I'm a developer with RSI - What opportunities are there?

3 points by lastofus 12y ago ↗ HN

I'm a relatively experienced/accomplished software developer with a breadth of experience, currently living in the Bay Area who has developed chronic pain from typing all day. I love technology and coding, and I still code several hours a week, but it seems like I simply can't compete with other devs productivity wise who are able to type all day, every day. This in turn has taken it's toll on my confidence while job hunting.

I have tried sales engineering, but it turns out I dislike sales for a number of reasons. I've done support over the phone as well, but I have no desire to do that full time. I have no management experience, which makes getting a management job unlikely unless it was somehow from internal promotion.

As someone who is looking for a job at the moment, what opportunities are out there where I can leverage my dev experience, but wouldn't have to type all day?

7 comments

[ 5.4 ms ] story [ 23.8 ms ] thread

cafard 12y ago ↗

Have a look at http://www.stanford.edu/~ouster/cgi-bin/wrist.php.

(I've never had any but the mildest RSI, so I can't vouch for the advice.)

lastofus 12y ago ↗

Thanks. I've actually been using Dragon Naturally Speaking for awhile now. It's pretty fantastic on Windows, but only so-so on OS X, which is my primary OS these days. Unfortunately it really isn't that great for code, even in the best case: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI

melling 12y ago ↗

Pretty cool. I read Ousterhout's link mentioned above. At the very bottom he mentions a tool: a2x, which he uses to transmit dictated text to a Unix box. This should work on the Mac.

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/a2x-voice/a2x-faq.html

lastofus 12y ago ↗

I saw that, though I didn't think it would be of any use on OS X since it doesn't use X Windows for the GUI, and what support it did have for X Windows was dropped in 10.6 I think.

melling 12y ago ↗

Maybe a different keyboard? One with mechanical switches? One that doesn't bend your wrists? I've been investigating but haven't taken the plunge.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7245/ergodox-review-an-ergonom...

Geekhack has several articles.

http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=38984.0

Here's the board: http://geekhack.org/index.php?board=125.0

A lot of people like the funny looking Kinesis keyboards too. Here are some HN discussions:

https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=Kinesis+Advant...

lastofus 12y ago ↗

I actually have a huge collection of keyboards in the keyboard graveyard here. The Kinesis Advantage was one of the first keyboards I tried after the pain started. Some of the weirder keyboards I have tried:

DataHand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DataHand

SafeType vertical keyboard (yes those are side view mirrors!) http://safetype.com/index.php

There are definitely more out there I can try, but I'm convinced any repeated motion with my fingers will end up causing pain, regardless of key type or position. I've heard these boards have helped out others though.

morkfromork 12y ago ↗

Type with your feet? Is there a foot mouse?