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Comment by erikpukinskis | Hacker News Reader

I also wonder if it’s a bit better for your hands. I feel like having my pinkies just kind of hanging there while I type causes the nerves to atrophy.

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Not a home row typer but I believe that's generally the idea; it's supposed to minimize the amount of travel. I learned to type home row for a brief period though and it just felt very uncomfortable, I never got used to it. It feels a lot more natural to me to let my hands linger around the keyboard, even when using a split ergo keyboard.

atrophy? if you're not using your pinkies, how are you hitting shift/enter or other keys like [,],=,/,\? (that's an actual question, not trying to escape the punctuation)

Not OP but I pivot my wrists and use my ring fingers. I always found it difficult to reach and press keys with my pinkie. Small hands, I guess? Does anyone else do this?

> I always found it difficult to

I used to find it difficult to a lot of things, until I practiced enough to be able to do them, which is usually what that predicate implies. It's like people that say they have to use one foot for the brake pedal and the other for the accelerator because they find it difficult to use one for both.

My pinkies are double jointed. They lock up the second I try to bend them on their own without also flexing my ring finger/that half of my hand.

Easier said than done.

How do they use the clutch? If they're doing reverse heel-and-toe braking then I don't get how they find standard driving difficult.

Also small hands here. My own style involves using my shoulders and elbows for coarse movements, and when I need to type the symbol keys on the right I move my hand over to roughly index finger on ";", middle finger on "[", and ring finger on "enter". Moving further up or down for "+" or "/" usually also involves further hand movements instead of twisting or reaching.

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