Programming for the Single-Handed

NullProg writes "Yesterday I was diagnosed with wrist-drop, and now my right arm/hand is in traction for a spell. It may or may not be related to me sitting behind a keyboard for the last twenty years. How have other programmers dealt with the loss of a hand or even multiple fingers? I moved my mouse to the left of the keyboard and can still type faster than my wife using one hand, but upper case keys are giving me problems. Has anyone experience with the smaller keyboards from Happy Hacking? Do they help one handed people? What editors did you find the most keystroke friendly. Gvim is bearable, is there a better one I can use for single key operations? What other tips do you have for someone in my situation?"

Comments

Talk to RMS

[T-Ranger]

...he spent at least a few years dictating code to someone else his hands were so screwed up.

But in all seriousness, Dvorak, of the alternat two handed keyboard fame, also developed keboards for one handed use, both right hand and left hand. Unfortunatly, on quick googling around I can only find reference to this as a component of the Dvorak history - no pages where you can purchase one.

(I have no idea if mentioning RMS in a non software section will be good or bad for my karma... hmm...)

Programmable foot switches

[Bushcat]

You could try a set of programmable foot switches, such as Kinesis. You need to program the actions from a Windows machine, but the unit can then be used with other OSes. I used this together with a small programmable keypad a few years back.