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Famous Programers with Repetitive Strain Injury (2022)

xahlee.info

61–70 of 75 posts

Re: Famous Programers with Repetitive Strain Injury (2022)

#61
Since we are all throwing around our personal beliefs on what will prevent RSI, I’ll add mine:

Stay away from home row.

Just look at your wrist when you are in homerow position. Instead, keep your base position with straight wrists and move more around the keyboard.

Your words per minute might be a little lower, but I’m sure your words over your lifetime will be much better.

Re: Famous Programers with Repetitive Strain Injury (2022)

#62

Since we are all throwing around our personal beliefs on what will prevent RSI, I’ll add mine: Stay away from home row. Just look at your wrist when you are in homerow position. Instead, keep your base position with straight wrists and move more around the keyboard. Your words per minute might be a little lower, but I’m sure your words over your lifetime will be much better.

Split keyboard is the key

Re: Famous Programers with Repetitive Strain Injury (2022)

#63
post #5

i killed my RSI that I had for YEARS by seriously over-hauling my workspace. I also went to occupational therapists who helped me figure out what I was doing wrong and how to fix it. I use a moonlander split keyboard so my shoulders are properly spread out instead of hunched together, and my wrists and arms can fall at a more reasonable angle. I use a "tall" ergo mouse. This was a huge upgrade from my small mouse and…

I’ve been strongly considering a split keyboard recently, and have been looking at (and loving the ergonomics of) the Moonlander, but struggle to reason paying $365 when every keyboard I’ve bought in the past has been <$80. Do you by chance know of any cheaper alternatives with similar ergonomics?

Kinesis Freestyle could be it

Re: Famous Programers with Repetitive Strain Injury (2022)

#64
I don't really have problems with RSI nowadays, but years ago I would be at the computer even more.

One helpful thing is switch the mouse between hands every few minutes. Your hand gets a break if you're moving the mouse a lot. I used to have a normal mouse at work and I bought a trackball for home, so that the hand muscles used would be a little different.

Someone in this thread mentioned Jamie Zawinski and his advice is to not ignore pain. So if you are typing for an hour and your right hand starts to hurt, stop using your right hand for a little while (as long as you can, really).

Re: Famous Programers with Repetitive Strain Injury (2022)

#65

I first came across Xah Lee's site years ago while trying to mitigate some mild RSI. At that time I saw he was an RSI sufferer and hardcore Emacs user. Over the years when I see an article by devs with chronic RSI, all I will say is that they are rarely written by vim users. I know key mappings can be changed but I don't think the default chording key combos of Emacs are ergonomic. I believe Richard Stallman is anoth…

I stumbled across his site (and this post) two days ago lol! I think I saw someone had mentioned/linked the palm control method which I found pretty ingenious. Mice are definitely terrible and one day I’ll get around to adding full mouse emulation to my QMK keyboard. And even tho Apple trackpad is nice I find it difficult to use cuz my mouse has like twelve buttons all programmed to different app specific functions s…

Another data point: I developed RSI in the tip of my finger from using an external trackpad at work. It felt like a splinter. I switched to a cheap vertical grip mouse where I could click farther up my finger. The pain eventually went away.

Re: Famous Programers with Repetitive Strain Injury (2022)

#66
post #55

I find rest and forearm stretches help. The best stretch I've found is to push the hands against each other (flat, open palms against each other), either in front of or behind you. Disclaimer: talk to your doctor first. Never continue working with when you have the slightest pain in your wrists/hands, that's the fastest way to an RSI. I would say you need to rest/stretch until it goes away. Desk/chair ergonomics are…

> Separated screen and keyboard are important. I don't see how that has to do with hand/wrist pain. It would seem that's only relevant for neck & back pain.

Yes, that was a more general tip.

Re: Famous Programers with Repetitive Strain Injury (2022)

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve used Karabiner Elements on my Mac to turn caps lock into a combined ctrl and escape key, and return into a combined ctrl and return key. It takes getting used to but it’s pretty nice. When I hold the key while pressing another, it acts like ctrl. When I tap the key it acts like escape and return, respectively. I’ve only done it recently for return. Still getting used to it. But now I have a ctrl key on both side…

That mapping is also pretty common on linux with xcape (and some stuff on wayland whose name I don't remember). What would one use on windows? AHK?

Windows power toys has a kb remapper https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys

Re: Famous Programers with Repetitive Strain Injury (2022)

#68
For what it's worth, I am a big fan of ergonomic keyboards and quite recently a company released my dream keyboard. It may certainly not be the right choice for everyone, but I highly recommend giving it a try.

https://eu.perixx.com/products/perixx-ergo-mechanical-keyboa...

Re: Famous Programers with Repetitive Strain Injury (2022)

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been strongly considering a split keyboard recently, and have been looking at (and loving the ergonomics of) the Moonlander, but struggle to reason paying $365 when every keyboard I’ve bought in the past has been <$80. Do you by chance know of any cheaper alternatives with similar ergonomics?

microsoft sculpt keyboard

The Sculpt keyboard is the best. Unfortunately, I understand Microsoft has discontinued it.

Re: Famous Programers with Repetitive Strain Injury (2022)

#70
Developed RSI and recovered by seeking professional help (occupational therapy), finding the physical/mechanical cause of the problem, and addressing it through massage (intervention) and steno (preventative).

A 1:many chord-to-output mapping makes far more sense than a 1:1 key-to-character mapping, especially from an ergonomics perspective. For example, pressing the chord for TH-S (three keys, single press) for 'this is' is obviously more efficient than making individual motions for 't', 'h', 'i', 's', '_', 'i', 's'.

If you can learn to program, you can easily learn steno.

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