APT VS qmk_firmware

I've considered both the earlier version of APT, as well as Engram, with these layouts putting punctuation on the center index columns.

APT

Apt: https://github.com/apsu/apt

It's a rather bad layout by current measures. Not a lot better than QWERTY, and barely better than std Norman, much worse than Workman, Dvorak, Halmak, Engram, Colemak, Semimak, ISRT, RSTDH, MTGAP, APT, Poqtea, Hands Down, and many, many others. Even the simple Notarise is much better (with similar distance stats), and is much easier to learn coming from QWERTY.

Or u/apsuity's Apt v3

I don't have any personal experience with anything except Colemak-DH so I can't offer recommendations based on personal experience. With that being said, if I was to try a new layout I'd likely choose APTv3 or some variation of Hands Down as I hear good things about both.

It's the L placement and left index _mostly. Right hand is a bit overloaded as well however, like rnv on ring and the f placement, never on dvorak despite being full alt is not fun lol. That is not to speak for all sfbs on right hand like rn, sl, ct and gh which are bearable to slide on a low profile keyboard but hard to deal with on anything else. It also creates annoying patters like ght and wr because it puts everything on this hand. Left index is all of that, squared. You can deal with it just like you can deal with qwerty's jank, but there's just many better options out there. You could for example take a look at apt

nah colemak is good, dvorak is pretty garbage. If you wanna try something with a similar feel that's really good maybe try APT. Instead of that you can maybe also try some colemak mods like Colemak DH or rollmak: q w f p b z l u o y c r s t g m n e a i ' x v d k j h ; , .

Yeah you can do that but I wanted to see if I could get used to a mouse layer and it's going well so far. I have it as a layer tap on Z, then I have sniping on V and drag-scroll on B, left click on left-most left-side thumb key and right click on middle left-side thumb key, then ASDF is ctrl, alt, gui, shift so I can easily reach all my mods and clicks with one hand. Hope that makes sense? Full keymap is here if you're interested.

Dev and all-day Vim user here. This is my 36-key layout in case you'd like to take a look at some other ideas for layouts

On a 34 key I do something very similar to my 36, just move the layer taps I don't use as often off thumbs. I try to keep my firmwares all very similar to each other or I get lost!

I just made a Miryoku-inspired layout which should be relatively compatible with Vim. I use it with tmux and Vimux so there's likely to be stuff on there you don't need but it should theoretically be pretty usable for programming in Vim. You might adapt the symbol layer for things that you use frequently but it should at least form a good starting point.