How's this for a New Year's resolution: Get in shape! Nope. Eat healthier! Nada. Call my grandma more often! Well, yes, but that's not the point. Here it is:
Switch to a super-ergonomic keyboard.
Most geeks know that repetitive stress injuries (RSI) are a big risk for us, especially software developers who literally type and type and click and click all the live long day. But recently it has dawned on me just how big a risk it is: more and more developers at our small consulting company have RSI problems, ranging from minor annoyances to complete debilitation.
Yo, P: Yes, I'm talking about you.
On Monday, a fellow developer had to stop typing for the week, doctor's orders. And for a coder, that's an issue, since coding-by-thought technology is seriously lacking. This caused me to do some quick RSI-inflicted-peeps math:
- We have about 20 people in our office:
- At least 6 have RSI problems that I know of, which means there might be more.
- 1 has been under doctor's orders not to type for the last year, and another has been told to keep of the keyboard all week.
These folk's ages are, as far as I can remember: early 40s, 39, 34, 32, 27 (no typing!), 23 (no typing!).
23? 27? Oh crap.
I'm 31 years old.
Right now, I have no wrist, arm, or hand problems, save for the psychosemantic tingling I feel right now, but I've decided not to mess around with my software ditch-digging tools. Quite a few people I know swear by the Kinesis Contoured Keyboard, which is a pretty crazy looking device, but is optimized to baby your hands. I'm not looking forward to learning a new key layout, but I'll deal.
Now that kids are growing up in the Internet age, maybe parents will ad a new nag to their arsenal: floss your teeth, put on sunscreen, and use an ergo keyboard.
As a side note, since we practice pair programming at our office, we can absorb RSI-inflicted developers since they don't have RSI-of-the-brain.
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