[OT] Keyboard layout, was Re: PEP318

[Roy Smith]

Sion Arrowsmith <siona at chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> As someone who's just started using a Mac for the first time(*),
> I'd like to add that it's not always plain-sailing on an English
> keyboard.

What's wrong with Mac keyboards?  I've used a number of Mac keyboards 
over the past 15 or so years, and have found the variety of layouts to 
be no better or worse (or more or less standardized) than any other 
keyboards in general.  I'm currently using a 12" PowerBook and other 
than finding the control key to be uncomfortably close to the space bar, 
I find it perfectly reasonable for programming and emacs-ing.

> And I have a great
> aversion to remapping keyboards so that they generate characters
> other than those on the keycaps.)

Yes, that's evil.  I was just in the UK a couple of weeks ago and was 
using a semi-UK keyboard.  As far as I could tell, the keycaps were 
labeled with the UK layout, but the codes they generated were US style.  
I touch-type, so as long as I ignored what was printed on the keycaps 
and just typed normally, everything was fine.  But it's amazingly 
difficult to ignore the printed keycaps.