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Resolutions for programmers

matt.might.net

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Re: Resolutions for programmers

#71

Post by beagle3 »

digitallimit0 wrote: post #61
beagle3 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has all the unpleasant effects of exercise That's subjective; I like running outside. It lets me clear my mind like no other form of exercise. (I hate running int he gym, though) > it destroys your knees Only if you do it wrong. Unfortunately, 99.9% of the people do it wrong. I had started to develop some knee pains (only while running) after a healed knee injury. And then I discovered the Vibram Five Fingers, a…

It's not the shoe that's solving your problem, though. The trick is to run on your forefoot and roll back to your heel. That's it. That said, it's true that the key difference in the average running shoe and the Vibram line is the lack of heel-cushioning, which as a result encourages correct running, but I felt it pertinent to clear that up. tl;dr run with an impact front-to-back, toe-to-heel.

That's right. I knew that long ago, but I was unable to maintain that pose while running 10km -- old habits die hard. After about one month of walking and running with the Vibrams, my step changed from heel-first to front-to-back, as it should -- and it stays that way even when I don't use the vibrams (I hardly use them at all during the winter -- they're not good for running in city puddles)

front-to-back toe-to-heel is the key. The vibram is a way to get there.

Re: Resolutions for programmers

#73

Post by [deleted] »

Groxx wrote: post #40
mattmight wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned Dvorak to help with RSI. It worked. I'm fast at Dvorak after 4 years (90 wpm), but not as fast as I was with Qwerty (120 wpm). Dvorak has a pleasant "rolling" finger feel and my wrists never ache, so I've kept it. What fascinated me about learning Dvorak was that I felt like a stroke patient. Suddenly, I could not do something I had been able to do for years. It made me consider the cost of a keystroke. Gre…

I used to have wrist pain after particularly-long coding bouts. Then I decided to type like you play piano - hands up, wrists straight, move arms rather than wrists to punch keys in other locations. No pain again. Ever. Only later did I find out that it's the recommended wrist posture. I still cringe a bit when I see people buying keyboards with wrist-rests (and using them), especially "ergonomic" ones - why improve…

[deleted]

Re: Resolutions for programmers

#74

Post by Derbasti »

AlexandrB wrote: post #57
mhartl wrote: post #41

I have a couple of contrary suggestions with respect to health. 1. Don't follow the conventional wisdom on RSI I struggled with RSI for years, and did all the usual things (warmups, exercises, braces, a Kinesis with modified key layout, etc.) Then, in early 2010, I read (at Aaron Iba's suggestion) The Mindbody Prescription by John Sarno. Within a couple of days, I saw remarkable improvement; within a month, I was sym…

> The Mindbody Prescription by John Sarno The central claim of this book (from reading Amazon reviews) seems to be that chronic pain may be caused by mental/emotional distress. To me, this seems like a remarkable claim, and I'm super-skeptical without some kind of evidence. Out of curiosity, does the author offer any such evidence in the book? Are there other books on the topic?

Back pain used to be difficult to medicate. Then they found out that many cases of back pain showed operable anomalies in their lower spine. Surgery usually lifted the back pain. They thought they found the reason and cure for back pain.

Then however, they found that actually, those anomalies were just as likely in people experiencing back pain as in people with no symptoms at all. Now they were back to square one and did not know where back pain actually came from.

Funny enough, back pain can most reliably be lifted by seeing a doctor. It does not matter whether the dictor prescribes some medication, arranges for surgery or does nothing at all.

In many cases (not just back pain) simply seeing a doctor increases your chances of getting better way more than any particular therapy. Humans are weird animals.

Re: Resolutions for programmers

#75

Post by jerf »

tjoff wrote: post #43
parfe wrote: post #2

Learn Dvorak - I'd warn against bothering with Dvorak. Huge time sink with dubious claims of speed improvements. While a mythical programmer may exist who feels his raw typing speed limits his productivity, I never met that unicorn. While learning you have an increased error rate, run into incompatibility with other programmers and programs (emacs or vim... good luck) and end up needing to defend something no one act…

I've always felt that the biggest gain in learning a new layout is getting rid of old bad habits. Learning something new from scratch allows you to do it right from the start. The reason for why I've not tried this is probably mainly because it would scramble all keyboard shortcuts. Shortcuts are designed for qwerty (a shortcut that you can't perform with your left hand anymore is a huge loss) and many combinations a…

That is the one reason to learn Dvorak; it naturally causes you to touch type, because there's no sane reason to have your hands wander around the keyboard; all the keys you use are on the home row. QWERTY affords hand wandering and hunt & peck. If you want to "learn to touch type" it's probably more effective to "learn Dvorak" and let the touch typing take care of itself.

I'm not sure about the virtues of paying the stiff startup fee of learning Dvorak if all you know is QWERTY, but if you have already paid I certainly wouldn't suggest losing it. And I'm very, very tempted to ensure that my kids, who are all too young to be typing at all, simply start on Dvorak. If you're starting from scratch entirely the choice is pretty clear to me.

The thing about shortcut scrambling is oversold; I think it sources from people theorizing about what the problems might be if they switched, not people talking about their experiences. In my actual experience, relearning the keyboard shortcuts was a negligible part of the experience.

Re: Resolutions for programmers

#76

Post by beagle3 »

finnw wrote: post #39
teeray wrote: post #14

I'd like to add a caveat to the "Implement a cryptosystem" suggestion--Implement one, but DO NOT USE IT. It's a fun challenge, but only fools use their own crypto libraries.

Better still, implement one, assume it is broken, and find out why.

That's not a good advice. It is extremely hard to find problems in your own implementation, even if you're experienced in doing that.

Better advice: Find a mate (or a group), and find out why the other's implementation is broken. And go through some case studies first (see e.g. colin percival's postmortem in http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2011-01-18-tarsnap-critical-...)

Re: Resolutions for programmers

#77

Post by mhartl »

AlexandrB wrote: post #57
mhartl wrote: post #41

I have a couple of contrary suggestions with respect to health. 1. Don't follow the conventional wisdom on RSI I struggled with RSI for years, and did all the usual things (warmups, exercises, braces, a Kinesis with modified key layout, etc.) Then, in early 2010, I read (at Aaron Iba's suggestion) The Mindbody Prescription by John Sarno. Within a couple of days, I saw remarkable improvement; within a month, I was sym…

> The Mindbody Prescription by John Sarno The central claim of this book (from reading Amazon reviews) seems to be that chronic pain may be caused by mental/emotional distress. To me, this seems like a remarkable claim, and I'm super-skeptical without some kind of evidence. Out of curiosity, does the author offer any such evidence in the book? Are there other books on the topic?

Aaron's post on The Mindbody Prescription covered some of these issues.

http://aaroniba.net/articles/tmp/how-i-cured-my-rsi-pain.htm...

I'm a skeptic myself, trained as a scientist with degrees in physics from Harvard and Caltech. The technique from the book seems like it couldn't possibly work, but it did. As noted before, YMMV.

Re: Resolutions for programmers

#78

Post by rguzman »

feralchimp wrote: post #46

Most "list" posts suck; this one was awesome. My only quibble: "Argue against something you believe" is not a special, part-time exercise. It should be a tightly-integrated element of your ongoing mindset, even in 'damn the torpedoes' dev mode.

arguing against what you believe applies to a lot more than just programming. it is a pretty good way of arriving at what you really believe. guess you believe X0, try to argue against it arrive at X1 as a result of the arguments, argue against X1, ...

Re: Resolutions for programmers

#79

Post by coyotej »

AznHisoka wrote: post #53
tomjen3 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it that makes people assuming exercise -> running? It has all the unpleasant effects of exercise + it destroys your knees and you still don't have a sixpack.

I agree... to each his own, but I find running very boring. If you're into the Paleo movement, it's recommended you focus more on slow movement such as walking, hiking, biking as well as full body exercises: squats, pushups, etc. Running for prolonged periods of time regularly can do our bodies more harm, especially if we're unfit in the 1st place. So it's just not a sustainable form of exercise. Better find an activ…

I'm a Paleo guy, though I typically suggest that people should do whatever physical activity they actually enjoy. Paleo's recommendation of functional training just happen to coincide with what I like.

As for running, I HATE running for any significant amount of time, and I chalk this up partially to my body-type - I'm very good with short sprints and have large muscle mass in my legs, which is the opposite of most serious [distance] runners who have leaner legs, but similar to track stars who do the 100M and such.

Re: Resolutions for programmers

#80

Post by coyotej »

sidcool wrote: post #70

Another one: Meditate Regularly

This, to most people, is too vague on its own, because the concept of meditation tends to fit certain lifestyles, such as those that go Yoga or follow some form of Buddhism or other spiritual practice. This really deserves a few paragraphs at minimum for most people to even consider taking it seriously.

That said I think meditation would benefit a lot of people more than they realize, but they really need a proper introduction and guidance to actually do it in a way that is beneficial. This is extraordinarily hard to do on your own. (I started in my 20s and got a lot of out actual instruction at a retreat center).

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