At 09:06 AM 9/25/2009, David St-Hilaire wrote:
Hi all!
I believe I've recently fallen victim to the infamous 'Emacs pinky' sickness (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emacs#Emacs_Pinky)... :(
:-( indeed. I started having problems in 1993 myself, although they're mostly related to mousing. For that, I position my mouse so that I don't move my right arm up or down, and for the last few years I've been using a Goldtouch keyboard which splits and tents (I only use the former) but most importantly for me has only one column of keys beyond the normal end of BS, |, Enter, etc. so that it minimizes how much my arm has to travel.
It's basically a laptop layout and for you, it might help in that it has the arrow keys tucked right under Enter and to the right of Shift and right Ctrl. If you can train yourself to use your left ring finger or pinky to hit those then you can stop doing C-P/N/B/F and change how you do M-B/F. I think I've at least half switched to using the arrow keys for that.
I made several changes to my working environment in hope to remedy the situation, such as swaping ctl and alt.
I used to do that for years and it's a BIG win; it's certainly how the original AI Lab and LispM keyboards were laid out (I stopped because I was in industry and had to use other people's keyboards sufficiently often for a few minutes that it was just too confusing).
On the other hand, the LispM and Knight/AI Lab keyboards had rubout in the position caps lock is currently in, so while very conveniently on the home row compared to the high right exile of backspace it sure exercised your left pinky.
Here's what it looked like, this was the keyboard that I believe the original TECO Emacs was designed for (or was it designed for Emacs???):
http://world.std.com/~jdostale/kbd/Knight.html
In this closeup:
http://world.std.com/~jdostale/kbd/Knight1.jpeg
Note how Meta is to the outside, and how both the Ctrl and Meta keys are far away from the space bar, which really changes the way your pinkies use them.
These also has Hall effect switches (VERY nice feel) and were quite high, like 3-4 inches instead of the current ISO? very short requirement that for a long time made it hard to put good switches in a keyboard.
I also am trying to learn to press control keys with one hand and the other combo key with the other thus using both controls and alt keys. I'll go check today if I can find an ergonomic keyboard too.
If you don't want to totally retrain yourself a keyboard like the Goldtouch is a good option. It's got very nice key switches, say 2/3 as good as the Knight's Hall effect switches.
Does anyone have some other ideas/tips for improving the situation?
This may not work as well for others since I played the violin when younger and really trained up the dexterity of my left hand, but ... I just checked, and I note that I've unconsciously trained myself to do the following for the various bucky bits (hmmm, I should also note that my touch typing is totally self-taught, starting from hunt and peck):
Left ring finger for Shift.
Left pinky for Ctrl ... but I curl it so that the tip almost touches my palm and the front of it hits the key, from the area just forward of the last joint to the middle of the segment just before the nail starts. That drastically changes the way you use it such that I suspect Emacs pinky won't be a problem (I've never noticed it). For me, hitting C-B is a bit of a stretch plus a little strain, though.
And I use my left thumb to hit Alt. That requires quite a bit of rotation of my left arm around the point hitting the Alt key to hit the T/G/B column, and some for R/F/V, but that doesn't seem to cause damage.
Using vi is my last resort option as I am really familiar with emacs and love it alot...
Indeed, I've used Emacs since 1980 and won't use anything else. Here's the general book on RSI that I highly recommend; you might have some posture issues that are aggravating this plus it's advice on how to deal with damage as it occurs and after is invaluable:
Dr. Pascarelli's Complete Guide to Repetitive Strain Injury
by Emil Pascarelli M.D.
ISBN-10: 0-471-38843-2
Amazon.ca:
http://www.amazon.ca/Pascarellis-Complete-Repetitive-Strain-Injury/dp/047138...
Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Pascarellis-Complete-Repetitive-Strain-Injury/dp/04713...
My only other piece of advice is to listen to your body. As the above book emphasizes ("Learn from your pain, pay attention to your pain, and you should eventually conquer it."), once you start hurting, doing more is just going to pile on damage.
Don't end up like Bernie Greenberg, who permanently wrecked his wrists in 1-2 weeks when he started playing the piano after years of no force required instruments like the harpsichord; from Wikipedia:
The word piano is a shortened form of the word pianoforte, which is seldom used except in formal language and derived from the original Italian name for the instrument, clavicembalo [or gravicembalo] col piano e forte (literally harpsichord with calm and strong). This refers to the instrument's responsiveness to keyboard touch, which allows the pianist to produce notes at different dynamic levels by controlling the speed with which the hammers hit the strings.
You must use your *arms* to do this, but he did it without formal piano training and I guess didn't pay attention to the signals his body must have been sending him (plus he had perhaps accumulated a lot of damage up to that point).
Symbolics had to hire typist for him.... He's the most extreme case I know of, but I watched other names you've heard of seriously damage themselves in the '80s. I strongly advise you and everyone reading this to take this issue with upmost seriousness.
One of my best friends has run the MIT EECS undergraduate program for the last three decades and she reports that about 25 years ago for 5 years MIT undergraduates had a lot of RSI problems, but I guess awareness developed so that it's now pretty rare. But she did talk to a student about 3 years ago about a mandatory career change, since that student wasn't going to ever be able to use a keyboard (heavily) again....
Thanks!
You're welcome and I wish you luck.
- Harold