[diftraku]

Another note for nordic layouts and Linux: tilde (~) is considered to be a "dead key" on most nordic layouts, meaning you may need to follow AltGr + ~ with a space before typing out the dot. Otherwise you might get weird looks from the terminal trying to figure what you meant with the tilde-dot.

Incidentally, while testing on Windows (in both WSL and cmd.exe) with a Finnish layout: you do not need a space after typing out the tilde.

[lifthrasiir]

For this reason you can change the tilde with `EscapeChar` configuration in your `~/.ssh/config` (or `-e` option, but I bet you want it to be permanent).

[SoftTalker]

~ is also the (very common) shorthand for home directory. How do Nordic keyboard users deal with that?

[nextos]

As a former user of ISO layout keyboards, IMHO a great quality of life improvement is to switch to ANSI.

A US ANSI keyboard has all programming symbols in the right place. Yet it makes Latin/Nordic and other symbols easy to type via compose key (e.g. Right Alt), or similar.

For example, Compose a + ' = á, a + e = æ, o + / = ø, s + s = ß, s + o = §, etc.

An annoying issue is that most brands won't sell ANSI keyboards abroad. Apple is one of the few that get this right. A trick is to import from countries where ANSI is the default, such as NL.

[gobip]

I use the french azerty layout (fr-pc) on macOS (equivalent fr-latin9 on linux). It is an ISO keyboard, I am able to do all of the examples you wrote, and more: option b is ß, ã is option ~ and a, "é" is its own key, so is "à" or "ç".

I am able to write 120 words per minute, not so special, but good enough for me. I find the ansi/qwerty too slow with its compose system (I tried on the canadian-intl layout made for Québec).

[Tsiklon]

Is this a physical Azerty keyboard? How do you get around having to hold shift to type any number?

[talideon]

What are you in that your local ISO layout has these issues? The Irish layouts on X and Windows don't have this issue and makes typing just about any diacritic easy, though I go a bit further and use the UnicodeExpert variant. MacOS, OTOH, has issues unless I switch to an ANSI layout.

[nextos]

I was not claiming any local ISO has trouble typing other characters with compose key or similar.

My point was that ANSI is more ergonomic than ISO for programming, and all local characters are still easy to type.

[mrweasel]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but it's not an issue on a Mac. The Option + ^ will produce a ~ with no need for a space. I don't recall it ever being an issue for me on Linux either, so I wonder if there's a difference between a Nordic and a purely Danish keyboard.

Personally I always found that ^] for various terminal commands was much more of a hassle, to the point where it's easier to just close the terminal window.

Some Danes will just use a US keyboard layout, but that's not really as common as sites like HN will have you believe. In terms of programming it does make a little sense though. The 8 and 9 key is doing a lot of heavy lifting, Shift + 8 is (, Option + 8 is [ and Shift + Option + 8 is { and the matching close characters on 9.

There's not a lot of room for special characters on a Nordic keyboard, all most all of the require a modifier key. I don't know if that makes Nordic keyboard users more adverse to the use of these characters in commands and programming languages.

[cpach]

“Personally I always found that ^] for various terminal commands was much more of a hassle (…)”

Yeah, tell me ’bout it. Back when I used Windows at work, a friend told me that instead of Ctrl ] one should press Ctrl ¨ – because on a regular Swedish keyboard, ¨ is on the same location that has ] on a US keyboard. (Not sure if this works with Linux/Mac, never tried there.)

[nemetroid]

With agony. It sucks.

[nxpnsv]

${HOME}

[usr1106]

Yes, programming with a nordic keyboard is slightly inconvenient because ~, {, }, [, ], and | all require AltGr. (Isn't that the same for German keyboard?)

I had to switch over 25 years ago when moving. I just considered it a minor inconvenience. I don't think my programming output really suffers, there are so many other factors. Some (very few) people (native or foreigners) do use different keyboards for that reason. I have not noted that they would be better or faster programmers for that. I would claim the correlation between programming fast and introducing more bugs is much clearer.

As for the dead key, pressing tilde space is not the optimal solution. Especially if you are using ssh over ssh. That means you need to produce 2 tilde characters to control the inner ssh. I prefer pressing tilde tilde. With nested ssh that makes 4 tilde characters. Much easier to type than tilde space because you just hold the AltGr key during all for 4 key presses.

[quectophoton]

Anecdata, but after having some programs break when I used `~` to refer to my home directory (can't remember, was a long time ago), I got into the habit of either using `${HOME}` if I'm in a shell, or just writing the full path explicitly if it's a config file.

So nowadays I only use `~` when I'm navigating in an interactive shell session, and never in commands or config files.