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I don't spend a lot of time typing out my programs but I do spend a log of time thinking them through. I have slight pain in my right wrist that comes and goes
by futuremint 16y ago
I don't spend a lot of time typing out my programs but I do spend a log of time thinking them through. I have slight pain in my right wrist that comes and goes.
I narrowed it down to 2 causes:
1: My car has a manual transmission, and all that gear changing in my commute irritates the nerves.
2: Mousing. I spend a lot of time using the mouse to move all those damned windows around. I switched to using my left hand for the mouse. Now the only times my right wrist hurts are driving for extended periods in slow traffic, or using the touchpad on my laptop a lot (I still use my right hand by habit).
Switching to Dvorak might be the most obvious way to reduce RSI, but I don't think it is the one best thing you can do.
Another thing I'm doing to combat #2 above is trying to get as much of my programming done in Emacs as possible. I also have, "learn a decent window manager" on my list of things to do.
Once I can do all programming & code browsing/navigation in Emacs, and also use the keyboard to manage my windows... maybe Dvorak would help me.
- didip 16y agoInteresting you said that programming in Emacs helps reducing RSI. When I was a heavy Emacs user, my left hand outer-side wrist is in constant pain because of always reaching the Control button.
- futuremint 16y agoI always remap Caps Lock to be a Ctrl key. Using the lower-left Ctrl key would just be... weird :). With Caps Lock as control, and using the Alt key closest to the spacebar as Meta, the key-chords in Emacs are comfortable for me (I just spread out my left hand a little over home-row and I can reach them all w/o moving my hand). I was a vim user long ago (I learned to program in vim) and constantly hitting esc bothered me more than Emacs Ctrl key gymnastics.