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Comment by dima55 | Hacker News Reader

From the article:

"Any time you are pressing two keys at once, with the same hand, hundreds of times per day, you are setting yourself up for repetitive stress injury"

People: learn to type. One hand for the modifier key, and the other hand for the other key. This is why there are two sets of modifier keys. This is typing 101

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If you're on OS X, and you want to force yourself to learn to do this, there's a program called Karabiner[1] which lets you remap keys in advanced ways using an XML config. I have a config snippet[2] that I got from somewhere (sadly, I don't remember where) that remaps incorrect combinations of Shift and letters to be dead.

You can do something similar with AutoHotKey on Windows, though I don't have a config for it.

[1] https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/

[2] http://pastie.org/9708667

I use Karabiner and Seil which are great, but unless you are using an Apple keyboard with a numeric keyboard, you don't get a right-control key, which will matter for many of the most used commands for emacs.

For me, when recently trying to remap the left-shift key I found out that it was not a problem for the supposed best practice of using it for C-g/x/c etc, but that instead I had been using a worse practice for typing ":" or """ when the wrong characters turned up al over the place.

Anyway, I suppose the left option key would be pretty good to map to control for emacs, since it's rarely more needed than the right option key.

True, the laptop and compact apple keyboard lack a right control. I've found that I use the right option key infrequently and use Karabiner to remap the option to control. It definitely helps with the RSI, and makes switching to someone else's machine frustrating :)

Why would you remap the left option key to ctrl when you already have two left ctrl keys (caps and original ctrl) ? I do set the right option key to ctrl but only in iterm and emacs.

Because I'm bad at writing! (I meant right-option)

You have no idea what I am doing with the esc, capslock, and control keys on the left side of my keyboard, but none of them are default.

On the right however I'm just trying to make sure I get a forward delete somewhere. In fact using Karabiner or Seil, the right shift is now shift if pressed as a modifier, but forward delete if pressed alone.

Just use Karabiner to configure Return to do double duty as Right Control.

> I have a config snippet[2] that I got from somewhere (sadly, I don't remember where) that remaps incorrect combinations of Shift and letters to be dead.

Very likely from Steve Losh (I did this too, and it helped a lot): http://stevelosh.com/blog/2012/10/a-modern-space-cadet/#shif....

How prevalent is repetitive stress injury among musicians, especially pianists, harpsichordists, etc..? They regularly press two or more keys at once all day long.

Actually, extremely prevalent. Musicians have a very long and famous history with carpal tunnel and other forms of RSI. Among the most problematic instruments are piano, clarinet, flute, violin, and guitar. Piano is particularly infamous: you might look up Leon Fleisher.

Yes. Keyboards with thumb clusters, e.g. one made by Maltron or Kinesis, make key chords as natural as pressing a single key on a regular keyboard.

There's also the King's Assembly.[1]

[1] - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/70308014/kings-assembly...

http://solidartlabs.com/

Looking forward to reading some reviews once they are available. They look very promising.

Using Sharpkeys (http://www.randyrants.com/2011/12/sharpkeys_35.html) I remap Alt to be Ctrl, the Windows key to be Alt, and Ctrl to be the Windows key. Especially on laptop keyboards, the normal Alt keys are easily accessible to thumbs, and this eliminates the awkward hand curling caused by pressing the normal Ctrl with your pinky without needing a special keyboard. I also swap backspace and caps lock.

People: don't learn to type.

Seriously, I know this won't appeal to everyone, but there is a solution to worrying about key combos causing RSI. Just don't touch type. Do embarrassing hunt-and-peck typing. I'm a professional programmer and long-time emacs user and I can't touch type for shit and it doesn't affect my career and my hands and wrists have been completely free of any trouble whatsoever (to current age of 36). If hunt-and-peck leaves you typing slower than you can design software solutions in your head then find a more challenging job.

Except that even if I have to type 10 characters for code, I want it to complete in 2 seconds, not 20 seconds, to continue my train of thoughts.

I heard that before and can't agree either. Continuing your thought is also important. That requires you to think about the content of what you write and not how to write. That requires you to let your fingers worry where the keys are.

What if it has an effect on your career and you don't realise it? Sounds way more likely to me.

Fair enough. I was kind of trolling and deserve any downvotes I get. But I was partly serious: I would like, in principle, to learn to touch type; I take my text editor very seriously and have learned the language that it is customized in fairly deeply. But when I start to learn to touch type, I immediately start to get pains in my fingers that I've never felt before, and my instinct is strongly to let sleeping dogs lie here: it is my profession and if I don't currently suffer any hand problems I think I should carry on as-is.

Ugh. I met your type. Single-letter variable names. No documentation. Because typing more would consume too much time. No thank you.

Edit: Not you, particularly. But I have met bad typists, and that is how many of them behaved. Don't be that guy.

What bullshit.

I can't touch type but my code reads:

  def snmp_command(session, oid, media_servers):
    result = list()
    for host_name in media_servers:
        snmp = SNMP_CMD.format(host=host_name, oid=oid)
        snmp_reply = [x for x in session.cmditer(snmp)]

        if len(snmp_reply) == 0:
            log.warning("No data for EMS Media Server SNMP cmd {0} for host {1}".format(snmp, host_name))
            continue

        # add the Media Server host from which we got this reply to the list of snmp reply
        snmp_reply.append(host_name)
        result.append(snmp_reply)

    return result

As I said, not you, particularly. But bad typists exist, and they tend to want to type less, which leads to code that is worse than it could be.

That said, where's your docstring? Why are your lines longer than 80 chars? Why is your indent 2 chars instead of 4? What does `oid` mean? http://legacy.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/

Touch-typing is more about freeing your mind from the keyboard than been fast. I see my students (who do not touch type at all) struggling with their problem _and_ using a lot of their concentration / "cognitive power" to search for the right letter on the keyboard.

In addition, the life of a programmer is much more than programming. You have to type documentation, you have to type e-mails, etc. I agree that typing speed is not a key for programming "interesting stuffs", but for everything else, touch-typing is an important skill.

Sorry but this is terrible advice. Freeing your eyes and mind from the keyboard is a great advantage, copying a snippet from a piece of paper is a nightmare if you can't properly type (tiring, error-prone, annoying, etc).

I also find touch typists introduce less typos, because they're looking all the time at the screen and mistakes are noticed immediately.

Also as a Unix/terminal/VIM user, touch typing is a must. VIM is not worth it if one isn't able to touch-type, period.

I think this is referring to two keys that require an, albeit small, stretch to reach. If the two keys are right next to each other, that's not going to bother you much more than a single key. What I'm getting at, is that since I've started using key-chord.el [0] in my .emacs my emacs-pinky has basically disappeared. E.g., I press 'h' and 'u' at the same time to save the current buffer. I press 'ji' to move cursor up one line, 'nj' down one line, 'jk' to go left, 'kl' to move right. 'sd' backspace, 'df' delete. I'm keeping my fingers on the home row for most of these. It's been a boon, and I'm still unlocking its potential.

[0] - http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/key-chord.el

I do it too but the op is right. You can achieve these by mixing use of modifiers on either side of the spacebar, but I never see anyone do it.

My problem is that I did learn to touch type -- back when keyboards didn't have a ctrl or alt keys. Of course, I'm referring to the IBM Selectric keyboards. So my fingers only know to hit the left/right shift keys when needed. Once keyboards grew the ctrl/alt keys, they only came on the left side. So my natural hand movement for something like Ctrl-C is left pinky on the Ctrl key, and an awkward stretch to put the middle finger on C. So annoying that my right pinky or thumb never learned about the right side ctrl/alt keys.

Get eg a Kinesis Advantage, and use your thumbs for the heavy lifting.

I think pinky+index feels more natural for ctrl-c

I think chording is the least of one's worries; the awkward staggering of the IBM-style keyboard and the modifiers designed to be pressed by a curled pinky (especially Shift) are murder on my hands, chords or not. From a strictly ergonomic standpoint, I would choose Emacs on a TEK or Maltron over Vi on a traditional keyboard any day of the week.

I don’t believe I’ve ever used the right Shift key on a keyboard. And I had fairly bad RSI, but completely eliminated my symptoms by improving my posture, remapping my modifier keys, and getting a less stressful job. Yes, what you do with your hands matters, but there are other factors at play that are equally important.

That's why apple keyboards (macbooks, imacs) bother me, they don't have a right ctrl key. (I set the right option key to ctrl in both iterm2 and gui emacs.

Many countries have Alt-Gr keys instead of right Alt.

Did we actually have some decent research confirming this? Computer people talking about RSI often sounds like crossfitters talking about diet...

(Also: sticky modifiers)

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