I think even full time programmers write more English than they write punctuation for code. Just think about all the comments, emails, IMs, writing documentation, forum posts (like this one), etc.. Moreover, a lot of the punctuation can be autocompleted/autogenerated with modern IDEs, especially if you make use of code snippets. I think a good editor will be much more effective for code than a keyboard layout. Take a look for example at some of the TextMate screentcasts. I have never used TextMate myself, but the screencasts are cool.

The speed that most people can think in English (the normal conversation speed) is about 200WPM, compared to the speed that people can think in code which is about an order of magnitude lower. The bottleneck in writing code is not the keyboard layout. Since the speed is lower, the strain on the hands will be lower as well.

While Colemak uses the bottom row a bit more often than Dvorak, the difference is rather small. If for example you would exchange M and ; on Colemak, it would use the bottom row less often than Dvorak but then it would overwork the little finger.

Also, take into account that learning the punctuation keys takes for most people a long time, because they aren't used very often. Also, different programming languages use punctuation differently, so there can't be one keyboard layout that is good for everything. Even if you're only program in C++, you're likely to use HTML, XML, CSS, SQL, wikitext, shell scripts, etc.

One way to make a "Developer Colemak" would be to change the number row keys to the punctuation keys you use often, and then use the numeric keypad for inputting numbers instead. That wouldn't work if you're using a laptop keyboard though.

Thanks for replying Shai.

I think you are quite right.The punctuation and the indentation part can be taken care by the editor itself.And since i code for hours together i think ill go with colemak to reduce rsi.

Can u give a windows or linux alternative to textmate.
I looks cool.

thanx.