Coders Working Without the Use of Their Hands? 54
Hagmonk asks: "Recently I crashed my motorbike at the racetrack and severely broke my left arm (sorry, nobody caught it on camera). I had a week in hospital, which was a problem since I'm contracting and you don't get paid for sick leave. Furthermore, I have my arm in a cast for 6 weeks (possibly another 6 again after that), which severely cramps my hacking style - no fast switches to other windows to make quick changes, and you should try operating emacs without two hands! Luckily, my employer was generous enough to purchase a hinged keyboard that allows me to type two handed. So I'm interested to hear from other hackers: how have you coped with injuries that stop you doing what you were born to do? Could you find a work around? Did you experience prejudice in the work place as a result, or were you supported?"
RSI (Score:2, Funny)
Re:nice bike (Score:2)
Dvorak (Score:4, Interesting)
These keymaps are set up to be minimal for english text with one hand. Give it a look-see, you might have them on your platform.
Re:Dvorak (Score:1)
Re:Dvorak (Score:1)
The current options for this person, until they are healed:
1) Learn to type one handed on a keymap designed for typing one handed.
2) Learn to type one handed on a keymap not designed for typing one handed.
Either way, _learning_ is involved. The full training time for a new keymap is shown to consistantly in research (which I should cite here, but won't) to be about a month to get to full speed.
Full speed is dependant on the collision rate and inherent transit distance of the keyboard, so and Dvorak's keymaps were designed to minimize both; thus 'full speed' is faster on the dvorak mappings.
And, having learned the new mapping, the coder now has an additional option when faced with reduced mobility, or an application which requires heavy mouse use, in the future.
Insurance? (Score:3, Insightful)
In your case, what if you've broken both of your arms? (hope this never happens
Re:Insurance? (Score:1)
Re:Insurance? (Score:1)
I think generally it is fairly expensive (because there is quite a good chance you will exercise it), but I know of some companies that *require* their employees to take it out!
Re:Insurance? (Score:1)
Hey, new sig.
"Would you by software from a man with casts on both arms?"
Re:Insurance? (Score:3, Informative)
I think this is what that damn duck [aflac.com] sells.
Re:Insurance? (Score:4, Informative)
I've got one of those insurances - it's called a "Loss of Work Ability" insurance where I come from, and covers up to 6 months in hospital/retraining at full pay, and a price-index regulated income compensation ad infinitum if it turns out I'm no longer able to work at all does to my injuries. This pretty much boils down to me forever getting a pay similar to my current not-so-bad pay. After retirement I'm not sure what happens, but you'd better have that taken care of anyway. :-(
It's looks expensive at ~USD70/month, but it's all tax deductable(sp?), so it boils down to ~USD30/month, which is not all that much actually. And yes, I *AM* actually taxed that heavily
Re:Insurance? (Score:2)
"Deductible"
US $70 per month isn't that bad if it's going to keep you afloat through a major disablity. With tax deductions to bring it down even further, damn. Hell, my regular health insurance is ~US $415 per month for me, my wife and daughter.
Re:Insurance? (Score:2)
Hell, my regular health insurance is ~US $415 per month for me, my wife and daughter
Welcome to the world of different taxation systems - I assume you're from the US since you pay for health insurance. Health insurance is FREE in my country, but of course that just means we pay for it with taxes (I really hate that, BTW). The insurance described is merely an additional insurance to provide for loss of wages due to injuries, not treatment of the injury in the first place - this is covered by the taxmoney used to provide health insurance. So the amounts are not really comparable with the given premises.
Re:Insurance? (Score:2)
Re:Insurance? (Score:1)
one word (Score:2, Informative)
Short-term disability (Score:3, Interesting)
--Mike
Or..... (Score:1)
Just a thought
Quadroplegic (Score:2, Interesting)
A former colleague was paralized from the neck down in an accident. He had some movement of his arms, but his hands where quite useless. At least he could manouvre the joystick of his electric wheelchair. He had some tools that could be strapped to his hands, i.a. to hold cups, cutlery and the telephone receiver. Also 2 metallic "fingers" with rubber tips that allowed him to type and mouse. Not as fast as 10 fingers, but he got through his workload.
Talk about an expensive lifestyle, what with all the adaptations to house, vehicle etc., medical costs,...!
Anyhow, back to topic: At some stage I moved the mouse to left of keyboard so that I could use my strong (right) hand for typing and still keeping the mouse ready. Saved a lot of time when switching between mouse-input and keyboard-input (which I did a lot at the time). Since I have fairly big hands, one-handed input was not too hard.
Re:Quadroplegic- Steven Hawking (Score:2)
One Handed Input - HandyKey (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry about your wreck and being laid up.
Even though I have two fairly functional hands, I've often thought how nice it would be to use one of these devices [handykey.com], particularly at meetings, where it would gauche to layout a laptop and using a PDA pen is less than satisfactory. I'll have to admit that furiuosly chording one of these devices in your lap under the table could look kind of suspicious.
Using chorded input on the one handed device seems to allow something like 4K possible input "characters", so even if you needed to map every emacs major mode's lisp function to a key you'd have an easier time than with a typical QWERTY board.
The advertisement suggests you can learn to use one of these in about a weekend. If you do, let me know if you like it or not.
Re:One Handed Input - HandyKey (Score:2)
I hacked the Linux driver code to make mine act more like a joystick. The ability to preprogram words and things is a big help.
I might just drag mine out again.
Charles Puffer
Re:One Handed Input - HandyKey (Score:1)
Do yourself a favor, and COMPLETELY IGNORE the instructions on how to hold it! The folks at HandyKey have said that it's misleading, and they're redoing them in the next version. I usually put my knuckles under the strap, and my thumb *around* the device, to hold it steady.
Your hands will hurt for a week or 2, but they'll get used to it, eventually. It's just like learning a musical instrument.
Lucky Not The Other (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Lucky Not The Other (Score:1)
--
chown vreeker
Re:Lucky Not The Other (Score:2)
Thank God, I am ambidexterous.
Re:CONTRACTOR != EMPLOYEE (Score:2)
In this case, he is employed by the company, and the company is already paying FICA etc. but he doesn't get his sick leave or anything.
He is a contractor, just not an independant contractor.
Re:CONTRACTOR != EMPLOYEE (Score:2)
Simmilarly, I can work by the hour for a maid service, and they rent(contract) my services our to people who want their house cleaned.
Or I can work for a roofing company, by the hour.
In both these cases, I wouldn't get benefits, or sick time or anything (well, you might, but its not mandatory). Just because a large percentage of people out there DO get benefits for the same job, doesnt mean you have to.
On a simmilar not, if you are salaried, and they dock your pay by the hour if you are late or whatever, they are legally required to give you overtime in addition to your salary, because they are treating you as non-exempt.
Re:CONTRACTOR != EMPLOYEE (Score:2)
Alternative keyboards (Score:1)
http://www.keyalt.com/ [keyalt.com]
Easy. (Score:2, Funny)
Step 2: Always have Pr0n going in the corner of the screen.
Step 3: Viola, a 3rd finger to hold the ctrl keys with.
Sorry, only works if your male.
Ok, now lets see if the moderators are smart enough to tell the difference between humor and a troll.
similar situation (Score:2, Informative)
I actually found that I could type (albeit quite slowly) with my bad hand. And the more I typed, the more flexibility I got back in my hand. Rotating my arm so that my palm was flat on the keyboard was an excellent (and painful) stretching exercise.
So I suggest (with your doctor's approval) that you try and use your broken arm as much as possible. It maintained some of the manual dexterity in my hand and helped me recover more quickly. I have recovered about 99%. I occasionaly still get some stiffness in my wrist, but just reqires a break and some stretching which is a good habit regardless.
Steve
Try your feet (Score:3, Interesting)
You can't type with your feet, but you should be able to rig up some foot pedals for the meta keys (meta, alt, control, shift, and perhaps others) that will help in emacs.
I've met coders who prefer a trackball on the floor with foot pedals instead of a mouse, that might help too.
Half keyboard (Score:1)
Re:Half keyboard (Score:2)
I'll second the notion that the half-qwerty concept is very useful. It has a much more shallow learning curve than nearly any other "nonstandard" (meaning different from whatever you're already used to) keyboard layout, because it exploits your innate ability to think of your hands as mirror images of one another.
In addition to the hardware implementation for Palm and commercial software implementations for Windows and Mac (all available from the site which the parent poster mentioned), there is also a free implementation for Linux [caltech.edu] in the form of a kernel patch.
Prejudice? (Score:2)
and now for some useful info... (Score:3, Informative)
BTW, the comments on the order of "just whack off with the other hand" are pretty damn insensitive, if you ask me.
Re:Insensitive (Score:1)
Twiddler (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Twiddler (Score:2)
I bought one, after I was in a cast for three months. I never want to struggle to type like that, again.
off easy (Score:2)
A word of advice: use the hands. I worked straight through, only missing two days for surgery and the day of the accident; typing with just the middle fingers of each hand. It will make your shoulder stronger and shorten your rehab. Your rehab will go much faster if you are using your hand before you get the cast off. Avoid the mouse when possible. You might consider some voice interface software, as well. And stretch!
Blow (Score:2)
A previous employer told me that Shanghai was written by a disabled programmer, using Blow. I can't find anything on the web to confirm this. Anyone got data?
Voice Recognition (Score:2)
Acting as the front end you will need to stump up $40 for IBms IBM ViaVoice Dictation for Linux [ibm.com].
Keyboard-less input - Dasher (Score:1)