More Normans
It’s been a busy week. I decided this week to switch back to QWERTY. For the last decade or so I’ve been using the Norman keyboard layout. No relation.
It’s an optimized keyboard layout that keeps qwszxcvbm in their QWERTY positions and mostly keeps other keys on the same finger as under QWERTY. As a result, it's much easier to switch to than many other alternate layouts.
Anecdotally, I'll say that keeping the muscle memory for things like undo/cut/copy/paste/quit did more than just ease the move. It made it possible. One look at where ctrl-z/x/c/v/w land on Dvorak should completely deter you from switching.
My switch was part of an effort to deal with RSI in my wrists. I did a lot of experimentation, but switching to Norman helped a lot. What also helped even more was switching to Keyboardio Atreus. I think the fact that I don't need to stretch my pinkies was probably the biggest help.
Between the layout and the keyboard, my RSI issues are solved. But I was installing Fedora on my Framework 13 and had a thought. Having my brain wired for Norman instead of QWERTY is really annoying at times. I can't touch type on other people's computers. I can't use external iPad keyboards. I'm useless when I install a new OS until I get my custom keymap installed. (At least it ships with Fedora.)
So I said to myself, "The Atreus is the main thing that fixed my wrist issues. Maybe it's time to try QWERTY again." After about 5 days I was up to about 50% of my previous typing speed under Norman.
While I was working on What About Rails? my wrist started to bug me a little. When I realized Fedora shipped with Norman, I gave up and returned to it.
I don't advocate other people switch to Norman unless they're trying to solve a wrist issue like I was, but I'll tell you what. Typing on Norman feels so much better than QWERTY. It's wild that QWERTY reigns supreme. My home row is aset/nioh. My fingers move so little compared to y'all. It's great. For me. Mostly.
Anyway, I'm still working on a blog post for the Solidus Blog announcing this, but Alistair Norman has joined the Solidus Core Team. He's been doing fantastic work around the Solidus ecosystem for years and it's great to see both him getting recognized for that, and also taking a bigger role in shaping the platform. Nice work, Alistair!
Also, if you follow Rails at all, you probably heard that DHH gave a slightly controversial opening keynote at Rails World this week. He didn't really say anything about Rails and focused almost entirely on how excited he was for AI. I was not impressed, so I wrote about it.
What About Rails? | Jared Norman
DHH's opening keynote had shockingly little to say about Rails.
When I woke up this morning it was on the front pages of r/rails, Hacker News, lobste.rs, and probably other things. I've been getting lots of positive feedback on it, despite what the HN comments would have you believe.
Let me know what you thought, if you read it. You can just reply to this email and I'll hit you back. I'm genuinely curious how other folks are feeling about this.
Having missed a few weeks of Skill Issue, you're probably all wanting for music to listen to. I assume I'm your main source of music recommendations. Please don't tell me otherwise. Here are three good new albums:
Iron Flame play wonderfully cheesy, but not too cheesy, heavy/power metal. If you enjoy bands like Eternal Champion or Visigoth, you need to listen to this one.
Symphonic prog metal band Ledmotiv dropped a new record, The Ghost of Carrion. Super creative. Super fun.
Fog Wall is a death metal band rooted in a combination of Tolkien and the Soulsborne games. As you might expect, their new record rules.
