21–30 of 148 posts
I know you can remap keys or whatnot, but if you look at people experimenting with layouts and trying to resolve RSI problems, it is always Emacs.
I used emacs briefly, not long enough to say, but it seems pretty obvious where the problem is. I understand why people don't want to change their favorite editor.
> In Pan & Schleifer (1996), subjects experienced more arm discomfort/pain/fatigue the more keys they pressed while doing a data entry task.[23] Finally, Feng et al. is a recent (2021) cross-sectional study that found that “prolonged computer use time and working without breaks were associated with presence of wrist/hand symptoms”.[24] But of course correlation is not causation, and there are many potential confounde…
To your first citation, purely anecdotal but - over the years when I click on articles by programmers with serious RSI - the ones who identify their text editor are more often die-hard Emacs users (like Stallman). I don't think continual chording is a biologically respectful use of our analog digits. :-)
> In other words, the idea is that QWERTY was designed so that humans would type as slowly as possible in order to prevent mechanical jamming. Nope. That's an oft cited story but it's not true. The point of QWERTY was actually to increase typing speed. The debunking of this is pretty well documented these days (there even a note on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#Properties ) so it's disappointing an…
the very next sentence reads: "This idea is apparently false."
The author seems to me to at least partly still believe its true, merely acknowledging that it's a difficult position to maintain.
> One week or so ago I switched from Colemak to typing on QWYRFM due to the reduced load it places on the pinkies. I typed Dvorak for 10 years before I started getting RSI again in my right ulna. It turns out that the 'S' key being hit by the pinky in Dvorak caused me a lot of pain. I ended up switching to BEAKL, a pretty obscure layout which is specifically made to alleviate stress on the pinky. It moves the relativ…
In my modest experience, most people who have issues with RSI and especially carpal problems, they almost universally use Emacs! It is such obvious thing. I know you can remap keys or whatnot, but if you look at people experimenting with layouts and trying to resolve RSI problems, it is always Emacs. I used emacs briefly, not long enough to say, but it seems pretty obvious where the problem is. I understand why peopl…
I had been programming since I was 11 years old (now 30 years old professional programmer). I’ve spent innumearable hours at computer keyboard. I can type QWERTY and Russian layout blindly both and I constantly use both. Never had any issues with my wrists or finger pain. What am I doing wrong? Just to be clear I am not trying to say that people who use DVORAK are wrong. It’s just that you tend to forget there’s a hu…
"Been smoking 20 years, still no lung cancer!" You're only 30. Give it 10 years. Not being snarky, the damage is being done, you're just not at that point yet. 38, been programming since the same age and I'm starting to feel it. Change your habits now and start focusing on ergonomics.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
the very next sentence reads: "This idea is apparently false."
It does, but the article is pretty cagey in its retraction (including following up with the comment "Though on the other hand, jamming is really bad for typing speed!"). The author seems to me to at least partly still believe its true, merely acknowledging that it's a difficult position to maintain.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
the very next sentence reads: "This idea is apparently false."
It does, but the article is pretty cagey in its retraction (including following up with the comment "Though on the other hand, jamming is really bad for typing speed!"). The author seems to me to at least partly still believe its true, merely acknowledging that it's a difficult position to maintain.
In my modest experience, most people who have issues with RSI and especially carpal problems, they almost universally use Emacs! It is such obvious thing. I know you can remap keys or whatnot, but if you look at people experimenting with layouts and trying to resolve RSI problems, it is always Emacs. I used emacs briefly, not long enough to say, but it seems pretty obvious where the problem is. I understand why peopl…
If I were an Emacs user I'd swap CapsLock and Control, since that's the layout used when Emacs was first written.