Ask HN: One month with one arm, after surgery | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: One month with one arm, after surgery

8 pointsse2quohn9 comments

Hey everyone, in one month I'm getting shoulder surgery. I won't be able to use my left arm at all (I'm right-handed). I'm here to ask you all suggestions how to face this as proper nerd. Split keyboards (because it seems I can use my fingers, if I attach something right under them), programming with dictation, mechanical arms, DIY stuff, etc.

Example: I have a kid, I'm gonna buy a harness so that I can lift him with one arm when my wife needs help.

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I badly broke my wrist a few years ago and couldn't move my fingers so I used mirrorboard [1]. I was actually surprised how well and fast I could type after just a week.

1. https://github.com/qubist/mirrorboard-mac

Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of suggestions but one thing I remember coming across from an r/ergonechkeyboards post was a one handed keyboard similar to the one in this post - https://old.reddit.com/r/specializedtools/comments/80aao9/a_...

Wishing you the best for the future!

Coding slower for one month probably isn't the end of the world.

For emails, tell people about your arm issue and ask them to have some patience with you. Try and use voice tools to write out messages where you can.

Depending on what kind of programmer you are, try and focus more on the things you can do without much impact: perhaps planning and diagramming out systems on paper, doing research, or doing some graphics related work.

Hopefully your arm is ok.

Coding slow is often better because you see further ramifications during that typing time.

There are one handed dvorak layouts. But if it's only for a month, it might not be worth the time to learn a new layout, when you may be able to hunt and peck proficiently your normal layout with one hand. Maybe some foot pedals for modifier keys? Maybe just enable sticky-keys.

Make sure you can enter your important human memory only passwords with one hand, sometimes that's harder than it would seem.

I think for code you might just have to get used to typing slower. There's not much you can't do with one hand. If your keyboard has QMK you can program some custom shortcuts or macros to help with difficult key combinations.

For real writing (emails, slack messages etc), I'd say dictate it and then just use your keyboard for edits.

It's the right moment to try Chat GPT for code generation :)

Ew, no. Chatgpt is a parlour trick

Do you use a Mac? If so try using Voiceover. It takes some getting used to and if you’re used to being a speedwhiz on the keyboard…you may find it frustratingly slow but I found it helpful when I lost use of one of my hands for a week.

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