One handed coding -- tablet, special keyboard, one-handed typing?

Question

I recently broke my finger and can now only type with my right hand. This has seriously impacted my typing speed. Since I write software for a living, this is a serious problem.

I have been doing some research, but haven't found a great solution yet. Here's what I've come up with:

1. Wacom tablet + hand writing recognition software. Is it possible to write code with hand writing recognition software?

2. one handed keyboards -- I have only found expensive (> $100) keyboards. These look like they have a steep learning curve.

3. one handed typing instructions: http://www.aboutonehandtyping.com/manualcompare.html. Does this really work?

What do the one handed coders out there use?

Answer 1

A friend of mine broke his wrist snowboarding, and he had reasonable luck using speech recognition software (Nuance Dragon Naturally Speaking). It worked quite well for email and documentation, which would solve a part of your problem.

Another colleague, Nils Klarlund of AT&T, developed a version of emacs hooked into speech recognition. He even had a home-brewed set of foot pedals for doing shift, control, etc. He used this exclusively for years (due to bad carpal tunnel syndrome).

And maybe your feet can take up some of the burden. This is part of a parallel discussion going on in this question.

And off-topic, but extremely interesting, T.V. Raman, who's been blind since the age of 14, wrote a version of emacs that works with keyboard input and audio output. There's a chapter on it in Beautiful Code. I've seen him use it, and it's completely awesome. And of course emacs is a great interface for more than just text editing.

Answer 2

Now, the time to heal a broken finger will be shorter than it takes to adapt to one handed coding, not to mention the time it takes afterwards to get back to two-handed coding

Also, the time it takes to learn the methods is time you could've spend on coding (read: making a living).

Knowing this, we need a quick-fix, short term solution.

• First of all, A good IDE, with code completion and similar functionality will help you a lot.
• Secondly, use the shortcuts of the IDE, remember, there are Shift, Altand Ctrl keys on both sides of your keyboard. (you might want to create a cheatsheet for those shortcuts)

In addition to helping you during your time with your injury, learning the shortcuts will also improve your coding speed when you're back up again.

Now, my comments on your proposals:

1. Don't, simply, Don't, it'll take even more time to fix writos (typos) beacause recognition will be flaky.
2. That learing curve will slow you down even more.
3. Won't even comment on that one...

Answer 3

We have a developer in the office that lost mobility in his right hand and probably won't gain back full use of it. He has mainly learned to type well with his left hand and kind of fill in for his right hand. Although he lets his right hand kind of peck for things. He has gained enough speed back for it not to affect his day too greatly from what i can tell.

Only thing i can think of that might let you speed up some while typing with one hand and maybe being able to get a key or two with the other hand might be to use an IDE instead of text editor if you already don't, so you can use tab completion. Kind of a lame solution if you don't like IDEs or just don't have that option in your work environment but might help out a bit.

Answer 4

Mirrorboard

Answer 5

The same thing happened to me (I destroyed my left pinky). At the time, I didn't touch type, so my only use for my pinky was left-control, left-shift, and caps-lock.

This sounds as if it just happened to you. I promise you'll quickly learn to compensate. Remember, it's quality, not speed, that counts most.

Perhaps you should seize the opportunity and read to improve yourself as a programmer. Or spend some time debugging.

Answer 6

If you anticipate that your left hand will be out of commission for a long while, and if it's worthwhile for you to learn a new layout, then there exist one-handed Dvorak layouts.

There's some information at PC Guide: Single-Handed Dvorak Alphanumeric Layouts.

There also once was software for Qwerty Half Keyboards that used the space bar as an extra shift key that reversed the keyboard.

Good luck with your injury!

Answer 7

Regarding one-handed keyboards, I've tried using a frogpad and found it ok for typing text, but unusable for coding. The symbols require several consecutive key presses and I found it impossible to use shortcuts reliably. It was too easy to hit the wrong key and get it stuck in the wrong mode.