There was a bit of a learning curve, but I was used to split ortholinear keyboards already, so for me it wasn't all that steep. YMMV though, if you don't already have experience with a similar style of keyboard it might take longer.
I think for me it helped that none of the keys are odd shapes and sizes too. The arrow keys for example are the same size as all the others, unlike some (even larger!) laptops.
I bought a ZSA Moonlander and have a poor on-and-off-again relationship with it. However, the smaller ortho on the MNT Pocket was easier for me to use and I am not a great typist. Unfortunately the small screen of the Pocket at this stage in life is a bit of a strain to use for long periods so I wind up using my surface or X1 carbon when not at my PC.
I often think "I should get me one of those" (MNT Pocket, or similar form-factor), but with my visual acuity getting worse (got my reading glasses in the past year), my X1 carbon might just remain my mainstay.
For me it was a blast. You just gotta embrace it. I can go back to a staggered board, no problem, but I prefer to use a Planck-like 47-key layout. If nothing else it's just more fun. Put a lot of thought into your layout and don't be afraid to scrap it all and start over.
Ada was designed to solve different problems in harsher environments than other PLs at the time. Mostly, it was designed for the defense and aeronautics industries and had to compete against other PL designs to become a govt standard, similar to how weapons of war are developed and chosen. Think developing for hardcore code audits. There is no way the language could check all the boxes and remain compatible with, say, Pascal or Modula syntax.
I often think this style of UI -- tiled text windows but with mouse and graphics interaction (similar to emacs actually) -- is what we should be using for the coding agents we're all using now.
I'd like to be able to dock panels of information, live-edit pieces of code instead of just "accept? Y/N", have side interactions, have real scroll bars and proper clipboards, even a live REPL alongside.
Instead we get Claude Code's janky "60fps TUI" full of bugs and barely interactive.
As a user, we used two Domino servers. One was Windows NT, the other was Linux. The Linux one was incredibly performant compared to the Windows one. I think it was an example of good reimplementation using hindsight.
In a past life I was a Domino admin and I ran it on an AS/400. It was great, handled incredible amounts of load, and required little maintenance. The only outage we had was when I accidentally deleted all the databases from the file system. Even that was pretty easy to recover from.
Correct. Admittedly, graphic design is not even my passion, so there's probably lots of room for improvement. But at this point I've grown accustomed to the friendly face. :D
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