Oct 8, 2023

Forty years of programming

I am about to turn forty-six. This means I have been programming for forty years, half of them professionally. During most of that time, I used a “standard” setup with 104 keyboard, a flat mouse, and a sitting desk.

My home workstation circa 2011 (porting Doom III to mac)

Things evolved ten years ago when I started to experience pain in my forearms and shoulders when I programmed. Here is what I did to solve my problem, it may work for someone else.

Mouse

Using a vertical mouse improved things a lot. My favorite is the Evoluent VerticalMouse 4.

My work workstation circa 2015

Eventually, I opted for the Magic Trackpad from Apple. It is great to switch workspace with three fingers, zoom, and more. Having it in the center allows me to use it alternatively with my left and right hand.

My home workstation circa 2015

It used to be annoying to get the drivers for Linux/Windows but now it is all sorted out.

Keyboard

The first ergonomic keyboard I tried was the KINESIS Freestyle2. It allowed me to spread each half as needed, resulting in horizontally straight wrist . However, the standard Control, Shift, and Alt still required wrist gymnastics. Same thing for Esc (I talk about VIM later) which required a left wrist twist. Also the tenting angle was too low.

I tried the KINESIS Advantage2. I liked the concept of having so many thumb opti