@pmunch\: On German keyboard layouts, \~ is on AltGr and + (plus), which is next
to the return and under the backspace key. At least it's easy to type with one
hand that way. Whether it's a dead key depends on the layout variant you choose.
The most annoying symbols on the German layout are the parentheses, curly
braces, and square brackets, which are on Shift+8/9 and AltGr+7/8/9/0, which is
very awkward to type with one hand and I constantly get them wrong. Many German
programmers use an US English layout for this reason, but I never got accustomed
to that.