What to do if you suddenly need to rest your hands
On Monday I went from “computer work seems kind of uncomfortable, I wonder if I should be worried” to “oh crap oh crap, that’s actually painful”. Everything I’ve ever heard says not to work through RSI pain, so what now? I decided to spend a week learning hands free input. I wanted to a) get some serious rest and b) still be productive. And guess what? Learning hands free input is like the one activity that does not suffer a productivity penalty from not being able to use your hands.
When I started it was really slow going. Lots of yelling “no don’t type ‘delete word’ delete the f**king word!!!”[1] But then I found this talk, which was just .. woah. Since then, I have been using Talon, and I am in love.
The key to understanding Talon, and the reason I think it’s heads and shoulders above everything else I’ve tried, is the basic insight that most of the time the input you want to do is not writing. Talon has the concept of modes, and most of the time you’re in the command mode.[2] And because there’s a limited set of commands, there’s much less ambiguity between inputs.
After one week, I’m able to dictate an existing code file painlessly albeit still slowly. The thing that feels important to me, is that I’m no longer living in fear of my career being taken away from me by my wrists.
So my recommendation to you, if you find yourself in the situation I was is to rest your hands, and try learning this thing. If you do, reach out to me! I’m (at least currently) sufficiently excited about this that I would very much enjoy help you out.
Epistemic postscript: I’m writing this while still excited about it, which is providing the motivation to do the writeup, but also makes me believe that in the future I will be less optimistic, and you should take that into account when evaluating its implicit predictions.
***
[1] A word to the wise, if you have dictation software listening, yelling at your computer is the opposite of productive (this is good, a frustrating experience with quick negative reinforcement for outbursts induces a zen-like experience).
I hadn’t before actually, thanks for the recommendation. I checked it out. Talon seems more like “teach yourself the alphabet, then program using vim.” Whereas Serenade is more like “teach yourself to program using our macros.” This makes Talon easier to learn, and more flexible, Serenade has the following benefits as I see them:
Programming in large well defines chunks, which it makes it easier to incorporate “pick which one you meant, or continue to use our default”
It uses more natural language, which makes me think that the accuracy has a higher ceiling
What to do if you suddenly need to rest your hands
On Monday I went from “computer work seems kind of uncomfortable, I wonder if I should be worried” to “oh crap oh crap, that’s actually painful”. Everything I’ve ever heard says not to work through RSI pain, so what now? I decided to spend a week learning hands free input. I wanted to a) get some serious rest and b) still be productive. And guess what? Learning hands free input is like the one activity that does not suffer a productivity penalty from not being able to use your hands.
When I started it was really slow going. Lots of yelling “no don’t type ‘delete word’ delete the f**king word!!!”[1] But then I found this talk, which was just .. woah. Since then, I have been using Talon, and I am in love.
The key to understanding Talon, and the reason I think it’s heads and shoulders above everything else I’ve tried, is the basic insight that most of the time the input you want to do is not writing. Talon has the concept of modes, and most of the time you’re in the command mode.[2] And because there’s a limited set of commands, there’s much less ambiguity between inputs.
After one week, I’m able to dictate an existing code file painlessly albeit still slowly. The thing that feels important to me, is that I’m no longer living in fear of my career being taken away from me by my wrists.
So my recommendation to you, if you find yourself in the situation I was is to rest your hands, and try learning this thing. If you do, reach out to me! I’m (at least currently) sufficiently excited about this that I would very much enjoy help you out.
Epistemic postscript: I’m writing this while still excited about it, which is providing the motivation to do the writeup, but also makes me believe that in the future I will be less optimistic, and you should take that into account when evaluating its implicit predictions.
***
[1] A word to the wise, if you have dictation software listening, yelling at your computer is the opposite of productive (this is good, a frustrating experience with quick negative reinforcement for outbursts induces a zen-like experience).
[2] This is similar to vim, if you’re familiar.
Have you seen Serenade?
I hadn’t before actually, thanks for the recommendation. I checked it out. Talon seems more like “teach yourself the alphabet, then program using vim.” Whereas Serenade is more like “teach yourself to program using our macros.” This makes Talon easier to learn, and more flexible, Serenade has the following benefits as I see them:
Programming in large well defines chunks, which it makes it easier to incorporate “pick which one you meant, or continue to use our default”
It uses more natural language, which makes me think that the accuracy has a higher ceiling