The Art of the Bodge: How I Made The Emoji Keyboard

Why HN readers recommended it

HN links it as a charming defense of bodging and of AutoHotkey, and as the go-to example when custom keyboards or hotkey hacks come up.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

Tom Scott

Topic

bodging and custom keyboards

Format

talk

Level

general

HN recommenders in dataset

4

HN mentions in dataset

8

Recommendation years in dataset

2018–2024

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• AutoHotKey (in addition to WSL and VS Code) was enough to make me Windows-curious and eventually try a Windows laptop again after 10+ years on Mac. I first found out about AHK via Tom Scott's similar ode here: [VIDEO] He describes it as “a bodge …

• Fun AutoHotKey abuse: Tom Scott's emoji keyboard[0]. It's every single emoji (at the time of recording) on 14 full keyboards with 1,000s of hand-placed bespoke stickers. He goes into more detail here[1], but it's beautiful. [0]: [LINK] [1]: [VIDEO]

• Never underestimate the art of the bodge, it's quite literally keeping the world ticking over, perfection has a place but it is rare and fleeting. I saw a good talk on it from Tom Scott some time ago[0] which I think is relevant. [0]: [VIDEO]