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Please substantiate that. From what I’ve heard these things can lead to injury: 1. Repeatedly/repetitively using small/weak/fine-motor muscles 2. Contorting
by keybored 6y ago
Please substantiate that. From what I’ve heard these things can lead to injury:
1. Repeatedly/repetitively using small/weak/fine-motor muscles
2. Contorting your hands (like holding multiple modifirs with the same hand and also pressing whatever non-modifier)
Moving your whole hand from the venerable home row to for example the nav cluster doesn’t fall under any of the above, since you can move your arm with your shoulder. I have never had problems with using larger muscles like my shoulders all day for simple, non-strenuous tasks, and I haven’t heard of people who have reported problems with it yet. I have however heard of people who have gotten in trouble because they repeatedly do tiny motions with their fingers or hands. Which is tempting since it can feel easier to use those muscles for precise control -- I certainly pen-write with my wrist too much when I should be using my shoulder more -- but can easily lead to fatigue or worse.
I have had more problems with Emacs’ modifier-heavy default keybindings than I’ve ever had with modifier-less peasant software like word processors, ergonomics-wise.
It isn’t a problem for me ergonomically to move to the arrow keys if I want to do a bunch of “meta” keys like move word right or left,[1] which is harder to do on som fn-keyboard where you both have to hold down the shift key and the fn key. I also am able to use the arrow keys from the somewhat overrated home row, but that is on a non-configurable keyboard (remapped in software).
I would say that people have a minor point when they say that moving your hands wastes time. Kind of like me going for a five minute walk every so often wastes time compared to sitting at my desk for eight hours straight. Now I’m putting a fine point on it, but I actually think that even a little bit of gross movement like that can be more beneficial than hurtful.
I’ve used a cheap 60% keyboard for a while and it was never really my thing (just got it for the n-key rollover):
1. You can’t reprogram the fn key on the keyboard (again if cheap)
2. You can’t reprogram the fn key in software since it is effectively “blessed” (your OS can’t see it)
3. Now you’re stuck with whatever fn layout that they made, which is often subpar (example: my 60% has some fn-whatever combos that turn off keys or lock them which just causes problems whenever I accidentally press them (always accidentally))
4. Big Brand keyboards are customizable but their software is likely to be too limited, which means that you have to buy somewhat boutique keyboards in order to truly map the fn layer business the way you want
5. I already alluded to how multi-modifier keybindings can be a pain: a lot of software assume that you use a regular keyboard so they will throw keybindings like Ctrl+Shift+PageUp at you, which might translate to something unwieldy like Fn+Ctrl+Shift+P. That’s too much hassle. (Intellij is a real sinner in this regard.)
I currently use a tenkeyless keyboard which gives me the only less-than-fullsize keyboard advantage that I care about: my mouse is closer.
[1]: Yes, sometimes I use built-in/embedded editors or textfields (like Firefox’s address bar) that are not Vim or Emacs; No, I don’t want to configure every last software that I use that contain mini-editors to use some kind of Vim-like plugin so that I can e.g. move word-right with `w`.
- jeromenerf 6y ago> From what I’ve heard these things can lead to injury I am not aware of real studies and conclusions on this matter. If you are subject to this problem, even finding professional expertise is difficult and eventually expensive. Investing 100-200 usd to experiment doesn’t sound absurd. In my experience, enthusiast keyboard hold their value pretty well if you are not satisfied. Anyway, I like the small ortholinear keyboards with thumb keys because the whole keyboard is accessible with very little movements and combos do not require stretching.
- keybored 6y agoWell if there are no real studies or conclusions then it could go either way. No one makes investments based on hacker folklore; that’s just an after the fact rationalization by people who were already enthusiasts. I have experimented myself. That was what that whole post was about. I am quite picky when it comes to keyboards so I have bought a few of them over the last year. But my experiments won’t lead to “real studies”, nor will anyone else’s, so that point seems misplaced since you open your post by dismissing my anecdotes. Somewhat expensive keyboards is a particular hobby for people with disposable income. Programmers don’t have some special need for typing speed or ergonomics compared to other office workers. If we did have a need for speed, for example, we would learn something like Plover since that would make us write at least twice as fast (at least for prose, but I type that quite often.) It also allows us to buy regular keyboards and not crazy expensive steno machines. But we don’t: instead we do some minor “optimizations” with one-key-per-letter keyboards like use the home row 25% more and gain 200% more subjective empowerement (I’ve customized my keyboard in software to do the same thing). > Anyway, I like the small ortholinear keyboards with thumb keys because the whole keyboard is accessible with very little movements and combos do not require stretching. No modifier combos require stretching on a regular keyboard as well; notice how all the modifier keys are close together in case you need to press multiple ones at the same time, and at least a few of them (like control and shift, maybe “Windows” and Alt) should be on both sides of the keyboard. Regular keyboards don’t have a stretching problem as long as you touch type.
- jodrellblank 6y ago