Preventing and dealing with career-ending injuries (Confoo 2022)

Last year, I've had to deal with a worrying case of RSI, short for Repetitive Stress Injury, to the point that I thought my years slinging code behind a keyboard were over. Yes, it was *that* bad. It also affected my hobbies and my life outside of work. In this talk, we'll explore strategies, tips, and tricks you can employ to stay healthy as developers, so you can have a long, prosperous, and pain-free career doing the thing you love.

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Links and Resources (keyboard layouts)

- Keyboard usage Heatmap: https://www.patrick-wied.at/projects/heatmap-keyboard/
- List of split ergonomic keyboards: https://github.com/diimdeep/awesome-split-keyboards
- Colemak Mod-DH homepage: http://colemakmods.github.io/mod-dh/
- Miryoku, the Colemak layer system I use: https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku

Links and Resources (touch-typing training)

- Keybr: to incrementally learn the key placements: https://www.keybr.com
- N-gram type: practice typing the top n-grams: https://ranelpadon.github.io/ngram-type/
- Monkeytype: practice whole words and get cool stats about your typing: https://monkeytype.com
- Typeracer: if you ever want to race your friends: https://play.typeracer.com

Links and Resources (shortcuts and automation)

- Tighten Blog: How to train your keyboard: https://tighten.com/blog/how-to-train-your-keyboard/
- Home row modifiers: https://precondition.github.io/home-row-mods
- A useful Caps-lock key: https://brettterpstra.com/2017/06/15/a-hyper-key-with-karabiner-elements-full-instructions/
- Karabiner-Elements: https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org

Links and Resources (CLI tools)

- `j`: quickly navigate directories on the command line: https://github.com/wting/autojump
- `bat`: a cate clone with syntax highlighting and git support: https://github.com/sharkdp/bat
- `fzf`: a fuzzy finder: https://github.com/junegunn/fzf
- `tldr`: it's like `man` distilled to only what you want: https://github.com/tldr-pages/tldr
- `zsh-autosuggestions` and `zsh-completions` so fish users will stop laughing at you: https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions, https://github.com/sh-usezsh-completions

Links and Resources (Other)

- "Voice Driven Development: Who needs a keyboard anyway?" by Emily Shea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKuRkGkf5HU
- Computer Related Repetitive Strain Injury: http://rsi.unl.edu
- Vimium: vim bindings in your browser: http://vimium.github.io
- Alfred: Spotlight on steroids, with workflows for many apps: https://www.alfredapp.com

Transcript

2. Our plan for today 1. What's a RSI? 2. My Journey with RSI 3. Prevention 4. Reverse engineering my pain 5. Technical optimizations
3. ⚠ DISCLAIMER
4. What is a RSI?
5. Repetitive Stress Injury
6. Repetitive Strain Injury
7. Cumulative Trauma Disorder (Ok, that one really messes up with our RSI mnemonic)
8. Who's at risk?
9. Musicians
10. Athletes
11. ! "
12. Labour Workers
13. Sedentary People
15. My journey with RSI
16. My hobbies... ‣ Rock climbing ! ‣ Programming ⌨ ‣ Play the guitar # ‣ Gaming $
17. I can't ride a bike, apparently
18. How to prevent RSIs?
19. Workstation Ergonomics
20. Work hygiene ‣ take regular breaks ⏰ ‣ change your focus " ‣ drink plenty of water # ‣ pomodoro $
22. There's no way you can touch-type on this with straight wrists
33. DVORAK COLEMAK WORKMAN IRST oh my...
34. "Using <insert alt layout> can be a conversation starter. You’ll get lots of nerd cred from the right people but plenty more weird looks from everyone else."
36. How to learn a new keyboard layout? ‣ Accept that you'll be horribly slow (at first) ‣ Set aside time for short, regular practice sessions ‣ Never look down at the keyboard ‣ Go slow, aim for a high-accuracy
37. Ambient vs Deliberate practice "I've driven my car everyday for years, how come I'm not as good as a professional race car driver yet?"
38. Deliberate practice ‣ Learn where the keys are1 ‣ Practice the most common words ‣ Practice the most common bigrams (th, he, in, er, an, ...)2 ‣ Practice typing text3 ‣ Delete whole words when making mistakes (⌥ + ⌫) 3 monkeytype.com 2 ngram-type 1 keybr.com
39. Words are effortlessly flowing from my fingertips, now what?
40. Shortcuts ⌘
41. But there's soooo many of them! And no way to use the same shortcuts across all apps
42. What if I told you...
43. ...you can
44. The programs Andrew4 (and I) use ‣ Karabiner-Elements to remap keys on a Mac ‣ Goku to configure Karabiner using JSON files ‣ Hammerspoon, a Mac automation tool (think macros) 4 Tighten blog: How to train your keyboard
45. "Hyper" and "Meh" keys ‣ Hyper: ⌃+⌥+⇧+⌘ ‣ Meh: ⌃+⌥+⇧
46. Actions you can use your Hyper key for... ‣ Hyper + S → Open Slack ‣ Hyper + E → Open code editor ‣ Hyper + K → Open my console ‣ Hyper + B → Open Browser ‣ Hyper + P → Open command palette ‣ ...
47. Aliases
48. "If I create aliases for <insert program> commands, I will forget what the real commands are " — Me in 2010
49. Spoiler alert You wont...
50. Snippets
51. CONCLUSION
52. Links and Resources (keyboard layouts) ‣ Keyboard usage Heatmap https://www.patrick-wied.at/projects/heatmap-keyboard/ ‣ List of split ergonomic keyboards https://github.com/diimdeep/awesome-split-keyboards ‣ Colemak Mod-DH homepage http://colemakmods.github.io/mod-dh/ ‣ Miryoku, the Colemak layer system I use https://github.com/manna-harbour/miryoku
53. Links and Resources (touch-typing training) ‣ Keybr: to incrementally learn the key placements https://www.keybr.com ‣ N-gram type: practice typing the top n-grams https://ranelpadon.github.io/ngram-type/ ‣ Monkeytype: practice whole words and get cool stats about your typing https://monkeytype.com ‣ Typeracer: if you ever want to race your friends https://play.typeracer.com
54. Links and Resources (shortcuts and automation) ‣ Tighten Blog: How to train your keyboard https://tighten.com/blog/how-to-train-your-keyboard/ ‣ Home row modifiers https://precondition.github.io/home-row-mods ‣ A useful Caps-lock key https://brettterpstra.com/2017/06/15/a-hyper-key-with-karabiner-elements-full- instructions/ ‣ Karabiner-Elements https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org
55. Links and Resources (CLI tools) ‣ j: quickly navigate directories on the command line https://github.com/wting/autojump ‣ bat: a cate clone with syntax highlighting and git support https://github.com/sharkdp/bat ‣ fzf: a fuzzy finder https://github.com/junegunn/fzf ‣ tldr: it's like man distilled to only what you want https://github.com/tldr-pages/tldr ‣ zsh-autosuggestions and zsh-completions so fish users will stop laughing at you https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-completions
56. Links and Resources (Other) ‣ "Voice Driven Development: Who needs a keyboard anyway?" by Emily Shea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKuRkGkf5HU ‣ Computer Related Repetitive Strain Injury http://rsi.unl.edu ‣ Vimium: vim bindings in your browser http://vimium.github.io ‣ Alfred: Spotlight on steroids, with workflows for many apps https://www.alfredapp.com
57. Thank you