Forty years of programming

I was coding in Q-Basic when I was about 9 years old. It wasn't much more than colored text on the screen and some inputs for a text based choose your own adventure for a little while but I was doing it. I was also playing other Q-Basic games and then reading their code to learn how to do certain things, then tweaking certain aspects of the code to change things, like what was said in messages and the hud and how much the score went up, etc.

Likely the only reason it wasn't earlier is I didn't have access to a computer until then. My parents didn't buy one until around that age, and I was already bugging them about it because my friend had one and was showing me these cool Q-Basic games he found on Compuserve. I started programming almost immediately after we got a computer in the household.

Now granted 5 is pretty young, I didn't even really know how to read then. But I probably would have by 7 years old if there was a computer in the house at that point.

I was also making Hypercard programs on the school library Macintosh (the original Macintosh) around that time, mainly images I drew with clickable portions to navigate to new screens, like navigating a maze.

My more serious programming was when I got a TI-85 calculator in 7th grade, though, so when I was around 12 years old. I started making text-based games on there, then action based games like Breakout, and at that point I was using plenty of for and while loops and checking keyboard inputs and creating menus and slinging variables around and calling functions and everything else.

I am somewhat of an edge case

My left hands fingers are way more flexible and nimble than my right hand, even though I'm right dominant.

I do basically all typing with all my left hand's 5 fingers, accompanied by just two fingers on the right hand.

I have looong fingers so it works out on standard keyboards without any need to stretch.

But yes, never ever put weight on your wrists while typing, same advice as when playing a violin.

Stenography is the most ergonomic method of computer input I am aware of.

Stenography is a mapping of some combination of keys to some output.

A particular mapping is called a "theory".

One such mapping is phonetics, or the sounds of words. Let one key represent the "Kuh" sound, another "ah", and a third "tuh". Press them all down and when released, you get "cat". "Al" "Guh" "Or" "If" "Um" "Algorithm". 5 strokes instead 8. And that's not even trying to be efficient.

Another mapping is to use shapes. Three keys in the top row and one in the middle on the bottom looks like a "T". So, map that to something you associate with T.

A theory can be any mapping you want. Stenography is based on shorthand which was invented in the late 1800s. There are plenty of theories that already exist. You don't need to make your own.

When you write, you use some words or phrases frequently. Map those to convenient keys. Such mappings are called "briefs". Go crazy with them and you can reach 370 words per minute of real-time dictation.

You obviously don't have to be that good. I find that 30 wpm is sufficient to be productive at work. You can reach 70 wpm by practicing 15 minutes a day for a few months. You're a programmer. You can do it.

Expecting a lifetime of computer input? Don't optimize for easy key-to-output mappings such as QWERTY or Dvorak. Learn stenography.

See Plover and Javelin.

The same keys still exist on the keyboard. There is also such a thing as a compose key sequence where you press a few things serially rather than all at once. There are countless answers to this question really.

I'm the same too. Having multiple monitors makes no sense to me.

With a keypress, I can switch between fullscreen workspaces. Or place two windows side-by-side when needed. My desk is free of clutter, and I never have to deal with configuring multiple displays.

I believe multiple monitors are less elegant and less effective (though a giant workstation full of monitors is perhaps impressive to family and friends).

A similar topic: I also don't understand why some fellow programmers need syntax highlighting. Some programmers have never even tried programming without it! And to them it might feel weird to go without at first, but I think it quickly becomes clear that syntax coloring is noisy and superfluous (and you might end up wasting time picking colors, etc.). Imagine if we did that for natural language (verbs are green, nouns are red, etc.), or math notation (numbers are blue, variables are pink, operators are orange, etc.). The silliness becomes clear quickly.