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Workman vs Carpalx QGMLWB

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When comparing Workman vs Carpalx QGMLWB, the Slant community recommends Workman for most people. In the question“What are the best keyboard layouts for programming?” Workman is ranked 4th while Carpalx QGMLWB is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose Workman is:

Colemak's focus on the home row is flawed. Due to differing finger lengths and the natural range of human hand motion, the center columns (even on the home row) take more effort to reach than the top row with the longer middle fingers. Workman takes this into account.

Specs

Bottom Row Key Freq.12.0%

Consecutive Same-Hand Keystrokes (L/R)46.5%/53.5%

Home Row Key Freq.53.7%

Left Index Finger Travel27.9%

Left Index Finger Usage15.4%

Left Little Finger Travel0.7%

Left Little Finger Usage6.3%

Left Middle Finger Travel24.5%

Left Middle Finger Usage11.5%

Left Ring Finger Travel10.6%

Left Ring Finger Usage9.3%

Right Index Finger Travel22.6%

Right Index Finger Usage14.2%

Right Little Finger Travel0.9%

Right Little Finger Usage5.9%

Right Middle Finger Travel7.1%

Right Middle Finger Usage14.0%

Right Ring Finger Travel5.8%

Right Ring Finger Usage8.2%

Spacebar Row Key Freq.15.3%

Thumb Usage15.3%

Top Row Key Freq.19.1%

Bottom Row Key Freq.7.9%

Consecutive Same-Hand Keystrokes (L/R)47.4%/52.6%

Home Row Key Freq.59.8%

Left Index Finger Travel35.6%

Left Index Finger Usage19.5%

Left Little Finger Travel0.6%

Left Little Finger Usage3.9%

Left Middle Finger Travel15.6%

Left Middle Finger Usage12.2%

Left Ring Finger Travel6.0%

Left Ring Finger Usage7.7%

Right Index Finger Travel31.5%

Right Index Finger Usage17.4%

Right Little Finger Travel0.9%

Right Little Finger Usage3.0%

Right Middle Finger Travel6.9%

Right Middle Finger Usage14.0%

Right Ring Finger Travel2.9%

Right Ring Finger Usage7.0%

Spacebar Row Key Freq.15.3%

Thumb Usage15.3%

Top Row Key Freq.17.0%

Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking

Common Questions

What are the best keyboard layouts for programming?

Workman

Carpalx QGMLWB

Pros

Pro
Less lateral motion than Colemak

Pro
Common English bigrams are optimized

This is an emphasis shared with Colemak, but Workman focuses on the easiest keys instead of the home row.

Pro
Finger travel is very low overall

This is good for preventing RSI.

Pro
Very comfortable for Vim

Works so well out of the box that I can only think the creator thought about it beforehand.

Pro
Good for programming

Common characters {} [] <> () / ' " are easily accessible by the right hand on the right of the keyboard.
Combinations ( { + } for example) are placed side by side on the keyboard which is useful as well.

Pro
Works on any keyboard, but additional benefits from Matrix style keyboards

Someone mentioned a CON because it was designed for Matrix style keyboards, but it was designed on a standard keyboard. However, matrix style keyboards adds additional benefits on top of this key layout. For those who don't know matrix keyboards are those where the key rows are not offset, but are directly above one another.

Pro
Ctrl- AZXCV shortcuts are still accessible with one hand

AZX are in the QWERTY positions, and CV have only shifted one key right. This lets you use the mouse with the right hand and the shortcuts with the left, unlike Dvorak.

Pro
Mac version has Dead Keys version

The macOS version of Workman has the comma (,) key as a dead key, which allows you to access harder keys on a secondary layer.

Pro
Most symbols and shortcuts are the same as QWERTY

Pro
Punctuation is in the same location as QWERTY

If you already know QWERTY you don't have to relearn the punctuation, with the single exception of the ;: key which is in QWERTY's P position, like Colemak.

Pro
ZXC don't move compared to QWERTY

Like Colemak, the common undo, cut and copy Ctrl-commands don't move from their QWERTY positions. The V (paste) key does though.

Pro
Uses a colemak-like character layout

Uses the colemak character layout of moving P on a standard QWERTY keyboard layout one step down, extending the home row.

Pro
Has low consecutive finger use

See the source here.

Pro
Letter positions optimized

Via a quantitative effort model.

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Cons

Con
Certain Keybindings don't work in certain applications

In certain apps (like kitty terminal emulator), keyboard shortcuts like Control+C do not work.

Con
Designed to be used on a matrix style keyboard

This keyboard layout wan't designed to be used on a normal keyboard.

Con
Effort model is speculative

The quantitative effort model central to the optimization is based on armchair speculation, rather than a scientific biomedical study. The chosen metrics and weighting for them are likely partially correct. But no-one is really sure how correct.

Con
Doesn't take finger length into account

Unlike layouts such as norman and workman, QGMLWB doesn't take the length of fingers into account, for example on a standard QWERTY layout, it's easier to reach E than C.

Con
Punctuation is not optimized

Programmers have to use punctuation a lot, but (except for the ;: key, like Colemak) punctuation hasn't been moved from their positions on QWERTY. In fact, the non-letter characters , . - " _ ' ) ( ; 0 1 = 2 : are used more than the least-frequent letter z in a reasonable English corpus. Not optimizing punctuation at all, especially for programmers, is nonsense.

Con
V key has moved compared to QWERTY

The common paste shortcut used in for example windows has been moved to the right hand, making the layout harder to learn. This however is fixed in the QGMLWY variant of the carpalx series.

Con
A very small user base and community

Con
Doesn't favor the right hand

For right handed users, this keyboard layout doesn't use the usually stronger right hand more than the left, infact it sometimes favors the left hand more.