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by LeifCarrotson 1123 days ago
Keyswitches are like 20x20mm...there's an abundance of room for a little ~2x1mm diode within the footprint.
1 comments

It's a bit harder if you go through-hole. When you can't fit it "under" the switch footprint, it becomes harder to auto-route it-- there might not be a space specifically where you want-- maybe you want to move some diodes around to shave a couple millimetres off the PCB footprint to save a nickel, or maybe you need to rotate a switch (for example, the + and enter on the numeric pad) and end up with the 'standard' position fouling some other part of the layout.

It takes an evening or two to manually route a big battleship board, when you're not worried about RGB or having to do clever stuff with USB.