[JesusFreke]

Thanks! :)

It does technically require chording, but honestly not much more than a normal keyboard. Just a few extra "shift" keys, more or less. And normal textual input is pretty much all non-chorded.

I'm a tiny bit biased, of course, but I do find it quite usable. Even (or especially!) for gaming. But yeah, I've been using a datahand, and then later my lalboard as my primary keyboard at home and work for probably going on 15 years now.

[bsdubernerd]

What about the general experience writing code, or performing some seemingly mundane tasks such as ctrl/shift combinations for selections and commands?

I would guess this would still work pretty fine with a modal editor such as vi, but become potentially annoying in most other places where editing happens.

[jesusfreke]

It takes a while to relearn that. Just normal typing isn't too hard to pick up - the muscle memory generally transfers reasonably well from a normal keyboard. But the cursor control stuff has to be completely relearned. But it's only annoying during that transition period. You do eventually develop the muscle memory for it, and it all becomes just as easy/automatic as on a normal keyboard.

I don't use vi unless I have to, so I can't comment on usability there, but I don't have any issues in normal text editors.

And for gaming... it seriously freakin' rocks :). As long as you're okay with a straight across "asdf" (or aoeu in my case) -- (back/left/right/forward) movement scheme, instead of the wasd cross. Having 20 keys right at your fingertips and all 3 modifiers available on the thumb is pretty much ideal for gaming. I generally customize the key mapping in the firmware per-game, and I'll usually have 2 or 3 modifiers mapped to the thumb, and often some "synthetic" modifier keys for even more combinations.

It's also great for numeric input - I find I have much much better muscle memory for that on this than I even did on a normal keyboard, since the numbers are such a long reach from the home row.