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

I can vouch for deadlifts. Had wrist tendonitis flare-ups first at age 29 while doing lots of coding for a newly launched product. I'm 43 now and haven't had a flare-up in over 6 years (been doing heavy coding since 28yo). I do deadlifts once heavy a week, sometimes will add in an extra light set during the week. If you're starting out with deadlifts, be sure to check out a program like Starting Strength and practice correct form before adding heavy weight.

Things like bench press and working with heavy dumbbells have probably helped too since the weight forces your hand, wrist, and arm muscles to strengthen. I have also used a hand-held grip squeeze device which has helped over the years when I had flare-ups.

If you ignore the pains for too long, it will do irrepairable damage to your nerves.

My timeline was this. I've been programming since 15. I've been on the computer for hours a day, making money freelancing in highschool. I didn't have a single issue. Then, at 22, I got a professional gig. My pain started immediately. Within months, the damage was done.

My right hand still isn't 100%, but since I've switched to using my last remaining good hand, I treat it much better than I did my right hand. It's all I got.

Carpal tunnel can absolutely be prevented. It isn't genetic or anything. You just have to monitor the warning signs and address them immediately.

So, yes, switching hands isn't a solution, but the damage is done, so it has to be done. But now I have the insight needed to prevent my left arm from ever falling into the same situation.

Long ago my hands started hurting. By the end of each week my hands hurt a great deal. Eventually I figured out a solution for me:

  - first and foremost, use sticky keys
  
    Sticky keys is an accessibility technology you
    can look up that ultimately means I can avoid
    "ulnar deviations" -- twisting the hands
    outwards at the wrists.  Others may be able to
    use sticky keys to avoid other deviations.
  
  - second and foremost :), never ever rest my
    forearms or wrists on anything (such as a
    desk) while typing
  
    Typing moves your tendons from the elbow all
    the way to your fingertips!  Resting your
    wrists or forearms while typing means pressing
    on your tendons and the sheaths they move
    through, and this is one cause of RSI.
  
    This means, among other things, not having arm
    rests on my chairs.
  
  - type with keyboard on lap
  
  - put monitor at head level

The first three items help me avoid hand/forearm injuries. The last two items (note overlap) mean I can better control my seated posture to avoid neck/shoulder/back injuries. With my keyboard on my lap I don't have to make as much effort to hold my arms up, thus alleviating shoulder strain, which also reduces the need to rest my forearms while typing. Having my monitor(s) high up means I can sit up straight (which reduces back strain) and keep my head balanced over my neck (which reduces neck and back strain).

I should probably add that I avoid Emacs keybindings like the plague, as those involve lots of modifier keys, which are the source of my ulnar deviations. Yes, with sticky keys I can avoid them, but I'm not sufficiently disciplined about not ever pressing modifier keys and modified keys together to make Emacs keybindings acceptable to me. It won't surprise anyone that modal keybindings (VIM!) are my preference.

I should probably also mention that using text-based applications as much as possible helps me avoid using the mouse. The mouse too is a source of deviations.

Ever since I discovered this solution, I have not had the sort of pain that might make me quit the industry.

A talk on RSI inspired me to look for solutions. In particular, that talk taught me about various "deviations", and I immediately recognized ulnar deviations as one of my key problems, which is what led me to find sticky keys.

NB: I'm not suggesting the above will work for anyone other than myself. What I am suggesting is that anyone struggling with RSI symptoms might be able to find a solution for themselves. The speaker in the linked video clearly found a solution that works for her.

Also, I've tried many keyboards. My favorite are curved keyboards with no builtin wrist rests, but these are hard to find. Nowadays I use compact gaming keyboard (Arvo) with cherry mx browns -- compact means I don't have to move my hands a lot, "gaming" means N-key rollover (all the keystrokes will be emitted even if they happen close enough in time to overwhelm the buffer on non-gaming keyboards), which together with "cherry mx" means I get enough haptic feedback that I can know about and correct typos without even having to look at what I'm typing.

Note: edited.

Stop. Seriously stop. Don’t type thru the pain — you’ll do serious and permanent damage. I did that in lectures on an Apple Newton keyboard, and my hands never were the same since.

Install AntiRSI or workrave, and take breaks. But really pay attention and when your body gives out don’t take the chance. No feature or deadline is worth it. Probably even an hour break is enough to finish that feature.

Talon is great. It practically saved my career as a coder. There is a learning curve, but it's aided by the #help channel in Slack (https://talonvoice.slack.com/messages/C7ENXA7C4), which is a good starting point after installing the (currently Mac-only) package at https://talonvoice.com/. It took me a while (several months) before I could be reasonably productive, but that's because I was trying to avoid usage of my hands altogether, the available community commands were still fledgling, and I was transitioning from another voice control system.

It'll be easier if you can still mostly use your hands since you can incrementally move over to voice coding/control, and the built-in functionality and community commands have truly progressed. There's also the eye tracking functionality if it's difficult for you to use a mouse/trackball etc.

There is a community-maintained Talon VSCode plugin, but no explicit TypeScript integration. That's a great idea, though! I think some folks use VSCode snippets to help their workflow. I personally want to get to the point where I can utter commands that can write the correct code in whatever language/context I happen to be in, and maybe something even higher level than that. The Talon author and community members are already thinking along those lines, as evidenced by upcoming APIs that make Talon easier to use and even more configurable/extensible than it already is.