5 ms·

This is very true. I bought a cheap office chair from a box retailer a year ago and completely regret it. Sitting and trying to do work becomes work in of it se

by sown 18y ago

This is very true. I bought a cheap office chair from a box retailer a year ago and completely regret it. Sitting and trying to do work becomes work in of it self. In fact, it is painful. A chair is one of those programmer's tools that you should spend a little money on (keyboards being another example).

SwellJoe 18y ago
Yeah, I lived through several Office Max/Office Depot/Walmart chairs. They're kinda like inkjet printers...they wear out so fast, and work so poorly, that when you finally break down and buy a laser printer (or good quality chair), you look back and think, "What kind of idiot must I be to keep going back and buying the same crappy thing over and over and expecting it to be any different?" Sure, I'd buy different brands and models every time, just like with chairs, but in the end the level of quality at that end of the market for those particular goods just isn't worth buying at any price. I've now had the same chair and the same color laser printer for many years, and several times the lifespan of a cheap office chair or an inkjet printer. Both have provided fantastic value, and are still working great, and I expect to get another several years out of both of them. I just wish I'd learned that lesson a little earlier in life. And, I agree on keyboards, though the longevity of even good keyboards is not quite comparable. But, when I found a keyboard I liked a few years ago (an IBM small form-factor keyboard, where escape, function row and the number pad are all closer to home), I bought two of them--I'm still using the first, and the second is ready to step in at the first signs of breakage in the first.
- sown 18y ago
  I meant more like Maltron ergonomic keyboards: http://www.maltron.com/ http://www.maltron.com/
  - SwellJoe 18y ago
    I don't buy into none of them fruity keyboards. I might start considering options like that, if I experienced any pains in my hands, wrists, or arms. But, once I switched to a good chair, I've never had any keyboard related pains (while I'd experienced tons of problems before that, and experimented with split keyboard layouts to no avail...one thing that did help, was switching to a tiled window manager and almost completely killing the mouse from my workflow). I guess everybody is different, but I'm perfectly content with a good quality traditional keyboard (though a shorter reach to escape is a nice feature).
    - sown 18y ago
      I've never tried any of them either but have met some devout followers: http://infohost.nmt.edu/~shipman/ergo/kinesis.html http://infohost.nmt.edu/~shipman/ergo/kinesis.html
  - thalur 18y ago
    I use one of these: http://keyovation.com/ http://keyovation.com/ at work. It's substantially cheeper than the Maltron, but missing a few bits, such as a separate numeric keypad, and I'd really like to get control, alt and shift keys in the gap between the two halves.

by sown 18y ago

SwellJoe 18y ago

Yeah, I lived through several Office Max/Office Depot/Walmart chairs. They're kinda like inkjet printers...they wear out so fast, and work so poorly, that when you finally break down and buy a laser printer (or good quality chair), you look back and think, "What kind of idiot must I be to keep going back and buying the same crappy thing over and over and expecting it to be any different?" Sure, I'd buy different brands and models every time, just like with chairs, but in the end the level of quality at that end of the market for those particular goods just isn't worth buying at any price. I've now had the same chair and the same color laser printer for many years, and several times the lifespan of a cheap office chair or an inkjet printer. Both have provided fantastic value, and are still working great, and I expect to get another several years out of both of them. I just wish I'd learned that lesson a little earlier in life. And, I agree on keyboards, though the longevity of even good keyboards is not quite comparable. But, when I found a keyboard I liked a few years ago (an IBM small form-factor keyboard, where escape, function row and the number pad are all closer to home), I bought two of them--I'm still using the first, and the second is ready to step in at the first signs of breakage in the first.

sown 18y ago
I meant more like Maltron ergonomic keyboards: http://www.maltron.com/ http://www.maltron.com/
- SwellJoe 18y ago
  I don't buy into none of them fruity keyboards. I might start considering options like that, if I experienced any pains in my hands, wrists, or arms. But, once I switched to a good chair, I've never had any keyboard related pains (while I'd experienced tons of problems before that, and experimented with split keyboard layouts to no avail...one thing that did help, was switching to a tiled window manager and almost completely killing the mouse from my workflow). I guess everybody is different, but I'm perfectly content with a good quality traditional keyboard (though a shorter reach to escape is a nice feature).
  - sown 18y ago
    I've never tried any of them either but have met some devout followers: http://infohost.nmt.edu/~shipman/ergo/kinesis.html http://infohost.nmt.edu/~shipman/ergo/kinesis.html
- thalur 18y ago
  I use one of these: http://keyovation.com/ http://keyovation.com/ at work. It's substantially cheeper than the Maltron, but missing a few bits, such as a separate numeric keypad, and I'd really like to get control, alt and shift keys in the gap between the two halves.