling "dead keys" (at least as
>>>>> long as you don't need them to place accents on letters, which depends
>>>>> on the languages you're writing in).
>>>>> Dunno what the equivalent to this setting for Windows or OSX is though.
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>> - Daniel
>>>>
>>>> I need it for my language, but very rarely, so I wouldn't miss it much.
>>>> I haven't heard of this before, but I'll try to search around for
>>>> solutions for windows.
>>>> Thanks for the tip.
>>>
>>> Maybe there is a solution to enable and disable them with a keyboard
>>> shortcut.
>>> I guess this is not only a problem for backticks but also for ~ and ^
>>> (which may be more useful for everyday programming), so a way to
>>> disable/enable dead keys on the fly is probably really useful.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> - Daniel
>>
>> ~ is Ctrl+Alt+~+Space
>> ^ is Shift+^+Space
>> { is Ctrl+Alt+{
>> [ is Ctrl+Alt+[
>> ( is Shift+(
>>
>> ~ is the most tedious as D uses it a lot.. 4 key presses.
>>
>
> My keyboard (german layout) has an "Alt Gr" key. So for me it's AltGr+~
> for ~ (and, if dead keys are enabled, +space additionally) etc.
>
>> I've seriously thought about changing to an programmer or English layout
>> while programming..
>
> Me too, but I didn't really get used to it. But then again, the AltGr
> combinations are still somehow bearable, while ctrl-alt combinations
> sound quite annoying.

I have a norwegian layout, but I think it's quite similar.
For ~ I can use AltGr, but for { I need to bend my hand halfway around. 
I've been doing this for years, and it's straining my hands. So I've 
started using C-A in many cases to avoid this - in addition to switching 
to dvorak.