They're really emacs keybindings that readline adopted if I may be allowed a small amount of pedantry.

My experience on MacOS is that every program has different shortcuts regarding text editing. Home/End/PgUp/PgDn on my external keyboard just not working, and if added to system settings, they still don't work in some apps, Ctrl+Left sometimes working sometimes not, etc.

And what Ctrl/CMD/Shift keys do together looks very random, no logic in it. Like, Ctrl+Left in Zsh scrolls the entire log to top, rather than move the cursor to the start of the line.

I use zsh, slack, Chromium, SublimeText and Zed on Mac.

Yep, which is really handy. I was specifically talking about copy and paste shortcuts being the same even in the terminal though.

I don't know what function the word "still" is intended to perform in this sentence. I, too, copy and paste using the context menu—sometimes, i.e.: when it is most appropriate and/or convenient to do so.

But the question is: what developers don't know about the standard keyboard shortcuts for copy and paste? Do they exist in any statistically significant numbers? ("There exists X" is not a very meaningful contribution if the Xs involved are something like 0.01% and are outnumbered by the number of programmers who write all their code on their mobile phone or whose version control strategy is to inscribe all their programs on a Tic Tac or a grain of rice or who think that Commodore 64-inspired homegrown operating systems are specially positioned to reveal the Word of God and offer protection against being pursued and persecuted by the CIA. Or are these some special breed of 9-to-5 darkmatter programmers who aren't going to show up on the radar, anyway?)

Its safer in an unfamiliar terminal than accidentally killing the app with Ctrl-c.

They could also not use Ctrl for gui keybindings and join the 21st century

When you press CTRL and a letter or symbol at the terminal, shift doesn't do anything (unless it's required for the symbol, as in CTRL-@). The code that gets sent is the same either way. Emacs users have to be wary when setting custom keybindings because GUI Emacs can see the difference but terminal Emacs can't.

Likewise, ALT just sends ESC assuming you're using the standard US keymap.

> It's not just the mnemonic, it's also that the location on the keyboard makes ctrl-c "prime real estate" so to say

Considering the hotkeys for xut and vaste, I think it's safe to say the mnemonic accounts for zero of the decision and the keyboard location accounts for all of it.

Win+c works too on windows. So does ctrl+insert/shift+insert on the terminals I just tested (cmd.exe, microsoft terminal with tabs, git bash, blue powershell terminal).

Win+c/win+v looks like a good compromise, using the Windows button for OS/DE commands, instead of application commands.

On terminals, the control key masked off the 6th and 7th bits of the 8-bit value sent by the letter key. That's a bitwise AND with octal 037, or in decimal subtracting 96 from the lower case key value. This happens in the terminal (or keyboard) itself, so the computer doesn't see it as two pressed keys, it just gets the masked value. In ASCII 'c' is 99 (decimal), so when modified with control is 3, ETX (end of text), which teletypes used to indicate the end of text. So unix shells reused that control character to terminate the current program with SIGINT. But every letter key maps to a control character at the start of the ASCII range, like 'g' maps to BEL for the bell, or 'h' maps to BS (backspace). '[' maps to ESC (escape) which is handy when Apple decides to move the escape key on their laptop keyboard.

Alt-F4 is pretty reliable on Windows, but it's not as catchy because no one likes craning their left hand to reach the function key (even though you could just hold right Alt).

The V isn’t arbitrary. Apart from the close location on the keyboard, the V looks like the handwritten mark often used to insert text in a physical document. This is similar to how the X suggests crossing out something.

On a US keyboard where these shortcuts were developed, you'd have to stretch your hand across the keyboard to reach Ctrl-P. That's why it's Ctrl-V, it wasn't arbitrary.

I miss Sun keyboards and their dedicated copy/paste keys.

This is X11 centric but I mapped the largely useless context menu button to the compose key. where it actually gets used.

For those unfamiliar with the compose key it is a superior input mechanism for rare characters that maps a mnemonic sequence to the character in question. you want an ø type compose o /

A tutorial if you do not have a compose key configured, I tend to run a minimal bare bones X11 setup, A more full featured environment may have it's own way of doing it.

map the compose key in ~/.xsession

    xmodmap -e 'keysym Menu = Multi_key'

    include "%L" #include the compose file found in /usr/X11R6/share/X11/locale/<localemapping>/Compose
    <Multi_key> <w> <e> <b> : "" # spiderweb
    <Multi_key> <c> <c> <c> <p> : "\xe2\x98\xad" #symbol representing proletarian solidarity between agricultural and industrial workers

I don't know if the compose system is found any where else but I regard it as one of the better things to come out of the X11 project. A little below select / middle click paste.

> I'd be curious to know if anyone here actually uses the ctrl or alt keys that are located on the right.

You must be located in the US, because the US is probably the only keyboard layout with a right Alt key. All the others have an AltGr key in that position.

I use the right Ctrl key in combination with the arrow, Backspace and Delete keys. Also with Return to enter the same content in multiple cells in Excel.

Many keyboard layouts use the right alt as the AltGr key for additional characters like language-specific letters or currency symbols (or at least many European ones do).

As for the right ctrl, by association with the AltGr, I usually map it as the Compose key.

The "right click menu" keyboard button is surprisingly useful if you ever happen to be in a situation where you need to deal with a GUI app without a mouse.

Although these days, chances are good that some things will not be accessible at all, because many devs these days just don't care to do even the basics like submitting dialogs on Enter properly. Historically, though, Windows at least was very thorough in making sure that everything GUI could be operated entirely from keyboard. Much of that is still there, just increasingly obscure - e.g. few people know that Alt+Space will open the same menu that you can get by clicking the window icon in the title bar (the one with Maximize, Minimize, Move, Size etc). Even fewer know that when you pick Move or Size from that menu, you can use the arrow keys to move and resize the window.

Hmm my Lisp Machine has control, meta, super, and hyper but no alt!

A lot of eu keyboard layouts use right alt as alt-gr for special characters. Because of that right control gets a lot of usage since you're using right alt constantly anyways.

I used to use them back when Ctrl-Alt-Del was something you had to press daily.

Hello there, Mr. I-Only-Have-a-Left-Hand.

I use the right control keys, I use Ctrl+Ins/Del, I use "Context menu" key, when it's available. And hey, I have almost a 30 years of muscle memory for them, so when some another idiot replaces the right Ctrl with F23 (which even can't be remapped by default AND pops up the stupidest menu for selecting what F23 should do) I really what to punch him in the face.

NB: as someone up in the thread mentions, right Ctrl is extremely useful for navigating in the text.

I knew someone smart who did that and it ended up being related to them having shift bound since they were a child to something they used differently than me, to change their inputs to Chinese pinyin.

I don’t think the concern is that they cannot type really really fast as in your comparison of professional drivers who don’t race.

In any domain where typing is the dominant activity, it would make sense to invest the small effort it takes to learn to touch type, and to learn basic keyboard shortcuts. You don’t have to reach 120 words per minute for the investment to pay off.

I used to be a one or two finger typist. Eventually, I took a touch typing class. For a long while it seemed like a waste of time. I could already type with one or two fingers at 40 words per minute. However, as I became proficient with touch typing, and as my touch typing speed approached my hunt and peck speed I started to realize what a powerful technique it was. I no longer needed to look at the keyboard, and my thoughts more easily flowed into the computer. This was a qualitative difference, not just about speed.

To continue the driving metaphor, IMO a driver who has had some basic driver education, and achieved some basic level of familiarity with the machine, will be a better driver, even if they never go faster than 40 miles an hour.

There are old studies from the 70s showing that moving the cursor with mouse is faster than navigation keys. Tog famously claimed that Apple's internal studies consistently showed that mouse felt slower than it actually is, whereas keyboard navigation felt faster.

It's a signaling mechanism more than anything, as you can see from the other responses here.

"I can touch type" == "I spend enough time writing things on the computer every day that I have invested in the fluidity and comfort of my own hands" == "I'm enough of a nerd to actually be good at my job".

But it's also worth it from an ergonomics standpoint. I learned to touch type over the space of a few weeks of practice, meant years ago, and it's the reason I can use a split ortho keyboard today, which is much nicer on my wrists than the alternatives. I can also keep a notebook between the two keyboard halves which is much nicer to scribble on than having it to the side somewhere.

I would personally say that you should ignore it.

Programming isn't bottlenecked by how fast you can enter or type text, it is about focusing and thinking and then solving a problem. In other words, being able to enter text faster does not imply also being able to solve a problem faster.

I would even say that on the contrary, taking longer and reflecting on what you are typing more may perhaps result in a better quality solution of the problem being solved.

Thoughts go faster than fingers. It's already hard enough to keep up with my stream of thoughts when coding, when I'm touch typing pretty fast. I can't imagine my coding experience if I had to look at the keyboard to input my thoughts into the editor. It's subjective, everyone has a different experience, but I feel I would be severely impaired.

Consider me amazed! I would have thought it's something people pick up naturally by virtue of spending hours every day working with a keyboard.

I wouldn't link it to competency as a dev.

It’s exactly because of having more valuable things to do that you should have typing just be a subconscious act instead of having to take your eyes off the monitor all the time.

Touch typing is not super useful. I picked it up naturally over time, but it was just an accident. In general, the desire to type fast is a symptom of insufficient automation.

It is sort of nice to turning your laptop screen red and dim, and code on a dark porch at night (OLED screen required to get real darkness). Just you, the vim, and some fireflies. Your eyes will adjust to the darkness, and maybe you’ll see some animals that you don’t normally see.

I started programming in grade school, and never learned to touch type. I was faster than my teachers, and ended up becoming a professional dev without touch typing.

When I was 29, I got very bad RSI in my right wrist, and re-evaluated my whole computing life as a result: switched to dvorak, removed the mouse/touchpad in favor of keyboard-centric tools, and swapped to a trackball when the pointer was needed. I also learned to touch type.

Of all the changes I made, I think the one with the most lasting value was touch typing. I didn't want to learn it, but I just bit the bullet, and I'm glad I did. It makes doing everything else on the computer very fluid and comfortable. It sounds like the touch typing position doesn't work for you, but the core point is that being able to effortlessly interface with the machine while your eyes can do something else is empowering.

I bothered writing this because I spent decades both before and after learning to touch type, so I feel I have some perspective on how they compare.

As a software developer, written communication is your main output -- no matter whether it's code, Mails, documentation or presentations

Unless you are thinking slower than you are typing, you should invest in learning a basic and very easy skill

The main output of doctors is not written notes though.

Our main output is typed code.

Yes, our most valuable skill is critical thinking. So I don’t want to waste time and thought on wondering where the “f” key is. If I’m thinking about typing, I’m not thinking about the problem.

I see it as being willing to invest time into your craft. A few hours spent learning to touch type will save countless time over a lifetime.

It’s an invaluable skill not just for developers, but for anyone whose job requires frequent typing.

Out of curiosity, why is this a yardstick for SW developers?

In my college, if you couldn't type 40 WPM, you didn't graduate.