Well, technically I never said it WAS ergonomic, just that the option key wasn't

Paying attention to how I hit it, when I'm speeding along with my fingers on the home row, it looks like I tend to hit it by curling my pinky finger and hitting it with the top of my fingernail. That sounds a lot less ergonomic than it is, and feels just fine to me. It also lets me hit the shift key with the first knuckle on the same finger, which is nice because I can roll onto it when selecting whole words, which I do constantly.

Much of what's bugging me about this is just because things are different, and I admit that. But I do believe that I'm switching modifier keys far more often. For example, ctrl+tab is still used in OSX for browser tab switching because option+tab switches between open apps like alt+tab in Windows. I copy and paste text between tabs constantly, and it seems inconvenient to switch modifier keys every time. In Windows, when my left little finger isn't on the A key, it's hovering halfway over the ctrl and shift keys.


This is definitely a per-user thing, but the area between the spacebar and the left arrow key on my keyboard might as well not exist. I never use those keys. All of my keyboard shortcuts are done with a single hand, so that my right hand is free to use the arrow keys or the mouse.