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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?

#341

Post by mmcnl »

Stratoscope wrote: post #105

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…

I can type quite fast (easily 100 words / minute), but never had any official training. My hands are always positioned like your second drawing. Could it perhaps be that the standard way people are taught to type (i.e. fingers resting by default on the middle row with index fingers on the F and J key) makes people more inclined to bend their wrists which can lead to complaints?

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

#343

Post by rlue »

germ wrote: post #191
Stratoscope wrote: post #105

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…

Better solution is to ditch the single-block-style keyboard and get a proper ergonomic one that's split into two parts. That allows you to keep your wrists at a natural angle but you also need to change the layout to use columnar staggering so the fingers are only moving vertically. There's many things wrong with traditional keyboards and many solutions that I could write for years about. This one's mine and is focus…

For off-the-shelf solutions, consider the Mistel Barocco, Matias Ergo Pro, Ergodox EZ, Mitosis, and of course keyboardio.

I own the Mistel Barocco and keep the two halves of the keyboard like two feet apart; cannot recommend it enough.

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

#344

Post by sleepybrett »

throwaway61292 wrote: post #197
hilyen wrote: 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…

you might want to look at the kinesis advantage keyboard, moves the backspace and enter to your thumbs cluster, and greatly improves ergonomics for your pinkie fingers.

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

#345

Post by sleepybrett »

nufohede wrote: post #289
brians wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of good advice here. Ergo keyboards (I like the kinesis advantage, and they last decades) and breaks worked for me. Dvorak is mostly useful because you have to relearn it, and might learn it without whatever broken ideas your body has about QWERTY. Chair adjustments are huge. Get a steelcase chair—I like the leap. Have it adjusted by a pro, whose biggest advantages are being able to see what you really do as you…

Just adding another data point, my Kinesis Advantage only lasted 6 months before it started experiencing phantom key strokes. Sending it in to get repaired would have costed almost as much as getting a new keyboard since I don’t live in the US. I replaced it with a Microsoft Sculpt that has lasted for years now.

There is a open source controller for the advantage that makes it fully programable and fixes some problems that the advantage 1 had with some ghost presses and stuck modifiers. I've modified two advantages to use it, it requires a bit of soldering and some willingness to compile your own firmware from qmk.

https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2013-03-21-kinesis_custo...

https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/BwWRYP5c

https://qmk.fm/

I've presonally never managed to get caps/mode leds back to working, but I also don't really care enough to dig in that deeply.

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

#346

Post by anonuser123456 »

bspammer wrote: post #206
hilyen wrote: 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.

I'm 23 and have been using computers very heavily for the last 10 or so years - probably an average of 6 hours a day. During a particularly intensive day of typing last week I started getting pain in my right hand. I had to resort to hunt-and-peck index finger typing to get the feature I was working on finished. I'm horrified, it feels like I'm way too early in my career for something like this to happen, but I guess…

I'm 38, and have been programming since ~16. I spend > 50 hrs / week typing. I've had several bouts of RSI and here is something to consider:

- It's very possible to go from your current situation to being completely pain free. Have some optimism. I haven't experienced RSI pain in 5 years.

- RSI is usually not _caused_ by typing (there is lots of data supporting this). Lots of typing usually exacerbates some other underlying condition. Don't fall into the attribution error trap or you might not find the underlying cause.

- In my various bouts of RSI I switched to various ergonomic keyboards. These mitigated some of the pain, but did not eliminate it. I went from a standard laptop keyboard to MS natural 4k, to a Kinesis advantage. Each time, pain improved but did not completely subside.

- I solved my RSI by finding the root cause.

Anecdotal stories:

I've had on and off weakness in my left pinky for years (decades). I'm an Emacs user and used to use that pinky heavily as a ctrl/meta activator; I just attributed the pain / weakness to that. I would also have pain in left wrist, which I attributed to having to baby that hand at times and use it in awkward positions. At times, the pain was so bad I could not type for days to weeks.

I'd seen a doctor about this a few times, and they usually advised me to take a week or two away from the keyboard to let it heal and then the usual 'take breaks while typing etc.' Sometimes that worked, sometimes not.

At one point, I started noticing that my grip strength was declining in that hand and I was getting muscle twitches when I had to grip things very tightly (e.g. a hario hand grinder). Twitching and weakness are clinical signs of a motor neuron problem. After researching various nerve compression scenarios... I happened upon a website similar to this: http://www.eatonhand.com/hw/hw007.htm. This described me exactly; habit of sleeping with my arms stretched out in a way that compresses the ulnar nerve.

I got a 15 dollar brace off Amazon and started being careful about what position I slept in. A month later, my hand was completely back to normal and I've been pain free since.

My brother (also a programmer) had a similar situation. RSI to the point he couldn't work. The root cause; a shoulder injury from his teens that wasn't properly addressed. Did PT to work on the shoulder and his RSI resolved within a few months.

The point is, don't focus on typing as the cause; look elsewhere. If you are injury free, you can type all day long and it won't likely cause a problem.

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

#347

Post by foldr »

einpoklum wrote: post #156
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 best way to get a doctor to listen to you is to listen to (and follow) their advice first. No. Because sometimes their advice is "nothing can be done, you'll need to manage." Or - "Wait for a few more weeks and if it doesn't go away, we'll rethink things".

>"Wait for a few more weeks and if it doesn't go away, we'll rethink things"

To be fair, this is often excellent advice.

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

#348

Post by justaguy500 »

bspammer wrote: post #206
hilyen wrote: 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.

I'm 23 and have been using computers very heavily for the last 10 or so years - probably an average of 6 hours a day. During a particularly intensive day of typing last week I started getting pain in my right hand. I had to resort to hunt-and-peck index finger typing to get the feature I was working on finished. I'm horrified, it feels like I'm way too early in my career for something like this to happen, but I guess…

A full list:

* Wear warm clothes that cover your wrists.

* Start going to the gym, and focus especially on free weight exercises. They make your arms and hands stronger, and the growth hormones released after working out promotes healing of any wrist injuries.

* Mouse sensitivity. Which is better, low or high DPI varies on a person-to-person basis but for me what worked was low as it forced me to use my hand to do large movements rather than my wrist.

* Mouse hardware. Again varies on a person-to-person basis, a mouse that is too large or too small for your hand can cause wrist pain.

* Sleep position. Sleeping on your back is probably the safest way, be sure to keep your arms relaxed on the sides. Having a pillow to hug might help as this feels somehow a natural position

* Don't play video games with a mouse. Yes this sucks as some of the best competitive multiplayer games are on the PC, but LoL, CSGO, Overwatch etc are known to cause RSI issues and lots of professional players have ruined their wrists permanently. Switching to a console will stop any wrist problems from gaming

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

#349

Post by littlestymaar »

pknopf wrote: post #211
bspammer wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 23 and have been using computers very heavily for the last 10 or so years - probably an average of 6 hours a day. During a particularly intensive day of typing last week I started getting pain in my right hand. I had to resort to hunt-and-peck index finger typing to get the feature I was working on finished. I'm horrified, it feels like I'm way too early in my career for something like this to happen, but I guess…

I learned to use mouse with my other hand. I was literally forced to one day, out of pain. Took me 2 days to feel normal with it. Nowadays, I juggle back and forth, depending on comfort.

Been here, done that. This is not a solution:

It was 5 years ago and my right hand was too painful to use so I switched to my left hand. Eventually, last year my left hand started to hurt too, and I started jungling between both. 5 months later, I had to stop completely for 2 months because of the pain.

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

#350

Post by suby »

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…

Thanks, this is helpful. I'm building a similar system to Talon but based on Deepspeech (I don't have an OSX device, and I'd like to use it on Linux without having to run dragon in a VM which in my experience is an absolute pain).
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