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Programming IT Technology

Coders Working Without the Use of Their Hands? 54

Posted by Cliff from the typing-problematic dept.
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?"
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Coders Working Without the Use of Their Hands? More

Coders Working Without the Use of Their Hands?

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  • RSI (Score:2, Funny)

    by tsa ( 15680 )
    I think you have to use your mouse a lot and develop RSI in your other arm...

  • Dvorak (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Crutcher ( 24607 ) on Wednesday July 31, 2002 @07:21AM (#3985037) Homepage
    There are two alternate Dvorak keymaps, in addition to the one that most people refer to (and I'm typing with now) when they say 'dvorak'. Dvorak developed a right and a left keymaping, which were designed for the physically handicapped.

    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.
    • Changing your keymap might be a good idea if you're going to be permanently one-handed, but this guy is only going to be disabled for a few weeks. Seems like an awful lot of trouble to switch keymaps just for a few weeks.
    • The coder's already at a major imparement, so there is no effective cost associated with 'switching' to dvorak left or right.

      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)

    by DieNadel ( 550271 ) on Wednesday July 31, 2002 @07:33AM (#3985060)
    I think about this some times: what if I can't type for some time and loose a great deal of money because of that?
    In your case, what if you've broken both of your arms? (hope this never happens :-) ) Is there any insurance that we can get on this cases (like accident insurance or similar) that would save our asses on this kind of misfortune?
    • My father broke both of his wrists once when he fell off his bike. Luckily he works for the government in Holland.
    • Here in Australia, it's called income protection insurance. Prices vary depending on the level cover (what % of your income you will get, and how long you will have to wait before it kicks in).

      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!
    • This actually happened to my dad when I was really little. My dad was fixing the roof, my mom yelled at him and he slipped, fell off the latter and broke both of his elbows. I believe he was a salesman for Wang at the time so I don't know if this helped him or hurt him depending on how one would feel about buying software from a man with casts on both arms.

      Hey, new sig.

      "Would you by software from a man with casts on both arms?"

    • Re:Insurance? (Score:3, Informative)

      by beerits ( 87148 )
      Is there any insurance that we can get on this cases (like accident insurance or similar) that would save our asses on this kind of misfortune

      I think this is what that damn duck [aflac.com] sells.

    • Re:Insurance? (Score:4, Informative)

      by allanj ( 151784 ) on Wednesday July 31, 2002 @10:51AM (#3986180)

      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 :-(

      • 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.

        "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.

        • 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.

          • I understand. The ~$70 is for what we call "disability". Keeps you fed and housed when unable to work due to illness, injury, etc. The ~$415 is for health, non-catastrophic, no treatments that are newer than 6 months or so, on and on. Yahoo.
    • AFLAC!

  • one word (Score:2, Informative)

    by codexus ( 538087 )
    vi

  • Short-term disability (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mjpaci ( 33725 ) on Wednesday July 31, 2002 @07:49AM (#3985099) Homepage Journal
    This is why God invented short-term disability insurance. Also, try not to engage in activities that would cramp your work style. :)

    --Mike

  • Quadroplegic (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    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.

    • Mr Hawking seems to have gotten the handsfree thing down pretty well over the past few years. He probably has the best system ever. I want to get a simalar system for my grandmother, because she had a stoke and can't talk really now, but I can't afford such a thing, unless he made it open source and someone game me the hardware.

  • One Handed Input - HandyKey (Score:3, Informative)

    by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Wednesday July 31, 2002 @08:17AM (#3985181) Homepage Journal

    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.

    • I have one (have not been using it for a few years) but it works and works well. Be careful no to rest the cord end on the table it over stresses the cord. You can learn it in about a weekend, proficiency comes a little slower about 2 weeks.

      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
    • They're easier to learn than you'd think, you just need the patience to make it through typing about 5 wpm for a day or two.

      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)

    by Red Pointy Tail ( 127601 ) on Wednesday July 31, 2002 @08:41AM (#3985250)
    Left it's ok, only wank with the other. But its a bugger if you can't use Alt-F4 to close those damn pop-ups ....
    • Thats okay, Mozilla can block those nasty unwanted pop-ups (Preferences -> Advanced: Scripts & Plugins). Kudos to the Mozilla developers for allowing everyone, no matter their disability, to relax whilst pr0ning through the internet.

      --
      chown vreeker /pub/canadian_beer
    • Left it's ok, only wank with the other.

      Thank God, I am ambidexterous.

  • This place has a big selection of alternative keyboards including some one handed ones.
    http://www.keyalt.com/ [keyalt.com]

  • Easy. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Unknown Poltroon ( 31628 )
    Step 1: Work neekid.
    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)

    by stevef ( 5539 )
    I broke my wrist in a motorcycle accident a year ago. I had an external fixator on my arm for about 8 weeks.

    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)

    by bluGill ( 862 ) on Wednesday July 31, 2002 @11:35AM (#3986509)

    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.

  • Have a look at the Half keyboard [halfkeyboard.com]. There's a demo that only works on windows and mac:-( But I rebooted to windows to see the demo - looks pretty descent.

    • 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 is when you judge someone before knowing the facts. It sounds like your employer knows all the facts in this case.

  • and now for some useful info... (Score:3, Informative)

    by HarryLeBlanc ( 566888 ) on Wednesday July 31, 2002 @12:09PM (#3986764)
    www.naturalpoint.com [naturalpoint.com] -- this is a hands-free mouse that you aim by head motion, and click with an add-on footpad. I've been using it for about a year because of rms (the medical syndrome, not the guy). I also have an ergonomic keyboard-cum-chair from ErgoKinesis, and they might have some adaptive keyboard products you'd find useful.
    BTW, the comments on the order of "just whack off with the other hand" are pretty damn insensitive, if you ask me.

  • Twiddler (Score:3, Informative)

    by MountainLogic ( 92466 ) on Wednesday July 31, 2002 @12:40PM (#3986978) Homepage
    There is a one handed mouse/keyboard combo, more of a hocky puck with buttons on it that you hold called Twiddler [handykey.com] from Handy Key [handykey.com]. I've not trieded it, but I've always been meaning to.
    • Works pretty good - but it's too damned small for my hands. I'd need to modify it, if I was going to use it for an extended period of time. Aftter all of my investigations, the Twiddler is still the best one-handed keyboard, in my opinion.

      I bought one, after I was in a cast for three months. I never want to struggle to type like that, again.
  • I broke both hands in a bicycle accident three years ago. Bi-lateral, almost mirror image fractures, a inch and quarter hollow, titanium drywall screw in each thumb. At the time my wife was five months pregnant and until the harness came off (3rd degree shoulder separation) she was doing everything, I mean everything, for me.

    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)

    by inkfox ( 580440 )
    There's a system called "Blow" which allows morse-code-like typing through a straw.

    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?

  • Considered voice recognition such as XVoice [sourceforge.net]

    ...Xvoice enables continuous speech dictation and speech control of most X applications. To convert users' speech into text it uses the IBM ViaVoice speech recognition engine, which is distributed separately...

    Acting as the front end you will need to stump up $40 for IBms IBM ViaVoice Dictation for Linux [ibm.com].

  • There is an interesting experimental keyboard-less input program called Dasher [cam.ac.uk]. The current program is oriented towards ordinary text, for written language input (e.g. to allow the disabled to send emails). What would be interesting would be to customise this for program editing, possibly inside an IDE. E.g. to build in the main language constructs, and to replace the English language dictionary by the table of symbols valid at the point you are editing. Another approach to predictive editing.

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