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What Does a Coder Do If They Can't Type?

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Re: What Does a Coder Do If They Can't Type?

#101

Post by dmix »

csallen wrote: post #25

This story resonates. A few years back I was dealing with mild pain while coding. I stupidly ignored it for months as it got significantly worse, to the point where it became impossible to type for extended periods. I tried lots of things. My doctor did a nerve conduction study, which apparently ruled out carpal tunnel syndrome, but he wasn't much help beyond that. He gave me some straps that I slept in and wore arou…

> It also relied on Dragon's NaturallySpeaking software, which I was dismayed to learn was still the best desktop software out there.

Sounds like a business opportunity especially with the barrier to AI being lowered. But I guess there is some real value in having been doing it as long as the Dragon team has.

Re: What Does a Coder Do If They Can't Type?

#102

Post by hestipod »

dejawu wrote: post #8

On the other side of this, I found it very interesting how a programmer who can't see codes using text-to-speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94swlF55tVc

I envy and truly admire people who suffer such adversity and who live good lives. I don't know if its because they usually never knew any different so can't compare, or if they just have an innate mental strength I do not. After losing my health and life I've had an extremely hard time accepting such a huge reduction in QOL that just seems to get worse and really wish I had their ability/outlook.

Re: What Does a Coder Do If They Can't Type?

#103

Post by spydum »

bluedino wrote: post #100
csallen wrote: post #25

This story resonates. A few years back I was dealing with mild pain while coding. I stupidly ignored it for months as it got significantly worse, to the point where it became impossible to type for extended periods. I tried lots of things. My doctor did a nerve conduction study, which apparently ruled out carpal tunnel syndrome, but he wasn't much help beyond that. He gave me some straps that I slept in and wore arou…

I don't have pain in my hands, but I get severe back pain from time to time. It's difficult to sit or stand (or be in any position, really) for a few days at a time. I can do some things just fine, like type, but I certainly can't concentrate long enough to do any programming tasks because the pain is so distracting.

same here, and I will repeat csallen's solution: going to the gym and lifting heavy things (squat/deadlifts/etc with good form and comfortable pace) has turned my decades long back pain around completely.

It took about 6 months to really be sure it had improved, but it's been amazing, plus there have been significant cognitive benefits. Couple the gym with less sitting, and more standing -- couldnt be happier, wish I had done it earlier.

Re: What Does a Coder Do If They Can't Type?

#104

Post by gwbas1c »

GordonS wrote: post #91
casion wrote: post #46

Fibromyalgia And idiopathic disease are not terms for "go away". They mean "I've tried what I can think of and theres no further testing we can recommend" Notably, a positive punch biopsy for small fiber neuropathy IS diagnosis with treatment that works fairly well. Ideopathic simply means that the base cause is unknown. The author need to educate themselves further about what doctors can do and what words mean. He h…

I'm sorry, but at least in the UK and on the NHS, fibromyalgia is very much a diagnosis of "go away". I had to battle with my neurologist to get a skin biopsy, despite very clear symptoms of neuropathy, and a very clear trigger. He eventually ordered it, very reluctantly. It came back normal, which for him for conclusive proof that I had fibromyalgia. When I asked him about fibromyalgia, it was immediately clear that…

> and you will absolutely not be left without any pain meds

Based on what I've learned, over-the-counter pain medication, such as Tylenol and Advil, is most effective for pain. It's also cheaper, doesn't require a prescription, and isn't addictive. You should consult with a doctor for high doses and long-term usage.

When I had opioids after surgery, I could not concentrate. Specifically, I could not concentrate to read for pleasure, or do the kind of reading needed for our profession. Everything came back as soon the last dose wore off. Since then, even with minor dental surgery, a few high doses of Advil work much better than Valium. (The Valium just leaves me hung over the next day.

Re: What Does a Coder Do If They Can't Type?

#105

Post by Stratoscope »

This won't help anyone who has lost the use of their hands, but I have some advice for touch typists who use a standard keyboard like a laptop or typical desktop keyboard: don't bend your wrists.

Of course most people know about the ergonomic advice to have your keyboard at the right height so your wrists don't have to bend up or down. But I often see people typing with a horizontal bend in their wrists so that their hands are pointing straight forward as they type, like this crude sketch:

      | | |   | | |
      | | |   | | |
      +---+   +---+
      /  /     \  \
     /  /       \  \
    /  /         \  \
If you do that, try this instead: don't bend your wrists to make your hands straight. Relax your wrists and let your hands be at the same angle as your arms:

      / / /   \ \ \
     / / /     \ \ \
    +---+       +---+
    /  /         \  \
   /  /           \  \
  /  /             \  \
Your fingers will still be able to find the keys, but it may take some getting used to if you've been using the "bent wrist" position. Once you get the hang of it, this may reduce the stress on your wrists.

I've been typing on standard keyboards nearly every day for about 50 years without any significant problems. I tried using the "bent wrist" position as a quick experiment and it was really uncomfortable. So while I can't say for sure that it will help everyone, I'm pretty sure the "straight wrist" position has helped me.

Re: What Does a Coder Do If They Can't Type?

#106

Post by armada651 »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #89
armada651 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of whether you think the advice from the GP is sound or not, the best way to get a doctor to listen to you is to listen to (and follow) their advice first. Cursing at them out of frustration only makes your situation worse.

That has the possibility of working out disastrously if the doctors first recommendation is surgery, when physical therapy (rest + strengthening) ought to have been the first prescription.

There are exceptions of course, don't go for a treatment you aren't comfortable with. But the recommendation here was therapy.

Re: What Does a Coder Do If They Can't Type?

#107

Post by armada651 »

Igelau wrote: post #93
armada651 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of whether you think the advice from the GP is sound or not, the best way to get a doctor to listen to you is to listen to (and follow) their advice first. Cursing at them out of frustration only makes your situation worse.

The GP didn't give 'advice' so much as they said "your medical records? ha, right... you're crazy." And then proceeded to shut down all avenues to further care and pain management. Honestly it sounds like the GP is so cynical about the hot garbage they perceive UK healthcare to be that they basically said "please go away so that our utter inability to help you doesn't weigh on my conscience any further... oh thank go…

> The GP didn't give 'advice' so much as they said "your medical records? ha, right... you're crazy." And then proceeded to shut down all avenues to further care and pain management.

That's a patient's perspective, but how about a doctor's perspective? You've got a patient refusing treatment for what could very well be a psychosomatic condition and instead demanding opiods that are very likely to result in addiction.

There is a large stigma around mental health, but there's no such thing as a person who's completely sane. Just because a doctor is saying you might have a psychosomatic condition is not the same as him saying you're deranged.

Re: What Does a Coder Do If They Can't Type?

#108

Post by nmstoker »

I really appreciated this article as it presents the kinds of challenges that all sorts of people can find them with unexpectedly, and shows how perseverance and the help of technology can be a way round them.

More specifically I was interested to see that the version of Dragon for scripting isn't available any longer. However this might be something where Mozilla's recent efforts with speech recognition could help and as a bonus the project is open-source and adaptable.

https://github.com/mozilla/DeepSpeech

The WER they've achieved is already good for general recognition and through experimenting with narrowed domains / language models it can be made extremely accurate. For anyone interested, there's a walkthrough I did of steps needed to set up a narrow domain LM on their forum below with a video showing it working. I'm guessing that a programming scenario would be somewhere in between: it would be a fairly defined range of words but that list would be quite a bit broader than the example I show.

https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/tune-moziiladeepspeech-to-re...

Re: What Does a Coder Do If They Can't Type?

#109

Post by nmstoker »

nmstoker wrote: post #108

I really appreciated this article as it presents the kinds of challenges that all sorts of people can find them with unexpectedly, and shows how perseverance and the help of technology can be a way round them. More specifically I was interested to see that the version of Dragon for scripting isn't available any longer. However this might be something where Mozilla's recent efforts with speech recognition could help a…

Oh, and as a follow-up, if you want to indirectly help make the recognition better, especially for non-English speakers or minority accents, contributing voice samples here is a great way help (no coding/technical skills, so share it with family and friends if you like!)

https://voice.mozilla.org/en

Re: What Does a Coder Do If They Can't Type?

#110

Post by flurdy »

This is totally my fear of what might happen to me. Not specifically the ailment that the author has, but I am worried what will happen to me if/when I no longer can type, in my case possibly due to rheumatism.

My mother has severely swollen finger joints due to rheumatism, my grandmother on my father's side (Farmor in Norwegian, so much easier to explain) also suffered with it, and my older sister is now complaining of painful fingers. My paranoid hypochondriac traits are certain I am genetically guaranteed to suffer from rheumatic fingers.

I depend on typing fast not just for my job but also my hobby and how I perform a lot of tasks in real life. (As I expect it is for many on HN).

Not being able to type much in the future seemed terrible. However, this article and comments have made me realise I might be able to work around it. But still daunting. (If it ever becomes an actual problem).

I already suffer from some RSI tinges due to my mouse which has led me to now own a plethora of different Kensington and Elecom trackerballs and a penguin mouse. And I own two MS Sculpt ergonomic keyboards and plan to buy a Keyboard.io split keyboard soon, to prevent typing RSI.

Guess I can further buy myself out of tomorrow's typing problems with some eye-trackers, microphones, foot paddles, VR goggles etc.

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