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

nsaphra.github.io

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

#251
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely interested. I’ll check it out. Same boat, software engineer, my index and middle finger main knuckles on both hands inflame from the slightest use even after years of therapy, doctors visits, etc. Also tendinitis in both elbows/arms. Note to those who are pushing off fixing your ergonomics, don’t. If you feel pain, numbing, tingling; do not ignore it. Listen to your body, don’t be like me.

Can you elaborate on somethings you wish you had done. I get a bit of pain after half a day of coding, mostly my right pinky after hitting enter multiple times. Also get pain after certain activities like rolling food into a ball for my toddlers. I’ve joint pains here and there and the doctors have not yet found the cause and think it’s early onset of arthritis and have been told to take pain killers. I’m 39 by the w…

(35 now, this started at 33) I wish I quit my job when it started to get worse instead of continuing while I was doing PT. I was doing 8-10 hour days of coding in a startup, my hands and arms got worse and I started doing 4 hour days 3 times a week and doing physical therapy, dr appointments etc. It continued to get worse. I had a lot of faith in my doctors figuring it out. They kept telling me I’d get better, it’d heal. Well, we’re years from then and none of that came to fruition.

Not only that, the doctors misdiagnosed me multiple times, not able to come to an agreement on what it was. They still don’t. They call it RSI, arthritis, posterior interosseous nerve syndrome, and others that I cannot remember.

My advice, look up an ergonomics diagram, compare your setup to a proper setup. Then make adjustments to areas you’re having trouble with.

I use an ergodox ez keyboard w/ a 3m sort of joystick mouse (it doesn’t tilt though, you move it like a normal mouse).

I can get away with 1 hour working, then icing, stretching then repeat. For about 4 hours total for a day, but I wonder; does doing this cause more damage? I guess I’ll find out when I am older, as I have to pay my bills.

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

#253

I developed an RSI a few years ago, and I had to leave my job. It was devastating to lose both my career and my passion to an injury. Since then, I've been working with a friend on a new voice coding app called Serenade [1] that aims to enable anyone to program by voice. With Serenade, you can speak natural English voice commands like "delete second function" and "add class person". Not only can this be faster than t…

What's the licensing for this? I feel very strongly that accessibility technologies must be free/open source software, so that the already disadvantaged community which relies on them can work together on improving them to give each other a leg up, or to adapt it to their specific circumstances.

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

#254
post #45

I have been lucky to not be impacted by hand or wrist pain. I did experience chronic back pain for years due to a pinched sciatic nerve, it can be debilitating and depressing. Chronic pain is a large precursor to suicide, if you have it, you need to get it fixed. My interest in this is from a FutureOfProgramming perspective, how can we interact with computers in different, higher order ways. What does the Mother of A…

Talon actually uses Mac's built in STT if you don't have Dragon.

James from http://handsfreecoding.org/ was working on a fork of Dragonfly[0] to add support for Google's speech recognition, but I'm not sure if he still is. There are several barriers to that working well though: additional latency really hurts, API usage costs and (as far as I know) an inability to specify a command grammar (Dragonfly/Vocola/Talon all let you use EBNF-like notation to define commands, which are preferentially recognized over free-form dictation).

[0]: https://github.com/dictation-toolbox/dragonfly

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

#256
post #227
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely interested. I’ll check it out. Same boat, software engineer, my index and middle finger main knuckles on both hands inflame from the slightest use even after years of therapy, doctors visits, etc. Also tendinitis in both elbows/arms. Note to those who are pushing off fixing your ergonomics, don’t. If you feel pain, numbing, tingling; do not ignore it. Listen to your body, don’t be like me.

Also same boat. I've found that a mix of proper ergonomics, regular breaks, CBD oil (for inflammation), wrist braces and physical therapy exercises can do a lot of good.

where do you get your cbd oil / what brand? Thanks

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

#257
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely interested. I’ll check it out. Same boat, software engineer, my index and middle finger main knuckles on both hands inflame from the slightest use even after years of therapy, doctors visits, etc. Also tendinitis in both elbows/arms. Note to those who are pushing off fixing your ergonomics, don’t. If you feel pain, numbing, tingling; do not ignore it. Listen to your body, don’t be like me.

For those in this thread, try mechanical keyboards without much actuation force, like Cherry MX clear. Also try programmable keyboards or custom keymap layouts, which will allow you to map Return to the caps lock key to balance RSI a bit. I have issues with my right index which I almost completely blame on Diablo 1/2, swapping left + right click helps a lot. I’ve also tried and wouldn’t recommend: Dvorak (no noticeab…

I didn't have too much trouble learning the Dactyl. Detailed my experience here: https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/azkkpz...

It took 4 hours or so of constant typing tests to get up to 60 wpm. It took another week or so of working with the keyboard programming 8+ hours a day to stop having stupid mistakes.

It seems like it's going to be extremely hard to learn at first. Especially when you're hitting 5 WPM every time, but trust me, your brain will adapt. I was helped out by the fact that after spending a few days _building_ the keyboard, I wasn't about to back down. I was pleasantly surprised when it only took 4 hours.

Since then, my productivity is through the roof. Tons of thumb keys that are entirely programmable = heaven for an Ergoemacs user like me.

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

#258

The stuff about doctors in the UK is quite amusing. I actually look after a relative who has similar but not identical issue. Like OP, the diagnosis is madness and advice to see a clinical psychologist (ironically, this person was a psychologist themselves). Like OP, the doctor is actually actively intervening to prevent a second opinion from a neurologist (which is slightly redundant as the conclusion will most like…

It looks like you’ve had some bad experiences with doctors. I myself am a doctor in the UK, and my experience differs from yours. I would say like all humans, some of my colleagues are arrogant, and some are not. I would agree we tend to mention it early in conversation, but more because for many their whole life revolves around it (it makes discussing your life difficult if you ignore it!). The term used commonly is…

Yes mate, it is my experience that is the problem. I would look at the research on organisational behaviour within hospitals, this is a problem with doctors everywhere and has measurable impact on people's health.

And I am fairly happy with the idea that this is particularly true in the UK because my sample is not small. Your response to this is odd in itself. Why do you think I would be convinced by what you say? Why tell me you are a doctor (I can tell you: without the appeal to authority, there is no argument)? Literally, in the post you have replied to I have said...doctors in the UK tell you straight away...it took you ten words. How little self-awareness do you have? It is comical that you actually wrote that and, presumably, had some thought that it was a good idea to say any of that (again, the only reason to think that is because you think your arguments don't require justification).

And great...you have wasted your life writing a paragraph explaining to yourself why you are a doctor but are choosing not to help someone who is sick. The significance of this to me, let alone some who is sick, is zero...again, lack of self-awareness...why write this at all? I am sure it is a nice thing that helps your self-image...you failed to prove its consequence in the real world (i.e. you skilfully explained what is but left out why it should be).

To highlight two points again. The issue with OP and my relative is that doctors are often actively attempting to prevent further care. No-one denies that psychological therapy is helpful for chronic pain. The issue is that, for most people, it isn't going to solve anything...but it is presented as the cure even when alternatives exist. Even suggesting that people could be lying or that it is psychosomatic is wrong-headed. If that is the case, then that is another condition (lying isn't a medical condition, you don't adjust medicine conditional on the probability that someone is lying). Again, there is an obsession with people lying that is truly unhealthy here and quite contrary to practice outside the UK (indeed, my experience within the UK has been, as you have just done, that almost every doctor will start talking about the possibility of lying completely unprompted when these particularly conditions are mentioned...random?).

The other issue is that this has profoundly stunted research in the UK. It is not particularly hard to find ample research on these issues. You are saying that psychological therapy is a treatment...well, read the research. Is there a known biological pathology? No. But there are possibilities (and none of those possibilities suggest the current treatment will have a significant effect...CBT, in the case of people with psychological conditions, is only effective 20-30% of the time). And is it appropriate for the "policy" to be in cases when there is no known pathology that psychological therapy (or, presumably, a lie detector test) be the only course of action? No. That isn't logical (and, again, it is why there are people who are helping people who you have actively chosen to abandon). Somewhat amazing that you go onto criticise the US system for "overdiagnosis"...so no diagnosis is better than overdiagnosis? Again...you are a doctor, right? You are just saying: I would prefer to do no work at all than hard work. Feeble, and unbelievably arrogant (it is feeble to justify doing no work, it takes arrogance to criticise others for doing work).

Truly, I hope this will help you. Stop. Think it through. Think whether what you wrote helps yourself more than other people.

Btw, it is often very clear in these cases (and in life, generally) when someone is or is not lying because lying usually requires motivation (I have never come across someone who was obsessed with other people "lying" for anything other than self-interested reasons). Most people who have these conditions have their lives destroyed...to suggest that someone is motivated to destroy their own life is just stupid. To suggest that this must be the case to cover up your own personal failings (competence, lack of sympathy, ending up in a job that requires sympathy when you only possess avarice, etc.) is something far worse.

EDIT: just to add actual info, because we are actually talking around some of the issues here...the UK uses the Oxford criteria for ME/CFS, this is a measure that was designed by psychiatrists, and has been shown to be a statistically significant treatment in samples selected using that criteria...one issue...all these studies have massive selection bias (some of these therapies wouldn't actually be possible for people with CFS/ME to undertake, imo) and the Oxford criteria wildly overstates incidence of ME/CFS (compared to Fukuda). The Lancet, a UK medical journal, continues to publish guidance that this is a psychological condition (again, not what is said above, that there are no biological pathologies...the Lancet is saying this can be cured by psychological therapy) despite the NIH (and others) showing that this is likely not the case (and suggesting that it is actually damaging research funding to suggest it is a mental condition).

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

#259
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely interested. I’ll check it out. Same boat, software engineer, my index and middle finger main knuckles on both hands inflame from the slightest use even after years of therapy, doctors visits, etc. Also tendinitis in both elbows/arms. Note to those who are pushing off fixing your ergonomics, don’t. If you feel pain, numbing, tingling; do not ignore it. Listen to your body, don’t be like me.

Can you elaborate on somethings you wish you had done. I get a bit of pain after half a day of coding, mostly my right pinky after hitting enter multiple times. Also get pain after certain activities like rolling food into a ball for my toddlers. I’ve joint pains here and there and the doctors have not yet found the cause and think it’s early onset of arthritis and have been told to take pain killers. I’m 39 by the w…

Just be careful with NSAIDS, taking them regularly can cause stomach ulcers.

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

#260
post #175

Switching to Dvorak saved my career. It forced me to type extremely slow for awhile, which helped my pain subside. I haven't had a problem since. Qwerty is such a terrible layout.

I believe you, but I don't think qwerty is inherently a problem. Typing extremely slowly for a while helps. I've developed pain in my wrists multiple times over the years, and have always switched workflows as a result. Went from a wireless apple 'magic keyboard' to a model m to a goldtouch (split, elevated pyramid keyboard) with a left handed mouse, and every time I've found relief from the pain (later on with the use of wrist braces for a few weeks to prevent unconscious wrist flexion). The common element has been a forced change in computing activity - the pain would not cease immediately, so a combination of pain, the changed input layout, and in some cases the wrist braces meant less of doing anything at all with the computer. There's the magic potion for RSI for me - less repetitive stress, enforced by a changed computing environment. Changing the size of the input devices, the layout (from right handed to left handed mouse, from a mouse to a trackball, to a touchpad, to a vertical mouse.. whatever) changes the type of stress too. I won't be surprised when I have to repeat the process of changing to anything else at all. I've already returned from the goldtouch to the model m, but I won't be unhappy when I have to switch back.
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