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Comment by steve19 | Hacker News Reader

> - you can afford the lower productivity (e.g: you are not a freelancer that needs a regular output)

Why lower productivity? The person who created it thinks it will lower RSI therefor increase productivity.

My experience from switching keyboards or layout is that there is a initial cost in productivity: you type way more slowly and it's harder to think, for a few days up to a few months depending of the importance of the change.

Is RSI even that normal? I have never heard anyone talk about it in real life, only in these threads does it seem like everyone has it.

No it is not "normal" but for people who suffer from it, it is very debilitating.

It's really common for computer programmers. In every big corp I've been in, there's usually one of 10 people who has an issue with it and uses some weird keyboard. I have pretty bad RSI and it comes from just being a computer user since I was 3 and developing bad habits along the way.

My impression is that it hits data entry clerks a lot harder than programmers. Programmers end up having to stop and take breaks frequently to think about what they're doing.

A thought occurs: Are RSI issues worse with enterprise Java programmers and other people who end up having to write tons of boilerplate around all of their code?

Java has excellent code completion, so you don't end up typing most of the characters that end up in the source file.

It is pretty common. People are afraid to talk about it, so they generally won't bring it up.

I had pretty severe carpal tunnel syndrome for about a year when I did data entry full time. What helped was improving my posture, not tensing up and slamming the keyboard at full force all day, and resting/shaking out my wrists every 15-30 minutes during extended typing.

I have a mechanical keyboard today but doubt it would have helped more than any other (much cheaper) keyboard that requires less keypress force. The problem is that squishy $5 cubicle keyboards tend to be really, really bad in that regard.

I worked at a place for 6 months and in that time I developed severe wrist issues, when I left they vanished. The only physical difference I could pinpoint is desk height, both the jobs before and after had considerably lower desk heights.

More recently, when I started working from home more frequently, my wrist issues reappeared. My desk at home is higher than my desk at the office.

So I can completely understand a tweak to wrist position making dramatic changes to RSI or CTS.

I had it from mouses but never from keyboard. My guess is that it's very dependant on your general health.

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