4 ms·

I don't think focusing on hitting Ctrl on one side or the other is the problem -- it's the awkward contortion your hand has to make to hit the key, pinky or oth

I don't think focusing on hitting Ctrl on one side or the other is the problem -- it's the awkward contortion your hand has to make to hit the key, pinky or otherwise. It's in the same bad position on either side on a standard IBM PC 101 and later keyboard layouts. You'll just end up hurting both your hands if you alternate. Caps Lock as Ctrl will serve most Emacs users for quite a long time, and it's traditionally where the key was before IBM in their infinite wisdom moved it in 1986.

keybored 4y ago
OP already said that you dont have to use the pinky to hit the keys. I find the palm of my hand is nice for the right control key and the last knuckle of my pinky is nice for the left one (respectively on the appropriate hands). And my hands aren’t ruined yet.
- spudlyo 4y ago
  I'm glad you found something that works for you. A friend used a similar technique of mashing the right and left control keys with his palms, but unfortunately after a month or so he discovered this hurt his hands too. I'm of the opinion if you're regularly pressing keys on the keyboard without using the tips of your fingers and/or thumbs you're doing it wrong.
  - keybored 4y ago
    I press. I don’t mash...
BeetleB 4y ago
> it's the awkward contortion your hand has to make to hit the key, pinky or otherwise. Then don't contort. As I mentioned in another comment, insisting on keeping your fingers on the home keys is a bad idea. You should never bend the wrist while typing. When I want to hit the Ctrl key, I move my whole arm down and to the left so that my pinky (or any other finger) is over the Ctrl key. Moving your whole arm is what is recommended. BTW, I'm not against remapping to the Caps Lock key at all - I grew up on those keyboards as well. I am merely dismayed that it is the first advice given, when it is fairly minor in preventing RSI.
- ajross 4y ago
  "Preventing RSI" isn't the reasoning behind where to put Ctrl, though. People don't like it in the corner because it's (much) faster and less error-prone to put it next to A. Moving your whole arm is going in entirely the wrong direction. FWIW: if you are RSI prone, you to be minimizing time spent on a keyboard in the first place, and heavy editor use is probably just a bad idea in general.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    I touch type with my pinkies always on the control keys, not sure why you would have it any other way as a programmer. That might be suboptimal for typing text, but programming has so many special characters, and interacting with editors, browsers and such is usually better done with mouse and shortcut setup, so pinky on ctrl makes switching to mouse seamless. And before you say I'd be faster with a typical home row setup, I program fast enough to compete with the best in the world in competitions, editor and keyboard enthusiasts talks a lot but they don't really deliver that extra speed in practice. They optimise for one use case and ignore the others, so they don't get faster overall.
    - mandw 4y ago
      I am not sure people really optimise for speed, they do it for comfort. When I moved to dvorak my speed dropped by quite a bit and I never regained it but that was done for comfort, and it is more comfortable no doubt. I lost the speed because I wasn't doing as much documentation as I used to with qwerty. For development, that loss of speed hasn't made any difference because I type just as fast for development purposes. But my main point is the people I know have not optimised things for speed, they have done it for comfort. A ten hour trip in a plane takes the same time in business class as it does in economy but one is a nicer way to travel. I wouldnt run out and tell everyone to change their setup, people are usually driven to it for one reason or another, either just curious or have an issue they need to address but on a topic of ergonomics, thats exactly what ergo keyboards are about.

keybored 4y ago

OP already said that you dont have to use the pinky to hit the keys. I find the palm of my hand is nice for the right control key and the last knuckle of my pinky is nice for the left one (respectively on the appropriate hands). And my hands aren’t ruined yet.

spudlyo 4y ago
I'm glad you found something that works for you. A friend used a similar technique of mashing the right and left control keys with his palms, but unfortunately after a month or so he discovered this hurt his hands too. I'm of the opinion if you're regularly pressing keys on the keyboard without using the tips of your fingers and/or thumbs you're doing it wrong.
- keybored 4y ago
  I press. I don’t mash...

BeetleB 4y ago

> it's the awkward contortion your hand has to make to hit the key, pinky or otherwise. Then don't contort. As I mentioned in another comment, insisting on keeping your fingers on the home keys is a bad idea. You should never bend the wrist while typing. When I want to hit the Ctrl key, I move my whole arm down and to the left so that my pinky (or any other finger) is over the Ctrl key. Moving your whole arm is what is recommended. BTW, I'm not against remapping to the Caps Lock key at all - I grew up on those keyboards as well. I am merely dismayed that it is the first advice given, when it is fairly minor in preventing RSI.

ajross 4y ago
"Preventing RSI" isn't the reasoning behind where to put Ctrl, though. People don't like it in the corner because it's (much) faster and less error-prone to put it next to A. Moving your whole arm is going in entirely the wrong direction. FWIW: if you are RSI prone, you to be minimizing time spent on a keyboard in the first place, and heavy editor use is probably just a bad idea in general.
- Jensson 4y ago
  I touch type with my pinkies always on the control keys, not sure why you would have it any other way as a programmer. That might be suboptimal for typing text, but programming has so many special characters, and interacting with editors, browsers and such is usually better done with mouse and shortcut setup, so pinky on ctrl makes switching to mouse seamless. And before you say I'd be faster with a typical home row setup, I program fast enough to compete with the best in the world in competitions, editor and keyboard enthusiasts talks a lot but they don't really deliver that extra speed in practice. They optimise for one use case and ignore the others, so they don't get faster overall.
  - mandw 4y ago
    I am not sure people really optimise for speed, they do it for comfort. When I moved to dvorak my speed dropped by quite a bit and I never regained it but that was done for comfort, and it is more comfortable no doubt. I lost the speed because I wasn't doing as much documentation as I used to with qwerty. For development, that loss of speed hasn't made any difference because I type just as fast for development purposes. But my main point is the people I know have not optimised things for speed, they have done it for comfort. A ten hour trip in a plane takes the same time in business class as it does in economy but one is a nicer way to travel. I wouldnt run out and tell everyone to change their setup, people are usually driven to it for one reason or another, either just curious or have an issue they need to address but on a topic of ergonomics, thats exactly what ergo keyboards are about.