A lot of people here aren't coders anyways, and if you're coding, you need to hold the shift modifier to get () and {} anyways, so what's the difference in holding Fn instead?
The point of the thread was for tiny sized keyboards, and I think it's pretty neat to see how small you can make it without reducing the ability to do "regular typing" by removing some of the programming related symbols. At the same time, you can keep just as much functionality using the Fn layer if you really need to, which I really don't see as a problem since normal keyboards are already using a Shift layer to access many things.
Anyways, here's yet another design that I'm even more partial to, but I think that people would be less accepting of. Someone had mentioned symmetrical staggering in the DT thread earlier, so here's one at 0.25x unit staggering.
I think it makes very good use of the space and has things located pretty well for a sort of "default" layout, but you could easily change some things around in the firmware. I tried having 1x Ctrl - 1x Win -1x Alt on the bottom but I think this is a bit nicer. I would probably personally change Shift and Fn here, though I left it like this because I think that people would be afraid to change where Shift is.
For the most part it is identical to the one I posted above, except that the modifiers along the right and left sides have their sizes getting smaller as you go down instead of getting bigger. There's a 0.5x empty space between G and H. For those who just want a "regular" staggered keyboard layout, I would highly encourage you to give this a shot! Your right hand is tilted inward like this on a regular keyboard, this just changes the left hand to tilt inward rather than outward, something which makes far more sense! It's not hard to learn how to type like this at all either, I assure you. It feels quite natural.
Also, my apologies to 7bit for filling his thread with far too many wacky designs... I'm sure things would be much simpler without me. I do quite love this layout though.
