[trasz2]

The main reason for having function keys is that you can have their labels on the screen, and that's intuitive. You can see it with IBM's CICS. Otherwise they are not that useful, and you can see it in eg laptops making Fn a secondary function, with the primary being adjustment of brightness or volume.

[sodapopcan]

Oh ya, I'm not against function keys or anything, just not for me. Switching to vim 10+ years ago made all my RSI problems go away so now I just like to keep my fingers on the letter keys as much as possible. I don't even like stretching to number row when I can avoid it (though I do all the time, of course).

[fortunateregard]

This sounds silly when I say it out loud, but reaching for the number row always felt like a chore. Of course, when I had to input numbers, I'd still have to reach for the number row. But when numbers were optional, say for vim bindings that take a `[count]`, I opted to look for alternatives instead.

A few months ago however, I bought a moonlander keyboard. Now, I've got one of it's keys that, when held, maps the right side to a full traditional numpad. Typing numbers is much more seamless now. Besides numbers, other keys that always broke my flow (looking at you right curly brace) are much easier to type.

Just thought I'd share as it really elevated my overall typing/vim experience.

[sodapopcan]

I don't think that's silly at all—I hate reaching for number keys and not afraid to say it :D

Another comment in here made think about using Karabiner to give myself a keypad with uiojklnm,. (or something). I actually did this when I used to use a flash-able mechanical keyboard, but I like working on my couch too much so I've been all-in on the short-scale apple keyboards for several years now.