I actually did this back in 1999 or so, for similar reasons. I found
it pretty easy to learn Dvorak. It did help with pain, but I suspect
this had more to do with slowing down and learning how to type (any
layout) "correctly" than it being a more ergonomic layout. After
about 3 years, I ended up going back to QWERTY. Several reasons why I
switched back:
I found that while it's great for typing English, it's not the
best layout for coding, nor for using emacs. All of the
punctuation symbols we use in program code are in odd places in
Dvorak.
I was doing a fair amount of corresponding in French, and so
had to use the "international input mode" of various OSs to
enter Latin-1 accents. This usually means some chording on a
QWERTY layout, and was more difficult to accomplish with
Dvorak.
Social issues- I was constantly running into problems when
someone needed to use one of my various systems "for a minute".
Granted it was a nice way to keep other people's grubby hands
off of my keyboards, but after a while it becomes a PITA for
everyone. This is the one that really sent me back to QWERTY.
After a LOT of reflection on this point, I decided that it was
best to use the defacto standard, rather than fighting against
the world.
It's been maybe 2 years since I switched back, and surprisingly I can
still type fluently on Dvorak. Probably because I learned "proper
typing" for Dvorak, whereas with QWERTY I was just winging it.
I am not a doctor, but here is what has helped me concerning pain
while typing: learn to type (your country's native layout) PROPERLY.
Use BOTH sides of the keyboard when chording. You have two shift
keys, two ctrl keys, two alts, etc. Don't try holding down ctrl with
your left pinky while you press another key with the same hand. I
think programmers are notorious for this kind of behavior (even to the
point of turning caps lock into a 3rd ctrl key.) And use your caps
lock when typing more then 2 capital letters in succession. All of
this will slow you down a lot in the beginning, but I think the end
result is well worth it.
I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Emacs and shell guy, but the feature that has me salivating over NetBeans 4.0 is the upcoming code profiler previously known as "JFluid". Have a look at http://profiler.netbeans.org/index.html.
That, and the potential for using refactoring tools has me seriously considering an IDE for the first time in my life. The question is: can I make all of this work with Emacs?
I'm an American living in France. Once when moving out of an apartment a potential new tenant asked how high was the ceiling in the loft area (about 4.5 feet; not even enough room to stand up.) I told her I didn't know metric well enough for an accurate conversion (in fact I didn't even know the true height in inches; I was merely making a guess based on my own height.) So she asked "how many miles is it?"
Hmm I work in the same machine room where quartz used to live. I think we may still actually have the box somewhere. I wasn't involved at all in its BBS function, but I was a student operator during the days when it was still online. Actually, IIRC it was pretty outdated even back in the ~1990/91. We also used to have a fidonet node in the microlab.
Not a bad idea. If you plan to do this, I recommend you create a module for Xscreensaver. This is how I had planned to do the screensaver for them before they went silent.
No, I'm a professional research programmer. And I would have been fine if they found someone better suited to the task, had they at least answered my email to tell me so. But I did not know about Sun's involvement- it may have been a factor. Thank you for mentioning that.
Please see my comment above (they blew off their developers.) So maybe it wasn't written afterall. I just assumed that they handed it off to someone else.
They blew off their original developers.
on
SETI@Home For Linux
·
· Score: 1
Well this one, at least. About a year ago I volunteered to write the X11 screensaver for them. They agreed, and portioned off the project to me. Then when I needed to correspond with them concerning technical details they never answered their mail; it was as if I didn't exist to them. I also had some concerns with their code regarding portability to various Unix flavors, and I volunteered to write autoconf scripts for them. This too fell on deaf ears.
Now suddenly the clients are available. I was very eager to be a part of this and contribute code, but they seem to have quietly shifted projects to other developers, and left the originals in the cold. What's the deal? I very badly wanted to run these clients on several of my boxes, but now I'm not sure how I feel about this project. Has anyone else fallen into their email black-hole?
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I actually did this back in 1999 or so, for similar reasons. I found it pretty easy to learn Dvorak. It did help with pain, but I suspect this had more to do with slowing down and learning how to type (any layout) "correctly" than it being a more ergonomic layout. After about 3 years, I ended up going back to QWERTY. Several reasons why I switched back:
It's been maybe 2 years since I switched back, and surprisingly I can still type fluently on Dvorak. Probably because I learned "proper typing" for Dvorak, whereas with QWERTY I was just winging it.
I am not a doctor, but here is what has helped me concerning pain while typing: learn to type (your country's native layout) PROPERLY. Use BOTH sides of the keyboard when chording. You have two shift keys, two ctrl keys, two alts, etc. Don't try holding down ctrl with your left pinky while you press another key with the same hand. I think programmers are notorious for this kind of behavior (even to the point of turning caps lock into a 3rd ctrl key.) And use your caps lock when typing more then 2 capital letters in succession. All of this will slow you down a lot in the beginning, but I think the end result is well worth it.
I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Emacs and shell guy, but the feature that has me salivating over NetBeans 4.0 is the upcoming code profiler previously known as "JFluid". Have a look at http://profiler.netbeans.org/index.html.
That, and the potential for using refactoring tools has me seriously considering an IDE for the first time in my life. The question is: can I make all of this work with Emacs?
I'm an American living in France. Once when moving out of an apartment a potential new tenant asked how high was the ceiling in the loft area (about 4.5 feet; not even enough room to stand up.) I told her I didn't know metric well enough for an accurate conversion (in fact I didn't even know the true height in inches; I was merely making a guess based on my own height.) So she asked "how many miles is it?"
I second that, but would also love to see BZ2 ported.
Hmm I work in the same machine room where quartz used to live. I think we may still actually have the box somewhere. I wasn't involved at all in its BBS function, but I was a student operator during the days when it was still online. Actually, IIRC it was pretty outdated even back in the ~1990/91. We also used to have a fidonet node in the microlab.
Not a bad idea. If you plan to do this, I recommend you create a module for Xscreensaver. This is how I had planned to do the screensaver for them before they went silent.
No, I'm a professional research programmer. And I would have been fine if they found someone better suited to the task, had they at least answered my email to tell me so. But I did not know about Sun's involvement- it may have been a factor. Thank you for mentioning that.
Please see my comment above (they blew off their developers.) So maybe it wasn't written afterall. I just assumed that they handed it off to someone else.
Well this one, at least. About a year ago I volunteered to write the X11 screensaver for them. They agreed, and portioned off the project to me. Then when I needed to correspond with them concerning technical details they never answered their mail; it was as if I didn't exist to them. I also had some concerns with their code regarding portability to various Unix flavors, and I volunteered to write autoconf scripts for them. This too fell on deaf ears.
Now suddenly the clients are available. I was very eager to be a part of this and contribute code, but they seem to have quietly shifted projects to other developers, and left the originals in the cold. What's the deal? I very badly wanted to run these clients on several of my boxes, but now I'm not sure how I feel about this project. Has anyone else fallen into their email black-hole?