I've been programming for about 5 years now and I have just started my first professional development job. One thing I have noticed since I started is that programming can be very uncomfortable, especially for tall people like myself. As I have started to do more and more programming I have started to get a sore back, a painful shoulder...
I am in a phase to move to a new house and was wondering what should the home office for programming looks like. If you have setup your home office for programming then please advise. Also, post your home programming office pictures so everyone can see your work environment. ...
The company I work for are currently undergoing a site wide renovation and I'm involved in the 'consultation' on what the R&D work spaces are going to be like. There is no scope for individual private offices - so lets not start on that topic. One big requirement is that the office layout can be flexible (i.e. team areas can be create...
What type of light do you prefer to be working in? How do you have your light source(s) situated? Wattage? Any particular lamp recommendations? Is there any sort of lighting environment that you hate? ...
Spending thousand of hours in front of my computer, ergonomics became quickly a main issue. For the monitor or the keyboard, technical solutions exist. But for the mouse, I never get used to the trackball and putting a little pillow under my wrist made me feel uncomfortable. So I started to swap the hand that holds the mouse. It's grea...
Ok, ok, I know that isn't technically a programming question, but I saw an ad today for the new Herman Miller Embody and I started thinking about how my chair at work is pretty terrible and I need a new one. I know this isn't what StackOverflow is really for, but if there is community of people out there who might actually have one, and ...
I am developing a specialty application where the end-user needs to operate multiple controls simultaneously. The application is used to "tune" the control parameters of an electronic device to calibrate the unit to its best performance. Currently, there is a UI with multiple graphical sliders which the operator click-drags one slider ...
I've used a variety of computer furniture over the years and was wondering what other folks liked? My current workstation at home is the couch because my wife has taken over my 48" Anthro Cart for her own computing needs. To clarify: I'm in the market for new furniture myself workstation and while I'm looking for better than IKEA level...
Back Story: I have no control over the desk at my workplace: a single flat surface, sits too high, and is an inflexible part of the cubicle itself. I am doing a lot of typing and, although I try to take breaks, I would like to help keep my wrists and arms in a more comfortable position for the frequently common programming marathons. M...
I think everybody who had to program using a standard German (or any other international) keyboard layout on Windows (or Mac) will complain about the conundrum of either having all special characters ( [ ] | { } / etc. ) needed for most programming languages "at the fingertip" and "losing" the language specific characters (umlauts ä ö ü ...
When I was taught keyboarding in school, much emphasis was made on keeping your fingers centered on the 'home row', with your left hand on ASDF and your right hand on JKL; However, this placement was never comfortable for me so I continued to use the tried-and-true hunt-and-peck. Years later I'm able to type much faster and without looki...
I've read somewhere that ergonomic problems accounts for 70% of injury... And i don't want to be one of those guys who think, ahh it's just a slight sore, and go on and discover that i have CTS and have to operate on my hands!!! So are the any good ergo habits that you follow religiously each day? Or some cool tools that would send any ...
I have wrist pain when I type and I would like to start writing SQL statements, stored procedure, and views using speech recognition. ...
I've been working on a start-up type of website, which means I've been coding for about 18 hours a day. My wrists and hands are starting to hurt. Any suggestions for keyboards, mouse or other tecniques to increase my comfort level? Exact Duplicate: What is the best keyboard/mouse for ergonomics or to prevent wrist pain? ...
It's quite common to have a form with a checkbox stating "Use foo" immediately followed by a textbox where the user can input the "foo value" he want's to use. Of course, this textbox is useful only if "Use foo" is checked I don't know the best way to deal with this situation : Disable the textbox (ie textboxfoo.Enabled=false;) Hide i...
I am adding a bounty to this question, hoping for some scientific research results. Thank you everybody! I have recently tried working on dark backgrounds, and it seemed (to me) to be easier on the eye. However, today I read Gerrie Schenck's comment on this answer, in which he said that mainframe developers were advised to use white b...
I've been suffering from a lot of elbow and forearm pain lately, and apparently it's caused by my arms and elbows constantly pressing against the desk. My doctor says I'm damaging the nerves on my elbow, and if I don't use elbow pads (or spend less time with the computer), it will get worse, and I will be risking permanent damage to the...
I've noticed lately after ten years as a full-time programmer/computer user ( and hobby guitarist ) that my hands are starting to get a bit tight in certain movements. I'm sure this is a matter of having been doing the same things with them for many years, but as I understand it this pattern is one that is likely to result in arthritis i...
Since quite a few here spend 10+ hours a day in front of their monitors and stress their eyes with it would you consider it worthwhile the investment to go with a LaCie, NEC or EIZO display instead of the common HP/DELL office screens? The biggest advantage even if you do not work with imaging seems to be the build in colorimeter to wor...
My work PC, Home PC, and laptop all have different keyboards. I find my hands wanting to do the wrong thing all the time. Also I have to log into multiple servers with different versions of vi, vim, emacs, bash, ksh, I do not have the luxury of staying in one IDE or environment. vi appears to me to be the best editor of choice given t...