Forty Years of Programming

Re:Forty Years of Programming by apitman on Sunday October 08, 2023 @07:22PM (#37815335)

I started experiencing similar forearm pain a few years ago. The split keyboard seemed to help a ton. I also programmed[0] an Arduino with two foot pedals. Left pedal for CTRL, right for SHIFT, both for ALT. Worked wonders. I mostly have the pain manageable now, but it still flares up sometimes, and it was really scary there for a while wondering if I might have to stop programming. To you young guns out there, an ounce of prevention truly is worth a pound of cure. Invest in an ergonomic setup and stretches/exercises now, and don't push yourself into pain while typing. Take more breaks. Once you push your body over the edge it may never quite be the same.

[0]: https://github.com/anderspitman/ergo-pedals

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Re:Forty Years of Programming by thewakalix on Sunday October 08, 2023 @08:29PM (#37815665)

What if you need to press all three "keys" simultaneously?

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Re:Forty Years of Programming by devinprater on Sunday October 08, 2023 @11:04PM (#37816520)

He probably doesn't use Emacs. :)

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Re:Forty Years of Programming by dingnuts on Sunday October 08, 2023 @11:18PM (#37816584)

wow you woke up today and chose violence, didn't ya?

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Re:Forty Years of Programming by yetanotherasian on Sunday October 08, 2023 @11:44PM (#37816733)

I know what you mean. I was forced to use emacs for a year. I found it an interesting coincidence the person who forced emacs on us had the worst carpal tunnel syndrome and couldn't type on a standard keyboard without extreme pain.

I know you can remap your keys but there's inertia to just go with what you're given.

I've also noticed myself switching between Mac, Windows, and Linux, that Cmd-C on my Mac is way less stressful on my hand than Ctrl-C on the other 2 machines. I should probably figure out how to remap those.

PS: If you're curious how emacs was forced, it was because the lead built the project's IDE/build/debugging system into emacs

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Re:Forty Years of Programming by pault on Monday October 09, 2023 @12:05AM (#37816837)

Try a keyboard running QMK firmware. You can map a single key to multiple codes depending on the length of the key press. I use caps lock as escape if released immediately, and control if held down. Putting the modifiers in the bottom corner of the keyboard was a sadistic design choice.

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Re:Forty Years of Programming by imp0cat on Monday October 09, 2023 @01:00AM (#37817055)

Or evil mode.

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Re:Forty Years of Programming by Brian_K_White on Monday October 09, 2023 @01:40AM (#37817216)

"escape if released immediately, and control if held down"

Elegant.

And I mean for those two particular modifiers with that relationship, not just the idea in general.

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Re:Forty Years of Programming by Brian_K_White on Monday October 09, 2023 @01:37AM (#37817205)

The same keys still exist on the keyboard. There is also such a thing as a compose key sequence where you press a few things serially rather than all at once. There are countless answers to this question really.

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Re:Forty Years of Programming by xmcqdpt2 on Monday October 09, 2023 @08:08AM (#37819582)

I remapped the modifiers on my keyboard such that the bottom row is

Win - Alt - Ctrl - Space - Ctrl - Alt - Win

This is so that I can use my thumbs for Ctrl and index fingers for Alt. I taught myself to use the opposite side modifiers every time (using the right control for Ctrl-S).

This got rid of the vast majority of unergonomic keystrokes for me.

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