Ask HN: How to start afresh in a new domain after years of expertise in another? - <AUTHOR> Hi Guys, I have over 12 years of expertise in a particular domain.  Now I recently switched to another company in a new domain (based on some overlapping technical skills and good recommendations from my past colleagues) as the jobs were far to come by in my old area of expertise.  But, I'm finding it really hard to adjust in the new one.
The biggest challenges I'm facing are :
1. Looking at my years of experience my colleagues expect an expert level of performance. But being new to the domain, I've not been able to meet their expectations.
2. I've tried looking for non-tech roles  PM, TL etc., hoping to leverage my management/leadership skills, but my senior management aren't buying it.
3. I feel isolated in meetings where everyone around me are talking the technology and I just take notes or stay silent mostly.
4. When I see guys half my experience are miles ahead of me in terms of the tech skills in the new area, I wonder if I even have a chance catching up ?
Any suggestions / advice is welcome and highly appreciated.  Thanks in advance ! <comment><USER3> I've switched domains all the time (CAD/CAM -> Medical Imaging -> Genomics -> Web Development -> Internet Security -> VR -> Fintech), things I've found helpful:

1\. Ask a lot of questions at the start. People know you've switched domains and will tolerate dumb questions for a while.

2\. Don't ask the same dumb question twice.

3\. Read a lot to get into the new head space. Set up google alerts for your company and its competitors. Join forums dedicated to your new tech and domain.

4\. Offer learnings from your old domain, humbly. "At my last gig, we approached this <method>. May not apply." This shows everybody you have things to offer but you are just getting your sea legs.

5\. LEAVE THE OLD JOB. All of the above things you did for your old gig. Stop doing them, you don't have time anymore.

<comment><USER4> I couldn't agree more. As a strategy consultant I do have to face new clients on a regular basis. Sometimes the industry / topic overlaps with the previous engagement - often not.

1.) Really, really, really ask those dumb questions in the first week. Everyone will tolerate it and even expect it

2.) Learn the basics of your new domain / industry top-down asap. Meaning: understand for what your company gets paid for, understand the basic process how it gets delivered, understand the strengths / weaknesses of your company. Know who the key customers are and what they really want. It's often the new guys who are empowered to challenge those high-level topics while everyone else takes it for granted (and often have the wrong idea in mind)

3.) Always ask a question / say something during the first five minutes of a meeting. It just gets harder and harder afterwards. But as soon as you asked you're in the game

4.) Bring in experience from the past but try to take the extra mile of translating it as much as possible to the new situation ("at my last gig we did... I understand that here we have... however I see further potential in...)

<comment><USER4> Two to add:

5.) Ask a colleague to give you a dedicated intro session. Not just a random "I show you some stuff on my PC" but a real one. Typically a nice way for the colleague to reflect on their learning as well and/or prepare a public talk :-)

6.) Be aware that almost no one really knows. They are all bluffing, they are all biased. There are exceptions but they are super rare. Even someone 2-4 years in a specific job will get his stuff done but still struggle with some concepts. On Management Level it gets worse as those guys tend to not have the time to digg into it

<comment><USER5> Can't stress (6) enough. Most people do stuff because that's what they heard first or it's a solution they found for a problem that existed years ago. Having a new perspective and questioning existing norms is healthy. You can add value there more than most of the existing "tribe".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Once I was asked to start working on an app in a new domain, I had never worked in that domain and without good enough knowledge, working on that app would be crazy. The first 2 days in it and I realized, there has to be some systematic way of going about it.

I brought it up in the next weekly meeting, asked for a resource (book, session by colleague, video anything) from the team already working on it. They recommended a book and I explained that I need to work through the book while correlating the app with the book and working on bugs/features, all the same time while explicitly stating that I need some time/guidance to be up and running.

That was taken very positively and in a few weeks, I was productive as per/more than the expectations, while following the steps outlined.

Don't worry, be pro-active, ask, make a plan with the team and follow it. The more you do nothing about it, the worse it might get. Best.

</comment><comment><USER7> The expert performance that you should be bringing is not your mastery of this particular technology. Your strengths should be:

\- experience with infrastructure, so you don't need to have underlying things explained to you

\- experience with team projects, so you don't get mired in irrelevant sidequests and trivia

\- experience exercising judgment, so you can survey alternate approaches and pick the one most likely to succeed

\- experience learning, so you can come up to speed quickly

\- wide experience, so you can apply lessons from your history in the new context

Take the notes, then go back and research them. Figure out what a minimal project in the new domain looks like, and do one quietly. Familiarize yourself with the tools that the new company uses.

Read research papers, technical journals, and all the in-company documentation you can get your hands on. Attend new engineer training sessions.

Figure out what the schedule is for your group(s) and dig in.

</comment><comment><USER8> Some of your problems seem more like "new company" problems than "fresh domain" problems.

I have done a few major switches over the course of my career.

      Java/R&D -> MUMPS+VB/Medical -> Java/Legal -> C#/Military

The biggest problem was seeing that the common element over those multiple domains is that nobody _really_ knows what they're doing, and _everyone_ is just faking it so hard that it somehow just _works anyway_. So if you have any _genuine_ competence in anything, you just copy everything that makes even an iota of sense from that into whatever else you're doing, and that makes you an instant genius.

You might have a different experience if you are in a hot spot where everyone around you seems to be smarter than you are, but in other places, the person that has been continuously learning new things on their own initiative for 12 years will catch up within 1 year or less, and will be jetting past everyone else by their second anniversary. The downside is that they will be bored by the third year, and looking elsewhere for promotion opportunities by the fourth.

<comment> le-mark > The biggest problem was seeing that the common element over those multiple > domains is that nobody really knows what they're doing, and everyone is just > faking it so hard that it somehow just works anyway. So if you have any > genuine competence in anything, you just copy everything that makes even an > iota of sense from that into whatever else you're doing, and that makes you > an instant genius.

This is sooo true. From my experience most organizations and teams are very low performing, speaking about older companies, especially ones that have had rounds of layoffs or lots of turnover over the years. You truly get the "don't move my cheese types" who are just there because they're to lazy to find another job.

Mostly, the people who really knew the code/domain left long ago. Occasionally you'll find an old BA who ought to be running place, hunkered down somewhere. These people are gold.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> You may want to clarify whether your issues are with the tech stack or the domain or both; they raise different issues. I think of the tech stack as the programming language you use as well as the major libraries/frameworks/services involved, while the domain is the area of business the software serves. So if you went from being a VB6 developer for a bank to a python developer for a health care company you switched both tech stack (VB6->python) and domain (banking->health care). Some info on how long it's been since the switch might also be helpful for gauging reasonable expectations.

Some specific thoughts:

2\. Going the management route might work if you have domain knowledge but lack experience with the tech stack. If it's the other way around this will be a much harder sell in my opinion. Either way, don't be looking for a promotion unless you've been there at least a year, or there's a pressing business need that putting you in the job would neatly solve. They hired you to do a job, they're probably not going to react well to you immediately trying to get a different one.

3\. I wouldn't sweat this one. Real time collaboration is going to be the hardest given a knowledge gap, but the real work of design and coding can be done very effectively while conducting research to fill in knowledge gaps when you need to. Your company and colleagues probably care more that you produce high quality code fast than whether or not you shine in meetings.

4\. I think it's reasonable to expect you'll be pretty behind on tech skills for the first 3-6 months. If that's the case, I wouldn't sweat it, you'll probably catch up. If it's been a year and you're still behind you might be in trouble, it's time to find a new approach to learning what you need to learn. Domain knowledge on the other hand is a much slower slog. It may take 5 years to get to expert, and I don't think there are any real shortcuts.

</comment><comment><USER10> Given the audience on HN, you could probably be a bit more specific about the old/new domain and get more relevant advice.

Just a thought!

<comment><USER11> 100% this. One thing is to move all your stack from C# to F# or Haskell and another move from Angular to React.

<comment><USER7> I was thinking more along the lines of "I have 12 years of experience writing SaaS apps, and now I am working on firmware for embedded devices".

<comment><USER12> And here I was thinking along the lines of "I have 12 years of experience coding random crap, professionally and otherwise, and I'd like to go into biotech or somehow contribute to NewSpace industry".

(Which is exactly what I'd love to do.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My answer to this is: Do what you love.

This might mean to radically change what you do.

The vibe I get from your post is that the situation you are in is the result of a "career move". Driven by rational thinking about salary and future safety.

If your goal is to live a happy, meaningful life, I am sceptical that this approach can work. But I am very open to discuss this.

Personally, being raised very anti authoritarian, I naturally always did what I loved doing or what I was curious about. I'm not super rich and I don't jump around in joy all day. But I have a pretty nice lifestyle that I enjoy.

Would love to hear other perspectives on this.

<comment><USER14> Dear TekMol,

We regret to inform you that starting tomorrow, our organization, our parent company, our subsidiary company, and our affiliate partners will no longer be able to provide you services.

Unfortunately, all of our employees read your post and they agree with you and they have all quit to follow their bliss and have left en mass for Chiang Mai until they can "figure out what that means."

Candidly, we expect a large increase in the number of people working as life coaches.

As a result, we will no longer be able to provide the following services:

\- Retail employees to help you \- Any sort of clerical work \- Coal mining and other energy gathering work that requires outdoor and or physical work \- Water plants and filtration systems \- Less glamours medical care \- All the law jobs you don't know about but which keep our world running as well as it does \- And any and all sundry job that aren't cool enough to be in an TV commercial

By this letter, we formally requests you stop spouting your bullshit.

Further, we encourage you to consider the implicit flip-side of your argument that, to paraphrase, one can only be happy or have a meaningful life if one does what they love. The incredibly insulting inference being that people who don't do exactly what they love can't possibly be happy or have a meaningful life.

Good luck with your parakeet farm or whatever it is you do.

Cordially,

The Good People at JustTryingToMakeRent Co.

<comment><USER13> Dear JustTryingToMakeRent employees,

Thank you very much for your open letter! And thank you for making the world such a wonderful place where coal is mined and plants are watered and everything works so flawlessly.

Is it really impossible to love those jobs? I often have the feeling that at least some of you are in a great mood when I meet you at your workplaces. For example when I visit my dentist. The whole team is always in a great mood, making jokes with each other, being friendly, enjoying the workday.

If there are jobs that simply cannot be loved - I think we should enhance or automate those. Let's start the debate. What job is nothing but shit?

I don't run a parakeet farm. I object to the "use" of animals. One of the things I love to do is write software though. Right now I am sitting in a nice internet cafe. At a window that overlooks a river. Sipping coffee, enhancing an application. And right now I love it. Chances are good that some of you are users of the application.

Yours, TekMol

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've done this most of my career. There is some great advice already in comments here, but if I had to boil it down to one thing, it would be this: have permission to be the new guy and ask dumb questions.

Explicitly ask for this permission -- and take advantage of it. If done well, yes, people will drop their opinion of you for a week or two. Then once you "get your feet wet" you'll start making a sythesis between what you already know and the new domain. It will start making sense to your coworkers.

Don't soft-pedal it. Don't try to know everything. In fact, admit to being a complete noob. Starting at zero you can humbly begin to kick ass and get noticed. Walking in the door as Superman? Not so much. If you do that, there's nowhere to go but down.

The crazy thing I've noticed is that people inside domains view technology as the most important part of a job. So instead of learning SexPumpkin 4.0, they'll look for somebody who's already an expert, because that's what we need!

As it turns out, there are a ton of super smart people in the world, but there are only a tiny few people that know both tech and the domain well enough to solve problems well. If you're too busy, lazy, or incompetent to pick up the new tech, then fresh meat isn't going to help. The real skill is to already know a bunch of things people want and be able to transition domains quickly.

You can gain that kind of thing by doing charity work, alongside personal projects.

One of the unexpected benefits of being the new guy and asking dumb questions is that in many cases, you end up solving complex problems that have stymied the org for years -- mainly because they've been so deep in the work they haven't been able to look at it from the outsid.

The worst thing you can do as a technical expert is to ignore this advice. Ask questions. A lot of them.

</comment><comment><USER16> All great advice here. One other thing to consider is if the roles were reversed. What if you were still in your old field and a new senior member joined your team? She has 12 years of experience, but not in the field. What would be your expectations of her?

You'd likely expect that it's normal for her to take time to gain a bunch of context about the area. I promise you your coworkers feel the same way about you now.

Take the time to ramp up. No one is expecting gigantic impact from a senior person in their first three months.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER17> I speak from my experience as a contractor in the telco domain, whereby there I would work in some industries I had no clue about. For example, I once worked in health and had no idea about the amount of regulations they had to adhere to.

However I realised they had accepted me because I was an expert in telco, not health. Similarly, I suspect you were hired because of technical skills and not because of your lack of experience in their domain.

As such, I learned the skill of saying "Can you just explain xyz, please?" in a direct and confident way. Context matters, of course. I wouldn't interrupt a meeting. But there's a time and a place.

Hope that gives you something to think about.

</comment><comment><USER18> 1\. Act like you belong there. If you internalize the idea that you're a bit behind everyone (esp for your age), that you don't really "get" the tech, etc, etc, then your demeanor will reflect that and people will pick up on it; humans, even nerds, are social animals. If you're feeling especially insecure you should reflect on why the company hired you in the first place, and what particular skills or aptitude you bring to the team, and why that's valuable. If the answer to that is, "I don't know", then you're probably at the wrong job.

2\. Not talking in meetings is generally something that other people notice to the extent that you should be talking but are not. Without knowing the details of your particular situation (eg, maybe within your company's culture it actually IS a big deal that you don't talk in meetings), I would say that if doing your job requires you to be active in meetings in which you are currently quiet, fix that. If this is a case of you feeling insecure because you feel like others are fitting in better / earning more brownie points / etc, I would posit that this is something that you notice a lot more than others do, and advise you to keep your focus on being good at your job rather than comparing yourself to others.

3\. If you want management responsibility, I would suggest the following: a) ensure you are seen as a "set of safe hands" who knows how things work (tech and company processes) and can be entrusted to get stuff done and b) ensure that your manager and peers see you as a competent communicator. Once you are confident that a) and b) are both true, initiate a conversation with your manager about what type of leadership responsibilities you'd like to assume. If both a) and b) are not true, you shouldn't be angling for management roles.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER19> Make sure you understand the basics of the new domain extremely well. You don't need to know everything in depth, but every piece you do know needs to fit together in your mind.

Ask questions until you think you understand, then have someone confirm your understanding. Those with experience in the domain will be able to recognize the right questions being asked.

In my experience, most seniors in a company are willing to help you get up to speed if they see that you're actually trying to understand the domain as opposed to just learning enough to get by.

Even though it seems like everyone else has a good understanding of things, this is usually not the case. Often people have bits and pieces of domain knowledge, but not a thorough understanding. These are not the ones who can really help you.

Find someone who has a good understanding that you seem to get along with. Be proactive and ask them if you could pick their brain over a long off-site lunch and then ask a lot of questions.

</comment><comment><USER20> All I can say that sometimes I feel the same.

You have to accept this: you're at the mercy of your managers. If they hate you then you have no chance, OTOH if they love you, then you don't even have to lift a finger and you will be just fine, even if you're slower than you'd expected. Managers usually trust people based on gut feelings. I am still yet to see a competent manager who can evaluate the skills of his subordinates properly.

Also you didn't mention why did you join the new company in the first place? You have acquaintances working there? The company looked interesting from outside? You had met some employees in a tech meetup/hackathon earlier? Now we can only make assumptions.

Also make sure that you know why they hired you! I can't emphasize this one enough. Many times companies hire experienced people to do mundane tasks under the impression that they will do the shit that everyone hates faster. If this is the case, then RUN!!!! If it turns out that the new company has no roles which an experienced developer could enjoy like leading a team, or participating in design discussions or being a product manager then it's again a sign that you should just simply leave.

One other thing: smaller companies have a flat hierarchy. So there is no chance to step higher on the ladder. You should also consider if this is the case. In small companies it might take years or even decades until you can advance in your career. That might explain why they didn't put you in a PM/TL role.

There is one thing that many people in the tech industry overlooks: there simply cannot be everyone a tech lead/manager. The earlier you join a company or department, the better your chances are.

Also, some companies have seasonal busy periods. If they hired you during this busy period you might feel higher pressure. This might ease by time and you shouldn't take it personally (and you can even ask if that's the case).

</comment><comment> david-gpu Study. Learn. Listen to what your more experienced colleagues say, even if they are half your age. Basically, do what interns should do, because you are an intern now. And be thankful that you are not being paid like one.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've worked in a number of domains. My CV looks pretty unconventional. I went from telecomms, to renewable energy, then embedded electronics for instrumentation, a stint in academia, from there to high power radio and TV broadcast and now particle accelerators.

They are different industries but have the common thread of engineering with a heavy electrical and electronic bias. I think that is the secret, to have enough of a common thread and to bootstrap using knowledge gained from one industry to move to another. Also, systems analysis and problem solving generally transfer pretty well.

</comment><comment><USER22> One time I was listening to Artie Lange on the Howard Stern show talk about how he got interested in watching sports. (This is related, bare with me). He said something to the effect of "You want to get interested in a local sports team? Fine. How much money is in your bank account? Ok, $1,200 in your bank account. Great. Tonight go put $1,500 on the Nicks game. You won't be able to take your eyes off the TV."

I'm paraphrasing. The point is if you bet money you didn't have on a game, your stake in the outcome of that game would be HIGH.

Your challenge right now is, you have no stake in the matter. I heard someone say one time (Tim Ferris?) that success is just about incentives. Again, poorly paraphrasing.

The point is; with the right incentives you can accomplish amazing things. When I was single and dating, I was funny, charming and generous. The incentive there was obvious.

So how do you incentivize yourself to learn a new technology? Easy: create a situation where you MUST learn it. How? Sell (or promise) a project that includes finishing something in the tech you sold (or promised).

I would pick something that is slightly outside of your comfort zone, not WAY outside. The more you must get something done, the more you'll learn. You'll learn fast if you make a habit out of it.

Sometimes you can do it with a passion project too. So pick something that is important to you personally and just pick the tech you want to learn.

Programming is hard, the passion will carry you through the really hard problems.

<comment><USER23> I won't say the advice is good, but it's interesting at least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> At my company I find the culture mildly frustrating because we do so little to educate the new hires. Our method is to hire experience. So we now have a group of 25 design/engineer level people with a variety of project methods and a ragged list of skills. Because of this we can only accept small to medium projects. We would not be able to execute a large project because we don't have a large team, we don't have a uniform background or uniform method.

In my first engineering job there was training path and there was a "company way" of doing things. We hired all levels of experience and trained them on the skills and the company way as needed. I know a predefined method of project execution can be stifling, and that sometimes happened, but it was a good place to start.

At my current place, a person can roam the halls or chats and ask questions, but it is just too random. If someone is not delivering up to expectations, the engineering manager will visit tell them to improve. That is not what I call training. While it does work, somewhat, those who survive it simply reinforce whatever method of execution they develop in their own heads. The company grows by adding a small revenue stream, but not in the ability work together.

Finding your spot, developing your skills, learning your domain are mostly your responsibility. When you say "jobs were far to come by in my old area of expertise" that implies you are now in a better area to find a company more suited to you; maybe a more mentoring company. I agree with so much of the advice given to you so far. I will be working on myself using what I have read here. Some of the advice, however, was targeted at the time before you changed jobs. That is still possible.

</comment><comment><USER25> Depending on your colleagues it might be totally fine to sit mostly silently for whatever time period you need until you start feeling you actually _want_ to say something. The colleagues probably know your background, so they know there are large gaps in what you know about your current industry. Staying silent is at least better than desperately trying to speak of something you don't know about, IMO.

<comment><USER26> Agree. Give the process time. Many people are not very patient with trying to explain things that they consider obvious due to their experience in an area. This slows things down for someone who's ramping up. But over time, you piece things together and get to the bottom of things.

Also, if you ask a question and it gets shot down, you learn something from that too. You have to figure where the edge is before people start complaining.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> All four of your numbered points are about ego and politics. If that's what you're thinking about, worrying about, and spending time on, that's (ironically) the reason for all four problems. What are you doing to learn the new technology?

You're an expert in some ways and a beginner in others. Now that THIS is your job, you're a beginner in more ways than you're an expert. Act like a beginner does, ask lots of questions, learn the hell out of the new stuff, take notes like you already do and then _follow up on them_ later - look up every single word or concept you don't understand.

Don't believe you should be "having input into things" in meetings because you shouldn't, you're a n00b. Listen and learn like everybody does when they're new on the job.

Don't let colleagues or superiors have "expectations" that were probably unrealistic all along. You need support, and time (mentoring possibly too, but mostly time, if you have a modicum of initiative), to learn what you need to learn. You're not going to be "productive" right away. If anybody hired you under any different expectation, they were mistaken and now need to be corrected. If you had any different expectation, you were deceived as well. If you _sold_ yourself as an expert, that was only partly true. Come clean now. If anybody feels it was not a fair deal in light of this new understanding, then you should offer to end the deal i.e. resign.

If it feels awkward to suddenly change your behavior, you can make an announcement: "I thought my experience would serve me better than it has, so now I realize I'm a n00b and will commence to bother you all constantly with n00b questions." I guarantee the humility and the request for patience will result in a truly awesome outpouring of support. OR, you work with douchebags and should resign.

 _4\. When I see guys half my experience are miles ahead of me in terms of the tech skills in the new area, I wonder if I even have a chance catching up ?_

Yes you do, but these guys are not "half your experience" if they are miles ahead of you. If you played hockey 20 years, you'd understand a lot about teams, athleticism, and even the general principle of moving an object down the playing area toward a goal, as a team. Basketball is like that too, but since your basketball experience is 0, you'd still be worse at basketball than someone 19 years younger than you who played basketball for 1 year. And actually, you won't "catch up." All you can hope for is to have one year of basketball experience after one year.

</comment><comment><USER28> I can only help with 3 and 4, but I'll do so.

I've only been in the industry for about 5 years, but I've swapped company almost every year. When you're a junior, you rarely have the luxury to re-use the technical knowledge from one company when you jump to the next one. You'll carry with you the general development learnings, but specifics about platforms and domains are kind of thrown into the brain garage where they'll stay until you make an effort to dig them out.

Now, you're not a junior. You have 12 years of expertise. These are worth a lot. Even if your specifics might not be as relevant you still have the general learnings. Of course you're not the best guy around when it comes to an area you're new to. Why are you setting these expectations on yourself?

> When I see guys half my experience are miles ahead of me in terms of the > tech skills in the new area, I wonder if I even have a chance catching up ?

When it comes to your insecurities about this, just take a deep breath. You'll catch up dude. Everything's a process. Patience and persistence is all that's required.

</comment><comment><USER29> Consultants deal with this constantly. Most in my company change project every few years. New customer, new domain, new technology etc., and we do just fine. I think it's the mindset, is it your expectations you're not meeting and not theirs?

Anyways, common for consultants. I think searching for consultant-material would be what you're after.

</comment><comment><USER30> I'd add that at some point you want to discuss this with your manager. It might be entirely self imposed. Try to figure out if they are displeased with your progress thus far. Your colleagues think they should have hired someone with 12 years experience in this domain. You manager knew they would need to invest in you before you reached the level of your peers, even those with less overall experience. So long as your managers are happy, that's what really matters.

I'd recommend you form deeper relationships with the peers so they are helping you learn. Let them know you value their experience and they will be more likely to help. Constantly remind them, in a passive way, that you are learning. It sounds like they are competing with you, and you want them to be helping you. This will happen much better if you drive it. If you have to, get management involved, but that has it's own down sides and risks.

</comment><comment><USER31> About a year ago, I switched from full-time Java development (15 years, mostly server side -- some Swing) to full-time Javascript development (React at first, then Angular) with all of the mental anguish that the amazingly arcane world of modern Javascript entails. I did have a little bit of a leg up in terms of previous html/css experience, but other than that it was a whole new world.

It seems to me that there is no other way to go other than full immersion and feeling really dumb for quite some time. The thing is though that you really need to depend on an unshakable faith that you will eventually come through the other side. You need to be firmly convinced of this. If not, convince yourself. It really helps to have done these career pivots before (which I have) and that may be the best thing about being an older developer. I know that there is nothing that I cannot come to grips with given time and effort.

Some hints:

Never pretend you understand something unless you do. Always admit "I don't know that" rather than fake it. This rule can be bent for small stuff that you are going to look up when you get back from your meeting.

Take notes (which you seem to be doing already). This is what you will google when you get back to your desk! ;D

Have a really understanding tech lead. Of course, I realize that this is just luck and a crap shoot, but working with great teachers and humane people is always best.

Have faith in the fact that the problems in your new domain are largely (probably) problems of computation that are generally applicable in ALL programming domains. Look for patterns that you are familiar with, like: what are we actually doing here? Reading some data files, transforming the result and storing them somewhere else? Oh! It's ETL! I know this. Ignore the weird jargon and get to the heart of the matter.

Give yourself time to feel like a dunce. You aren't, it's just gonna take time.

</comment><comment><USER32> Define what "catching up" means. If you are like me, you have some idealized version of an expert in this domain, and you may or may not have the right idea. What does success mean in this field? What does success mean in this role? Often times we set the bar impossibly too high, and it makes us procrastinate getting started even more. Set a relaistic goal after researching and conceptualizing what "proficient" means, and break up how you will get there. Believe in the law of serendipity -- lady luck favors the one who tries. By even doing this you are already succeeding. You have my fondness. I hope it works out well for you because I am sure we will all need to do something similar at some point in our lives, especially when the big AI monster comes and eats all our jobs. (last part is a little facetious)

</comment><comment><USER33> I belive the transition to the new domain - that the new company knew about very well - should be assited by the right tasks to learn. To learn! - <USER2> is something we do day by day even by hanging on to existing domains: we miss and we fall. The process of learning will uncover the parts we can ask about. To ask! As others already mentioned: asking helps. Assuming you know what to ask. That's where the learning process helps itself: uncovers dtails and further topics to ask about. Asking includes not only people but information sources like Google and Wikipedia - and the kind you will discover on your own as relevant one to your domain. To me usally the process of learning the product first as a novice client on a basic level is the best to start with (ideally joining an introductory course). Not being sad if half of it is in greek. Remember the greek part as something to study next. Then - or maybe instead of it - receiving important but many times neglected tasks of documentation and testing, fixing outstanding tiny problems also helps. Carrying out these gives the satisfaction to be useful and so boost confidence, which in turn helps asking 'silly' questions. Newcomers ask silly questions, this is a fact, no way avoiding it and should not be avoided since these show lack of fundamental knowledge that the newcomer do not posess yet. Still newcomers afraid to ask because they lack some confidence (at least I do in such situations) so anything that boosts confidence a bit is a huge help. So small but important tasks might help a lot. All this is impossible without the assistance of the domain experts and the experts of the company culture (since the answer many times is not in the logics of the domain but in the culture or even the history of the particular company). It should be accepted that your initial pace is slower due to the requirements of the domain and company switch that comes with things to process. I believe the situation should be discussed honestly with the superiors as the least. They are as interested in productive work as you are and they may not have that high expectations for this period as you may think (being aware of your transition).

</comment><comment><USER34> At a certain point you have to crunch, but you should take notes but also share your notes. Present lists of questions from the notes you took last time and show off the fact you are trying to catch up. The most frustrating thing to a lot of teachers is people that nod along and then ask the same question next week.

Also another good thing is to dig and ask around for older documentation/simpler versions. It is a lot easier to sometimes work at the task at hand if you can compare the naive version to the one with hard-won fixes. Sometimes the simplest explanation for what you need to do is the first few times the idea was pitched, not where it is now where that is an accepted norm of knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER35> One bit of advice that I learned in art school and think applies to all sorts of learning is: "Work general to specific". When painting, you first block in large sections, then break those down into smaller sections, smaller and smaller until you arrive at the level of detail you want. I'm now a software developer, but take the same approach when learning a customer's domain or a new language or framework. I first get the "big picture", then break that down further and further by reading, asking, and listening.

Re number 4, yes, you have a chance, unless you got fired today. Have the attitude that you can and will learn this domain and quickly become an expert.

</comment><comment><USER36> I've found that subscribing to SafariBooks for a few months and reading through material relevant to my new domain to be useful. That said, where you're really going to shine are areas in your new domain that overlap with your previous domain.

<comment><USER37> Didn't know about SafariBooks. Any course / material you really liked or recommend?

<comment><USER36> safaribooksonline.com is the monthly rental version for O'Reilly's books. I generally stick with the O'Reilly books, and avoid Packt books like the plague. The case studies seem to be hit or miss. I haven't tried the videos yet, although it looks like that's where they're doing the most work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Search for areas of opportunity where you can make an impact with your current skill and grow from there. There are gonna be pockets of opportunity your org can't attack just because there is too much to do.

For example, I was a finance guy who switched to tech. Was the worst student in my programming bootcamp. Got a job and found a niche in testing. It met the company's needs and my skillset at the time. 3 years later I'm still not as skilled as other geniuses miles ahead of me but I'm doing great, work is great and my salary is top of market for a lead engineer.

</comment><comment><USER39> 1\. Commit to starting over and learning with fresh eyes

2\. Don't rely on old knowledge or pedigree as a crutch

3\. Humble yourself to your colleagues and ask questions

4\. Seek out mentors with the expressed purpose of learning

5\. Understand that new beginnings take time and purpose

</comment><comment><USER40> I'm doing this right now - Video to MES (manufacturing.) This isn't unusual at all - you understand the value of domain experience so do the things that will make you an expert.

1) Give training sessions to those who are also new. It will force you to learn the software. 2) pick up pager rotation. Supporting the software will force you into new areas of the domain.

Those are the things that will get you there fast. It's scary and hard but just wait 6 months to a year or so and you'll be effective. Any new domain that is sufficiently interesting takes a long time to get into.

</comment><comment><USER41> I think it's important to stay up to date on technologies/fields outside of your area of expertise so that the eventual switch to another domain is less of a complete overhaul for you.

</comment><comment><USER42> 1\. Complete most your tasks on time.

2\. Complete all your tasks on time.

3\. Come up with new ideas related to your domain.

4\. Implement at least one of your ideas.

If you manage to do that within a year, you'll be a good asset to your team at any given point. No one will excpect you to start at step #4. Be humble and keep asking questions until it's clear in your head. The tech world won't change tomorrow, cold, big ego, etc. though, time is your friend in this case so just be patient and follow those steps.

</comment><comment><USER43> I have done this few times and for me doing a side project in the new area always helped. Few other ways: \- online courses \- books \- take notes, but do read up about them \- see if the new team has a 'new joinee getting started' kind of document

Lastly I strongly recommend letting everyone know you are new to the domain. At the min. it will set expectations and usually you will get pointers.

</comment><comment><USER44> I worry about this sort of thing often.

While I don't have as much experience as OP in my current domain (Which happens to be the mortgage industry ~2 years) I still have the same feelings.

Whenever I would want to get a new job elsewhere I _hope_ that all of my knowledge isn't too domain specific to the point where it doesn't help me later on.

Any extra tips would be appreciated.

</comment><comment><USER45> Learning is social. You can pick up a lot "telepathically" (i use this word loosely) by just spending time with practitioners. They can give you the proper orientation and guidance. Just remain open, humble, courageous, empathetic, and persistent!

</comment><comment><USER46> Very good advice here. I have done it twice. The first time around I grew fast and was happy. This second time I am unhappy as the organization is slower, less nimble and very little room to grow and learn. I hope you will have luck with your choice!

</comment><comment><USER47> Just wait for your turn. Spend more time than others. Start with one initiative or issue and see it to the end. Focus on one thing at a time. You seem to be overthinking. Such initial hickups are common. We all have gone through them. All the best

</comment><comment><USER48> Here are some things I've found helpful:

1\. Most importantly, set your own expectations correctly.

No matter how you slice it, switching domains after years of experience is going to be tough. That's not to say it isn't the right decision, or won't be incredibly rewarding. It's just going to be challenging. I've had more personal success in these scenarios after accepting that fact, and not being so hard on myself for the ramp-up time.

2\. Identify people with expertise, and talk to them.

Don't get stuck in a research/reading rabbit hole. It can be tempting to sit back and try to replicate your prior expertise by reading/studying your new domain. Rather, find people you identify as experts and talk to them. Learn from their experience. Chances are it is your experience that made you an expert in your last domain, so do your best to learn from those with experience in your new domain.

I hope this helps!

</comment><comment><USER49> Identify that one person in your company who has both:

\- Knowledge of the domain

\- Ability and willingness to explain things clearly and succinctly

When questions come up, ask that one person, in private. Some of your questions will be:

\- I think I need to learn X, Y and Z. Which should I learn first?

\- How do I learn X?

</comment><comment><USER50> Can you give us more detail about how different the two domains are?

I assume it's not something like switch from web development to mobile or to dev ops. Something like from programming to data science or quant analysis?

</comment><comment><USER51> Start afresh by addressing the issue of your experience with your boss and setting expectations based on your current experience.

If that doesen't help, look for a job elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER52> You biggest advantage is your ability to learn. Don't be afraid to start learning the basics of the new domain.

</comment><comment><USER53> Sorry, to be clear, is there an actual (e.g. performance review?) problem, or are you just feeling imposter syndrome?

</comment><comment><USER54> It depends, if this new field is something growing, something with a perspective (eg ML, crypto) then keep on. Your insecurity will be your biggest motivator pushing you to the limit. In one year you will be better than your peers.

If this field isn't trending (eg VBA, print) then just look for another job.

In other words: Can you boost your personal market value with this job in one year?

</comment><comment><USER55> What is the particular domain?

</comment><comment><USER56> You sound like me.

All I can tell you is to fake it til you make it. It doesn't take _that_ long before your lack of experience in the particular subject at hand ceases to be the limiting factor.</comment>


Scaling to 50k users as a small startup - <AUTHOR> https://blog.tryhackme.com/50k-users/ <comment><USER2> I get that it's not supposed to be a technical blog post, but some details would've been nice.

What platform are they using? Major Cloud Providers? How'd they solve load balancing? HA-Proxy? Nginx? What tuning had been done?

What database are they using? What'd they use to determine the queries? What'd they end up doing with the hot queries?

VPN tunnels? What are they using? What's the underlying network?

More importantly, what challenges did they experience while scaling up? What things had to be fundamentally rewritten?

Maybe the author will see this and can answer some of the questions here.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am wondering how your startup can earn by doing this platform? I can't see any price plan or whatever...</comment>


Tips for Optimizing Linux Memory Usage (1994) - <AUTHOR> http://m.linuxjournal.com/article/2770 <comment><USER2> The link redirects to www.linuxjournal.com. If you remove the "m." from the address, it works.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is Linux anything like what it was like in 1994?

<comment><AUTHOR> The article is referenced by the Arch Linux FAQ in response to _Why is Arch Linux Using All My RAM?_

[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/FAQ](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/FAQ)

It's a useful model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Working link: [http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/2770](http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/2770)</comment>


Stopping the RSI pain that almost destroyed my programming career (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/11/18/rsi-solution/ <comment><USER4> I'd like to throw my two cents in here: strength training.

I started having problems with RSI about five years ago, and I tried and failed to get relief from quite a few different things, including the Mindbody Prescription, but what ultimately helped me the most was arm and grip exercises: pull ups, deadlifts, farmer's walks.

If you're going to do _anything_ for 8 hours a day, even sitting, you should be taking measures to make sure it doesn't impact your health.

<comment><USER5> Every time I see someone mention strength training around here I have to jump in and agree - it is the single greatest improvement I've made to my lifestyle thus far.

Lifting weights has the best return on time invested I've experienced, period. You can make progress and eliminate 90% of physical discomfort with 3 hours in the gym a week. All you really need are the main compounds. Throw in a couple cardio sessions if you're feeling ambitious and you will gift yourself years back onto your life and avoid all sorts of aches and pains.

<comment><USER6> Do you have any sort of routine you can recommend?

<comment><USER7> Starting Strength and Stronglifts 5x5 are probably the two most popular. These programs are based on what's called beginner gains. You wills start with what will feel like a very light weight, but you increase it every workout until you can't lift it anymore. You'll be amazed at what your body can do after 6 months of this.

When the parent said compound lifts they were referring to lifts that (when you are doing them heavy and correctly) are whole body exercises: Deadlifts, squats, and bench are the three main lifts. Programs will typically mix in some other lifts to round out the program a little like power cleans, overhead press, and bent over rows.

Most beginner strength programs are three days a week, I've found most people do Monday, Wednesday, Friday, but it's flexible as long as you have at least one rest day in between workout days. If you don't mess around and just go to the gym to work you can easily be done in 30-45 mins so under 3 hours a week is very realistic.

You will absolutely feel uncomfortable when you start. Everyone does. Read a lot about form and pay attention to yours (gyms have lots of mirrors, lift near some especially when you're starting out). It's really easy to hurt yourself once the weight increases if you have bad form. Consider getting a good personal trainer to teach you the fundamentals of the lifts.

<comment><USER8> Can strongly recommend Starting Strength, started out reading the book (written by Mark Rippetoe) back in January - started the program in February using the android app* as my guide. I feel better than I've done in years (I'm in my mid thirties)

Remember to eat well and make sure you get enough protein, otherwise it's hard to follow the program.

* = [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shabu.star...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shabu.startingstrength)

<comment><USER9> Starting Strength is a great program, but I can't understand how beginners are doing power cleans without any kind of guidance from a trainer. Power cleans are really hard to learn - it took me months of going to Olympic weightlifting classes to get even close to good form on them. How did you manage to learn this from a book?

Also, you need to be doing them on a lifting platform for the end of the lift, when you have to drop the weight all the way to the floor. Not too many gyms (in the UK, at least) seem to have these.

<comment><USER8> I did crossfit 2-3 times per week for 1.5 years around 7 years ago at a gym where there was a lot of focus on technique, so it's been a while, but I didn't start from scratch with regards to technique.

That being said, I'm sure I have bugs in some of the exercises, I try to work them out via. videos and focusing on technique before I put more weight on the bar.

All the gyms I've been to here in Denmark have lifting platforms, squat racks, etc. so that hasn't been a problem for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There are a lot of "what worked for me in here" and that's great, but I want to stress that people need to consider seeing a physician, and possibly an OTR/L several times. The anatomy of your arms are more complicated than you think and any number of issues can cause pain, weakness, tingling or numbness. These people work with these issues 40+ hours a week and are more equipped to target and fix the issue sooner than you are on your own.

Sometimes it's just one lifestyle choice you need to change to improve your health (e.g. posture), but for some people it's more complicated than that. Everyone's physiology is just a little bit different and responds differently to different treatments.

<comment><USER11> I've read lots of RSI stories and seeing a doctor never seems to solve the problem.

[https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes](https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes)

One example is John Ousterhout, the creator of Tcl/Tk, has had RSI for decades:

[https://web.stanford.edu/~ouster/cgi- bin/wrist.php](https://web.stanford.edu/~ouster/cgi-bin/wrist.php)

<comment><USER12> Primary care physicians are often switchboard operators - they hook you up with potential resources or referrals that may lead to a solution. The chances that any given PCP is going to know a lot about RSI is pretty small, they have literally the entire spectrum of human health to consider, not to mention the looming issues of obesity, heart disease, cancer, and other more damaging syndromes.

Personally, I found wrist pain to be of multifactorial origin: too much typing, driving, playing piano, not enough cardio, strength training, and relaxation vs. stress.

<comment><USER13> This is true, and I certainly don't blame PCPs for not being up to date on the specifics of low-frequency disorders like RSI.

But my frustration is that even the 'switchboard' component of PCPs seems to be broken on this topic - across several musculoskeletal issues, I've only ever gotten recommendations to surgeons (who then said "you're not sick enough yet"). PCPs didn't even know what kind of specialist to suggest for finding causes and reducing pain, and the internet wasn't much better.

At risk of saying "what worked for me", talking to a physical therapist was a huge help with each problem - they didn't have cures, but their education was much more relevant to saying "here are some common risk factors and pain reducers you could look into".

And yes - 'multifactorial' seems like the usual answer, so I'm not surprised everyone has a different fix.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I used to have RSI. Then I stopped using Emacs and it went away. It flared up one time when I had to do some data entry in Excel; but then I learned the hotkeys and it went away again.

Just stop using emacs, people. It's literally damaging you!

-vim user

<comment><USER15> I use Emacs but also completely 'hijacked' the way it works with keyboard shortcuts, making it similar to a GUI editor and ignoring/disabling typically emacs-y chords.

Good thing being that Emacs is powerful enough to completely change itself without much effort.

<comment><USER16> I am glad you shared that.

I did exactly this but was always too afraid to admit it publicly, because of Emacs 'purism' users.

I love Emacs exactly because of how highly customizable everything is (without other editors bloat) but equally because I can leverage the huge user-base to not spend an infinity amount of time on customizing.

Although I appreciate other people's experience may be different with vi/vim/emacs, in my personal case I don't have to remote into other machines so I can get away with a custom init.el on my machine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> No one knows what causes RSI. It might be multiple problems.

Anyway, on Github I've collected several dozen articles and created a table of things people have tried.

[https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes](https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes)

My personal feeling is that if programmers embraced voice input, simply not having to type when issues arise would help. Of course, most programmers will rant about how keyboards are so much more efficient, which they might be until you can't use one.

Here's the current state of voice programming:

[https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes/blob/master/progra...](https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes/blob/master/programming_by_voice.org)

<comment><USER17> Here's one for your list that worked for me within 1 week of starting: dropping wheat from my diet. Noticed you don't have diet as a category even.

For more detail, I was sleeping in two wrist braces every night and doing stretches and strength exercises for an hour or more a day before the diet changes. Now I don't need any exercises or braces.

When I regress for a day or two it comes back, but not as bad.

<comment><USER11> I've never seen an article on that. If you write one with your experience, I'll include it.

Why did you omit wheat? Was it in direct response to RSI?

<comment><USER18> Maybe a more general article on an anti inflammatory diet would be better. A quick search should gives results from some reputable liking sources.

There is also this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17109010](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17109010)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Reading Dr Sarno's book "The Mindbody Prescription" was what cured me. There was no physical cause. I haven't had issues since 2001, and I don't do anything specific to address the physical, the solution is purely psychological (though the symptoms were physical).

<comment><USER20> Did you really just _read_ the book or did it also tell you to also _do_ something about the "psychological", which you then did?

<comment><USER21> As strange as it sounds. I think people really improve just by reading the book.

Imagine one day you find an itch on your little pinky on your left foot. You never notice it before. Now spend all day thinking about it. Every day. It will be magnified, it will become unbearable. I think the book teaches you to shift your attention.

<comment><USER22> It's bizarre. I tossed the book away in disgust because it's crazy pseudoscience....and it still worked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Around 2004 I started having a sore right wrist. I saw a specialist who said it was a repetitive stress injury and not carpal tunnel. He prescribed some exercises but it didn't work. I moved to using my left hand to use the mouse, switched to ergonomic keyboards, tried a trackball, fancy ergonomic nice, adjusting my seat height, adjusting my desk height, and nothing worked. When I switched hands, my left wrist became sore too. Finally, finally, I tried using a pen tablet and the soreness disappeared. Turned out the motion that was killing my wrists was clicking the mouse with my finger and pushing my whole hand down to depress the pen instead worked out. I've been coding pain free ever since. The way to make a repetitive stress injury heal is to figure out a way to stop making that motion over And over again.

<comment><USER24> I had this wrist pain 2 times in my life. If I would put pressure on that wrist (eg to do pushups), it would hurt like hell.

I was always able to fix it by using the keyboard shorcuts more. Navigating to menus with alt etc.

</comment></comment><comment> pure-awesome Hmm, this article makes me think some people's RSI problems may be caused by Raynaud's Disease.

[https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/raynauds- dise...](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/raynauds- disease/symptoms-causes/syc-20363571)

It's more a description of symptoms than a description of cause, but being able to put a name on it makes it easier to ask about and Google. Basically, anything that can help treat this might be able to help with related RSI.

<comment><USER25> Both my wife and youngest daughter have Raynaud's. It's really obvious due to the external signs - though, as you say, I'd never have known what it was and that it was a thing before my wife told me about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I did a few things to stop my RSI pain:

1) Use an alt keyboard layout. Use colemac. It's easier to learn than dvorak and decreases finger travel at the keyboard

2) Stop using a mouse. I used a trackball for a while but it has its own issues. I use a cheap wacom bamboo tablet now. It's far and above more ergonomic than any other device I've used as a pointer.

3) Use a kinesis advantage. Blank keycaps for style points.

4) Use your left hand. I use the wacom bamboo tablet with my left hand (I'm right handed.) This has had amazing results for me personally with the wacom because my left wrist does not bent/turn at all - I move entirely from my elbow primarily because I'm not that dextrous with my left hand.

I did them in that order but I'd recommend swapping the keyboard and mouse first, as they have the biggest bang for the buck in terms of ergonomics. The alt keyboard layout is marginal. Left hand was big for me personally.

All of these items take some time and effort, in particular learning another keyboard layout. And the kinesis also has a relatively steep learning curve relative to other keyboards. Don't do it all at once - it's a multi year journey but hey - no more hand pain! I still use a regular tenkeyless mechanical keyboard and mouse at home in the studio, and obviously carry a laptop for work, but my use of these is fairly infrequent relative to the 40+ hours a week at my desk at work.

<comment> ryan-c How long did it take you to learn colemac?

> 3) Use a kinesis advantage. Blank keycaps for style points.

These keyboards are quite expensive, but totally worth it. My previous employer offered them as one of several keyboard options. I went with it due to some pain, it took maybe 6 weeks to used to the layout. Ended up buying one a few months later when they went on sale (usually 10% off around black Friday), as my pain had gotten dramatically better. The company that makes them is also pretty hacker friendly - they sell spare parts and they've been willing to help people who want to make custom controllers for their keyboards.

I actually hacked a trackpoint (harvested from an old IBM desktop keyboard) into my kinesis and used that for a while, but due to the way the sensor works it really needs a solid mounting to work well which I just couldn't achieve.

I personally have had decent luck with a vertical mouse (anker makes a cheapish one that works fine).

<comment><USER27> > How long did it take you to learn colemac?

Not the guy you replied to, but I switched to Colemak last year. It took me about 3 weeks to get to a "usable" state, and maybe 2 months to get within 75% of my previous speed with qwerty. My progression was roughly:

0-1 weeks: Can't type anything without looking at the key map. I would switch back to Qwerty if I needed to type something long out (emails mainly).

1-2 weeks: Weird phase. I can't effectively type in either qwerty or Colemak unless I really "focus" on it. It's hard to describe, but this week was terrible for productivity :)

3+ weeks: Forced myself to use Colemak exclusively. During this time I started doing real typing exercises, and turned off autocomplete in my IDE, since I found that was detrimental to learning. I also wrote a ton of documentation for a couple of my projects, which involved a lot of typing.

Before I switched, I would get intermittent pain in my wrist (maybe twice a month), which has since completely disappeared. When I need to type in Qwerty now, it is very uncomfortable, in a way that Colemak never was.

<comment><USER28> I can confirm all of this learning Dvorak. Having seen this with myself and others, it really is like a short version of learning a language and seems to use the same part of my brain. There's that period where you're not good in either layout and you need to get something done like you're saying (but after all the fun initial gains) and that's when most folks quit. If you can push past that week or so, it seems you're good. It's painful though.

And yeah, I can still touch-type in Qwerty too, but it feels like contorting my hands in knots. I can type it in fine, I just never noticed before how crazy you have to move your hands to do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This post is for those who believe that they will never get RSI symptoms. Don't be foolish. I spent my teens and twenties pounding away at a keyboard with a slouch and bad posture. No pain. Eventually it got to a point where my forearms experienced soreness after a long binge of typing. Luckily, a night of rest "solved" the problem. Then, the recovery period became longer - <USER2> weekend, three days, using a heat pack. Finally, and this is the reason why I am writing this, the soreness never went away. Once you pass a certain point with active denial, your body gets damaged. Like another poster mentioned, at that point you need to spend equal time counteracting the effects of what you did with something like functional fitness or strength training. RSI once it reaches a certain point, like most problems in life, does not go away. It can only be managed. All the advice and personal experiences shared here is good but keep in mind that the best time to manage RSI is before symptoms appear. Don't fall for the premise that there is a solution for RSI without addressing the root cause, continually and daily.

</comment><comment><USER30> My RSI ended up being due to an anomaly in the structure of the sheath my tendons pass through. I went through doctors, NSAIDs, cortisone shots, physical therapy, and all the ergonomic adjustments you can think of. Finally, a surgeon just 'fixed the glitch'.

All the other advice is still good advice -- but sometimes you have a mechanical problem, so dropping conversations with doctors just because their first treatment failed may not be the right move - there are further actions to explore. And if nothing is working, it is worth finding out whether there is a deeper underlying problem to resolve.

<comment><USER31> Can you elaborate on how the issue was found? I've been through similar treatments, even had carpal tunnel release just to see if it would help (it didn't).

How would you describe the pain? All of mine is in the fingers, exclusively. No wrist pain.

<comment><USER30> I initially went in because my wrist was hurting when I coded all day, sometimes shooting up my forearm. At the first appointment, they had me put my thumb inside my fist, and try to move my hand down (Finkelstein's test) - <USER3> had no motion and lots of pain, so the diagnosis was easy - DeQuervain's syndrome... totally different than carpal tunnel, but still an RSI coders get. For most people, it heals easily, but not in all cases:

We went through the standard steps for this problem - rest, ergonomic changes, a cortisone shot, then physical therapy. Nothing worked, so I consulted a surgeon, who gave me an additional shot with more expertise in exactly where to give it. That actually helped for 6 months, but when I called back after the pain recurred, they said surgery is the last resort, but also the best option in my specific case, as it is a simple fix and almost always works. During the surgery, they found that my tendon sheaths were bisected, leaving less room than normal for movement through the wrist.

As far as the pain, it was very focused on the side of my wrist at the base of my thumb, in particular when moving the hand to the outside of the wrist.

All that being said, the bigger lesson I got from it all is that not all RSI pain is the same problem. Hand specialists know how to tell the difference between all the problems and can give you guidance on which treatment will help. At the same time, general practitioners do not have the same level of knowledge, and may waste your time running you through treatments that won't work. So if you are having problems... ask a hand/wrist specialist for help.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "At some point during this period I read one of Dr. Sarno's books. His theory is that long periods of pain are not due to actual injury, but rather an emotional problem causing e.g. muscles to tense up or reduced blood flow. There are quite a few people who have had their pain go away by reading one of his books and doing some mental exercises. [... it works, then it stops working, author makes tenuous connection to the cold in their office...] I started wearing a sweatshirt and hand warmers at work, and I avoided caffeine on the days I went to the office. The pain went away, and so far hasn't come back."

Good for them. Sounds like a particular case, but I guess if you feel uncomfortably cold in your office, you should do something about it.

<comment><USER32> It might be for them that they didn't feel cold as such, just that it was cold enough for blood flow to the extremities to be restricted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I used to get RSI, then I switched to a Microsoft Natural Keyboard about a decade and a half ago (I'll be sad if this line ever goes away), and my issues went away. At every job I've had, I find the same thing happens. I start, and have a normal keyboard. Within a few weeks the RSI is back again. I expense a Natural Keyboard, switch to it and the RSI goes away again.

This last job change was way more dramatic. They gave me a magic keyboard. Those things are a cramped, ergonomic nightmare. My RSI came back within a single day of typing on the damn thing. I had to get rid of the magic mouse for similar reasons too (arching your finger and wrist, like you need to do to tap it, is similarly bad)

<comment><USER34> It really can not be overstated how inhumane Apple's desktop peripherals are. I honestly can't think of worse mice or keyboards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I've never had RSI severe enough to have to stop working because of it, but the minor issues I once had were completely cured by taking up indoor rock climbing.

Of course I don't know exactly why it worked, but my guess is that a) it massively increases blood flow into your forearms and hands, and b) it strengthens all the small muscles and tendons in your forearms and hands _so much_ that typing and other movements don't even register as "strain" anymore.

If you start climbing, start slow and easy and build very slowly, especially if you are an athletic person who is used to improving fast and pushing yourself. The tendons in your fingers get stronger much more slowly than you expect.

</comment><comment><USER36> For Emacs users, common wisdom is to swap control and caps. I urge you to try swapping left control with left alt instead. Thus you can use your left thumb to hit control and right thumb to hit Meta (alt). Map Esc to capslock if you use Evil-mode. Linux commands for x windows:

      setxkbmap -option 'caps:escape'
      setxkbmap -option 'ctrl:swap_lalt_lctl'

This works well for me and would probably work even better if my keyboard had big alt keys.

Edit, as another user said, everyone should probably be using sticky keys. On linux I run

      xkbset sticky -twokey -latchlock

on login with Xorg. Sorry, not sure how to do this under Wayland.

<comment><USER37> Excellent advice. I also swap control and alt _on both sides_. This means I can reduce the amount of chording needed and use alternate hands together.

<comment><USER36> Interesting. How do you hit the Meta key if you swap on both sides? With a pinky?

<comment><USER37> Normally, I use a Kinesis, so it would be thumbs for both. But on my laptop, yes I would use pinkies for both shift and alt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The #1 thing that has always worked for me, and I've been addressing this for years .. since 1983 .. has been to switch things up.. Change my keyboard at least twice a year.

You know that whole vim vs. emacs debate? Actually, thats really healthy for you. If you don't wanna have sore knuckles every week, use both.

It really helps to switch it up.

In 1984, I was mostly a user of 8-bit style keyboard systems. Had MSX, had British-8bit, had a bit of American..

In the 90's I had a lot of American. I mean, who hasn't had a bit of IBM or Cherry or two, amirightkids?

All through this period, there were periphery effects where I could observe my hands saying, enough is enough. Please do something else for a while so pathways can be repaired.

So, I did it. I've pushed all kinds of switches in response. Turns out, this is good for all kinds of other reasons too (pollygots ftw) and so on.

But every year I think to myself, how well are my hands behaving? And the answer always comes back to, did I upgrade my main machine this year?

(Disclaimer: ready to ditch Apple and go with someone else, unibody..)

<comment><USER39> I did something similar back in 1997 or so. Instead of switching keyboards or input programs, I switched keyboard layouts. I switched to dvorak, and (after a month or two where I couldn't type well in either layout) the pain went away and hasn't come back. I use qwerty at work and dvorak at home now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I wholeheartedly recommend the excellent Kinesis Advantage 2. It's relatively expensive for a keyboard, but absolutely worth the money for anyone who uses a keyboard professionally for hours every day. It also has featureful firmware and the ability to remap keys in hardware. I wish I had purchased one years ago. My typing is faster and feels like much less effort.

<comment><USER32> I want to get me one of those, but I tend to use my mouse a lot; it's more aimed at people that can actually use keyboard-only interfaces I think.

I've got a (tenkeyless) wireless mac keyboard, the low profile really works for me. Wouldn't mind if it was a split keyboard though.

<comment><USER40> The Advantage layout is definitely one that sort of insists on two hands if you want to reach anything that the right hand types regularly and/or you want to use the arrow keys. The keywells are open on the outside edge, so it is pretty easy to slide one's hand over onto a mouse or trackball, but I agree that a conventional layout has at least some advantage there (I think a split keyboard would fall somewhere in the middle).

I don't find it to be much of an issue in practice, because I use the Advantage 2 along with a CST L-Trac trackball, which sits right beside the keyboard and can be operated with just a couple of fingers. They have a model which can accept external buttons, which is the one I got, so I also have duplicated the LMB and RMB next to the other side of the keyboard. In this way I could theoretically use the cursor with my left pinky and click with the right pinky without taking my hands off the keyboard, although it's not particularly effective (or necessary).

FWIW I am someone who uses mouse-driven interfaces all the time, although I guess emacs more than makes up for it with the amount of keyboard activity it demands.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I may just be imagining things, but it seems a disproportionate number of RSI- suffering programmers use emacs. From my own experience, I suffered the worst RSI of my life while using vim. It subsided a bit when I moved to Sublime and almost completely went away from I switched to VS Code. Obviously correlation does not imply causation and I have taken a number of other steps to fight RSI (ergo keyboard, heavy keyboard remapping) throughout the years.

<comment><USER42> Did these editor changes correlate with any other life changes, e.g. job change?

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I've been using a keyboard for over 20 years and I'm fortunate enough to not have any pain or RSI related issue. I've always used regular stock keyboards and whatever mouse felt comfortable to me (Logitech's G400 fits my hand like a glove).

This is even with many years of hardcore clicking and "worst case scenario" things when playing massive gaming sessions back in the day.

But, one thing I've always done from the beginning is to make sure my forearms are parallel to the floor. I always make sure my hands are well supported on the keyboard[0], and my elbows are well supported (on a chair's arm rest).

One thing that sucks about a standing desk (something I've been using for 2.5 years) is you lose that elbow support since your forearms tend to dangle.

[0] This doesn't necessarily mean resting them on the home keys. I don't know how to type properly and over the years developed my own crazy system. I'm pretty sure if anyone saw my typing, ergonomic is the last thing they would describe it as.

<comment><USER32> My main issue with standing desks (and most regular desks actually) is that I like to have the keyboard relatively low (forearms parallel or slightly downward) and the display at eye height (well, top row at eye height, maybe a bit higher); most screens don't go this high. Luckily most of my workplaces have had printers, and where there's printers there's the best monitor stands you can get: packs of A4 paper ;). Anyway I need a few more of those for a standing desk.

I'm not a fan of actually supporting elbows, that (for me) would lead me to leaning on them, which leads to 'hanging' and shoulder / neck issues.

<comment><USER43> When I had a sit down desk, I always tried to get desks with the keyboard pull out draw.

I also much prefer having the keyboard / mouse low, but then I just adjust my chair to also match that height so my forearms rest naturally.

Funny enough that's exactly what I used to prop up my monitors too. It's so good because you can fine tune the height by just removing a chunk of sheets.

If you sit up straight, the weight should be pretty evenly distributed. It felt like floating on air.

In the end I guess that's what matters. Try to find a set up that puts absolutely no strain on your forearms, wrists and hands.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Even healthy people should turn on sticky keys: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky_keys](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky_keys)

Pressing, Ctrl, Shift, etc. combos strains your hand. With sticky keys you can press key combinations by hitting the keys one after the other, instead of simultaneously.

<comment><USER45> A couple of years ago I heard that one should press Shift/Ctrl/Alt using one hand and other key(s) of the combination using the other hand. At first, it was awkward. I had felt that I was soooo slow. But after a week or two I got used to it. Now I can't even imagine going back to using just one hand for the combos and for sure the stress on my wrists is lower.

<comment><USER44> Pressing, for example, Ctrl+C is simpler with the left hand only and if one uses sticky keys then it's two separate keypresses, no stressing of the wrists needed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I had bad RSI in 2010/2011 that I cured. Then it came back in a mild but tolerable form for several years. Last summer it exploded again, and I took steps to solve it more permanently. Here's what has worked for me:

* Highly skilled physio who did MAT. Most physios did nothing for the problem. But, I found one who had been the physio for the local pro football team. Unlike the others, he didn't use ultrasound.

* Trigger point therapy massage. Far more effective than regular massage. Hard to find a good practitioner

* Handshoe mouse. A lot of my troubles were causes by mousing or trackpads. This mouse has been astonishingly comfortable. I think it forces you to use the shoulder and have good wrist flexion

* Using the keyboard I used while recovering. I tried any number of mechanical and ergo keyboards, but then remembered that in 2011 I had comfortably types a million words while recovering. I checked and found I had used the logitech MK320. I bought it again and have been able to type more. No idea why this cheap rubber dome keyboard has been so good for me

* External monitor raised up. After recovering, I switched to a mac and used laptops. Using it as a laptop was dumb; while recovering I had an external raised up. I did this again and I think the improved neck posture helps.

I was already doing weight lifting, so the "get strong" advice you commonly see in these threads didn't apply. Though I think the problem would have been worse without it.

Also, I find mobile phone use can contribute. I hold mine with my pinky, and this leads to strain. I haven't figured out how to hold them well, because they should be up near eye level to prevent neck strain.

Can anyone tell me how to make lists that doesn't format as a code block? Double spacing seems to be the only way not to have list items all on the same line.

<comment><USER17> I was spending an hour a day doing stretches and exercises and sleeping with two wrist braces.

Then I dropped wheat from my diet and it went away within a week. I was the true skeptic going in, so I returned to wheat a few times and the pain comes back every time within a day or two.

<comment><USER46> Interesting. I don't have that, but goes to show why trying a variety of things is smart.

I tried a bunch of stuff that didn't work. The stuff that did work always made a differece very quickly. Often within a day or two. Becomes startling when a problem is otherwise intractable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> There might be something to the cold hands thing. Handwarmers are a ubiquitous accessory in the esports community.

[http://businessinsider.com/esports-hand- warmers-2015-8](http://businessinsider.com/esports-hand-warmers-2015-8)

<comment><USER48> Having been a gamer (long ago), and a developer now, cold hands directly impacted reaction time and precision, which in turn made one "get pwn'd". But I didn't feel like it hurt more (or at all, no RSI problems here, cross fingers).

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> My experience:

1\. Get ibuprofen for the pain.

2\. Cut down on time at the machine. Use the minimum you need.

3\. Stop using your phone/tablet so much.

4\. Start walking as much as possible. You will not believe how much this helps.

5\. Change your mouse. [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wireless-Vertical-Ergonomic- Optical...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wireless-Vertical-Ergonomic- Optical-1600DPI/dp/B00BIFNTMC/)

6\. Go see a physio for advice on exercises.

7\. Swimming for long-term strength and prevention.

It's worth adding that stress can be a significant factor, so if you're stressed you should address that too.

</comment><comment><USER50> Good keyboards and pointer devices are not as expensive anymore, both in money and learning time terms. My picks:

Kinesis Freestyle Edge (never mind the "Gaming" slant): [https://gaming.kinesis-ergo.com/edge/](https://gaming.kinesis-ergo.com/edge/)

A big-ball trackball (not the thumb-operated ones): [https://www.kensington.com/us/us/4493/trackballs](https://www.kensington.com/us/us/4493/trackballs)

</comment><comment><USER51> A prioritized list:

0\. If you are in pain, stop immediately.

1\. Posture: get an ergonomic assessment at work, follow it. A proper posture should not injure you. While typing your wrist should not be at an angle.

2\. Stretching: physical therapy will train you to do it correctly. poor stretching will harm you even more.

3\. Wrist braces help preventing injury. Ice and ibuprofen can help managing pain. But pain is useful to understand what is harming you.

4\. Get ergonomic hardware. A mechanical keyboard can be softer than a regular one.

<comment><USER52> Mechanical ergonomical (angled) keyboards are currently very expensive / rare. I read that many coders are enjoying the Microsoft Sculpt as an alternative.

<comment><USER37> Expensive relative to what? Certainly not expensive relative to the rest of your computer and your office chair. It's a great shame that so many of us are willing to put up with the ten dollar keyboards that come complimentary with desktop machines. The keyboard is the primary input device used for many hours every working day. We deserve better.

<comment><USER52> > Expensive relative to what?

It would cost me half my monthly salary, if I didn't get taxed. For something that I might not even get used to and have no one to sell it to in the local market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I had the same kind of problem. For me resolving the issue was as simple as learning and using the dvorak layout. Having a different and entirely more efficient way to type completely resolved the problems I was having. This in combination with a typematrix keyboard has ensured that I never once experienced hand pain in more than ten years working with code.

Before, when using QWERTY on a regular keyboard, I reached a point where I could no longer type at all without pain. Although I code I mostly write prose and messages. After switching I can type on QWERTY without pain as the original injuries healed, but I can feel after several hours how difficult and uncomfortable it is to type on that layout.

If you're at a point where you can no longer type why wouldn't you consider changing the layout of your keyboard? Even if it's to something substandard in many ways it at least ensures you use your hands and arms in different patterns. It's also a nice exercise for the mind.

</comment><comment><USER54> I solved my problem by getting serious massage therapy. For a long time I thought I had carpal tunnel, but the real problem was super tight muscles in my back and shoulder. After one painful massage the burning, tingling and pain in my hand and wrist was gone. Outside of getting an occasional massage, the answer was a regular routing of weightlifting.

</comment><comment><USER55> Pretty much as a rule, you will find Emacs users with wrapped wrists. When you point out that editor of choice might be the cause, you will hear all kinds of explanations and excuses. They are also biggest market for Kinesis and other ergonomic products.

I had few times wrist pain and it is usually due to mismatch of height of the desk and the chair.

</comment><comment><USER56> As a data point, I had "RSI" wrist pain for many years, and finally determined that it was psychosomatic. Sarno is spot on — I've been pain-free for the last 10 years after understanding the real cause.

If you have symptoms which are not easily explainable, and especially if they vary, it is worth taking the effort to read his books.

</comment><comment><USER57> Failed Solution #1 has mostly worked for me. I regularly wear a wrist guard and bought an Evoluent vertical mouse and have seen great improvements. The wrist guards actually caught on a bit at my last workplace. I think maybe people were afraid it looked dumb then once it started people realized they should just go for it.

</comment><comment><USER58> > a Kinesis Advantage keyboard

There are a lot of nice alternatives to this, too.

If you are happy spending >$300 on a keyboard, [https://shop.keyboard.io/](https://shop.keyboard.io/) is definitely worth looking into.

If you are feeling more frugal, there are all kinds of options. Anything "ortholinear" is an improvement. We don't need typewriter-staggered layouts. Anything that puts modifier keys near the thumbs instead of palms is also helpful.

Here are some great open-source designs:

[https://olkb.com/planck](https://olkb.com/planck)

[https://www.ergodox.io/](https://www.ergodox.io/)

[https://github.com/adereth/dactyl- keyboard](https://github.com/adereth/dactyl-keyboard)

</comment><comment><USER59> The cause of my RSI was using arm rests on the chair and resting the wrists on the desk. It led to scrunching up my shoulders which ended up causing severe neck and shoulder soreness. This setup also caused pain in the underside of my forearm when using the mouse for extended periods of time.

So I got rid off arm rests on my chair and put the keyboard and mouse on a tray and put the tray on my lap. That was the neutral resting position for my arms. And it got rid of my RSI for the most part.

If you've tried other options for your RSI and still can't find respite, check if typing from your lap alleviates pain. You can test this using a laptop. If using your laptop on your lap for long periods feels less stressful as opposed to typing and mousing from your desk, it means the least stressful position for your arms is at the level of your lap.

</comment><comment><USER60> The cause of RSI is bad blood flow in your arm (starting at your neck).

So you have to figure out why blood flow is bad. And this might be different from person to person.

Some personal experiences:

      * Bad posture.
      * Stress causing neck muscles to block blood flow.
      * Working too long.

</comment><comment><USER61> My experience of eliminating RSI:

1) Consider getting a big trackball and learning to use it with your wrong hand,

2) Get a better keyboard,

3) Work slower,

4) Walk as much as you can,

5) Lose weight,

6) Manage stress.

In common with many others, I believe there's an emotional and/or stress context to pain, and you need to fight conditions such as RSI on multiple fronts.

</comment><comment><USER62> other useful books along these lines are Becoming a Supple Leopard, The Body Keeps The Score, anything by Joe Despina

In my estimation, especially on the east coast, most people are more tense than they consciously realize

I enjoyed that you pointed out avoiding caffeine as a way to detense

<comment><USER62> that should say Joe Dispenza

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I still don't understand why palm-pressing[1] the Ctrl key in Emacs is not a thing. No pain, no stretching, and you can make use of both left and right Ctrl. Lately I'm even using a Ctrl+Shift combination, both pressed with the palm at the same time. Xah Lee was not wrong about it. It was actually the most important thing I've learned from his website. Take it, use it, learn it and I promise you, after a month or two, it's muscle memory, it's natural and pain free.

[1] [http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_pinky.html](http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_pinky.html)

</comment><comment><USER64> I'm not sure how much I agree with this post but what personally worked for me was simply using the mouse with my left hand instead of my right. I play a lot of video games and 15 years of intense clicking has taken its toll on my right hand so I just limit the mileage I put on it now.

That's not to say never use your right hand at all - If I was playing some FPS I'd happily switch to using my right hand again but giving it extended periods of rest (by not using the mouse) and hitting tough key combos with my left hand (Cmd + Shift + 4 + Space for a screenshot anyone?) were what made things better for me.

</comment><comment><USER65> I've had RSI 20 years ago for about 1 year. At the time, my life basically revolved around two activities, both known to have an impact on RSI (and more specifically, CTS): programming / surfing the Web, and playing the bass.

Cold temp, as in the OP, was probably one of the issues. It went away, and didn't reappear since, by using open glove when typing / playing the bass, and doing some hands / wrist stretches before / during work and practice.

</comment><comment><USER66> I've used Workrave ([http://www.workrave.org/](http://www.workrave.org/)) with success for light RSI symptoms. It's a small piece of software that prompts you to take regular breaks from the computer. It's a bit cumbersome, but being forced to move away from the computer every now and then also has its advantages.

</comment><comment><USER67> The Sarno thing worked for me and for another friend of mine. I can personally vouch for it.

It was seriously bad and now I don't even have it.

</comment><comment><USER68> I couldn't use a computer for 9 years. Then I followed "The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook: Your Self-Treatment Guide for Pain Relief" by Clair Davies. Within 3 days I could type for 1 minute, within 9 months I could work again, but with occasional relapses. It is still the best $30 I ever spent.

</comment><comment><USER69> What helps me:

1\. Ergonomical keyboard and vertical mouse

2\. QFMLWY instead of QWERTY [1]

3\. Massaging forearms with a Lacrosse ball

4\. Strength training: climbing or "rolling" a long barbell held behind back.

5\. Theraband exercises

[1]: [http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization](http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization)

</comment><comment><USER70> Ergonomics help, using the mouse less help but what really helped me was [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyroscopic_exercise_tool](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyroscopic_exercise_tool)

(It takes a bit to get the hang of it though)

<comment><USER51> Mousing should not injure you if done properly. Try using your shoulder rather than elbow. A short keyboard (no keypad) can help too.

<comment><USER71> Can you explain the biomechanics of what you mean? Not sure how elbows and shoulders relate to proper and improper mousing.

<comment><USER51> This is advice given to me during an ergonomic assessment.

<comment><USER71> Yes, but what was the advice?

<comment><USER51> 0\. Sit straight, arms to the side. Adjust desk and chair so elbows are in a 110 degrees angle.

1\. Use a short keyboard (no keypad) so mouse and keyboard can be closer.

2\. Move mouse using shoulder rather than elbow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> I started getting RSI in the early 2000s and switching to a Kinesis Advantage fixed it all. Occasionally I get sore when I use my laptop without the Kinesis for extended periods of time, but the Kinesis is all I need. I think also using a trackball helps a lot as well.

</comment><comment><USER73> When I saw RSI in the title, first thing I thought was "emacs!" Sure enough, emacs.

</comment><comment><USER74> As a software solution there's a free program called Workrave that will help time micro breaks, stretches, etc.

I find it's helpful to have actual timers and reminders and it sort of helps me keep pace on how fast the day is going and how much time I have left.

</comment><comment><USER75> I used to get bad pain in my right shoulder from using a mouse. I switched to a keyboard that doesn't have a num pad so that I don't have to reach so far to use the mouse and haven't had pain since.

</comment><comment><USER76> I was starting to have RSI related issues. My pinky and ring finger were going numb, tingles up my wrist, and sore wrists. A lower desk and an ergonomic chair did wonders and I no longer have issues.

</comment><comment><USER77> I felt the first twinges of carpal tunnel years ago and switching from the crappy "free" keyboards you get with any PC to a quality Cherry keyboard cleared it up immediately. G80-11900 is my favourite.

<comment><USER36> Which switch did you use? I find that mechanical keyboards often cause more pain since many keys require a lot of force to activate.

<comment><USER77> Using black at the moment, I have also used red.

<comment><USER36> Thanks, I may try one of those. Which did you like better and why?

I'm used to using Browns, which I find to be okay, but I really dislike Blue switches.

<comment><USER77> I think on balance I like the Black better, but the switch isn't the only factor - the layout of the Touchboard on which I have black is different from the MX Board in which I have red.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Related content from a former colleague: [http://www.amlie.name/how-i-beat- rsi/](http://www.amlie.name/how-i-beat-rsi/)

</comment><comment><USER79> My advice is get a soft silicone wrist rest and a silicone mouse rest. I used to get RSI until I got some of these rests and since then I haven't had any issues.

</comment><comment><USER80> For me it was riding a motorcycle again: pressing the clutch over and over again healed it, although I don't recommend it because I almost fell a couple times.

</comment><comment><USER81> Everyone has a different anecdotal experience.

I hurt the ulnar nerve in my left hand in 2013 bicycling. The doctor put me into a brace and put me on some strong muscle relaxants for 2 weeks. I went to work and typed with the brace on under the influence of the drugs. I already had a long history (20+ years of regular weight training) and was really fit. I had previous moments of discomfort over the years from bad keyboards or overly cold office environments and such but nothing serious. This was at a point where I'd been on the computer a lot for 20 years or so.

When I got out of the brace and off the drugs I immediately had full blown RSI in _both_ arms. According to the doctor it looked like I had tendonitis in the flexor muscles.

I went through everything they asked and nothing worked. I could "manage" but was annoyed every day at work. All kinds of keyboards and pointing devices didn't help much. The most helpful thing was using a foam roller to massage the muscles of my forearms. This was not something suggested by the doctors or PT, which was really annoying. The foam roller works better than having a person massage your arms or use the ultrasound treatment on your arms. Most of the physical exercises they prescribed & stretching made things worse!

At some point I discovered drinking black/green tea was causing the muscles in my arms to tighten up. It was causing it throughout my whole body but for some reason that didn't really cause any symptoms in other parts of my body.

When I eliminated the tea the symptoms started going away within a day or two and then my forearms slowly got stronger and stronger over time. I was able to get back to all the exercise/weight training/cycling, etc.. pretty quickly. I had never really stopped the exercise anyway but it always caused inflammation until I got off the tea. Maybe the tea had a circulatory effect on me, who knows.

It was not caffeine. I can drink all the coffee/soda/energy drinks I want without the symptoms returning. I don't drink that much of them but whatever it was, it's not caffeine, it's one of the other compounds in tea, of which there are a lot and of which most are not that well understood.

</comment><comment><USER82> Eliminating the use of a mouse and replacing it with a Wacom tablet dramatically improved my symptoms. So much for my backup career as a eSports gamer.

</comment><comment><USER83> Best advice that worked for me: make sure the daily repair is more than the damage. For me that meant more exercise and regular breaks every hour.

</comment><comment><USER84> What worked for me was to do more stretches on the forearms there was one that was particularly useful in helping to release the ulnar nerve.

</comment><comment><USER84> I've heard of docs that prescribed serotonin and anti depressant medications to attempt to fix pain issues

</comment><comment><USER85> Kinesis keyboard was a lifesaver for me.

</comment><comment><USER86> TL/DR: "I started wearing a sweatshirt and hand warmers at work, and I avoided caffeine on the days I went to the office. The pain went away, and so far hasn't come back."

I understand that keeping back this information is a rethorical tool to force the reader to read the article to the very end, but I believe it is a dishonest strategy of keeping people reading.

<comment><USER87> Do you feel the same way about books?

<comment><USER86> The books I read have non-trivial content and are written in an engaging fashion, so, no, I don't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> Roberts Space Industries was more known to me then Repetitive-Strain-Injury and fits too.</comment>