Following Our Own Path

[JM]: For today's bit of fun and enlightenment, I want to direct you to a new creation by Neal, I'm assuming his name is Neal, of Neal.fun fame, and that's N-E-A-L dot fun, because he has a new project up called "Space Elevator".

[JM]: Before, I think we talked about the one that delves into the depths of the ocean.

[JM]: This time we're going up instead of down.

[JM]: And you start out with things like a hummingbird and fireworks and hot air balloons, and then you go up from there.

[JM]: There are a variety of different types of birds.

[JM]: As you go up, it's really interesting to see which types of birds can reach which different altitudes.

[JM]: You have aircraft.

[JM]: These types of aircraft generally, or by their nature of what they can do, go to these altitudes.

[JM]: It's a really fun, cute project.

[JM]: I love the artwork.

[JM]: I love everything this person creates.

[JM]: So if you get a chance, go and check it out.

[JM]: It is definitely worth a good five or so minutes of your time.

[JM]: You will enjoy it, I think.

[DJ]: Yeah, this was great.

[DJ]: Go, Space Elevator.

[JM]: One of the cute little embellishments that's a part of this journey as you go upward is you get to pick out a spacesuit once you reach a certain elevation.

[JM]: I think there's a part where you can choose a scarf because it starts to get cold.

[JM]: Presumably that's before the spacesuit.

[JM]: I can't remember.

[JM]: But it's a fun site.

[JM]: And like I said, go and check it out.

[JM]: I think you'll have a good time.

[JM]: All right, moving on... We talked a bit last episode about the concept of finding niches, that information technology in general seems to be going sometimes doesn't go in the direction that you, Dan, or I want it to go, and that we feel somewhat comforted by the fact that, at least as it stands today, we can find little niches, whether that's open-source software, the fact that web sites still exist,

[JM]: and other areas where we can find refuge from changes that perhaps don't feel like they're really in our best interests or that serve the needs that we have.

[JM]: And that got me thinking about a topic that's been on my mind for quite some time.

[JM]: And so I wanted to use this occasion to bring it up, which is, and the way that I phrased it in our agenda for today is: "When to move with the herd and when to follow your own path".

[JM]: And looking back over the years, I see that I have made this decision in a variety of ways.

[JM]: But for the sake of this particular conversation, I'm going to focus it just on technology.

[JM]: I think one of the very first decisions that I made in this regard is that I started out using Apple computers at a very young age, at a time where there really weren't any other popular choices.

[JM]: And at some point, Windows came on the scene,

[JM]: and the majority of the world gravitated and moved in that direction.

[JM]: So I found myself somewhat isolated from the herd, so to speak, where in the beginning I was in the majority, and then over what felt like a relatively short amount of time, I was no longer in that majority and now found myself in the distinct minority...

[JM]: in terms of people who use personal computers, because I continued to use the Mac operating system at a time when most other people were using Windows.

[JM]: And this is probably the very first example of when I'm faced with this decision of, "Do I continue to follow my own path or do I move with the rest of the herd?"

[JM]: And in this particular case, I decided to continue following my own path and have used MacOS more or less continuously.

[JM]: I have experimented with Windows, have used it to play games occasionally, but have never used it for any kind of day-to-day productivity purposes.

[JM]: And there was a patch of time where it wasn't really clear whether that was the right call, where there was doubt, where...

[JM]: Apple's future as a company seemed uncertain, whether it seemed like it might just be easier to move with the herd in this particular case.

[JM]: But it just didn't feel right.

[JM]: It didn't feel like the right solution for me.

[JM]: And so I stuck with it.

[JM]: And in the end, looking back, I feel vindicated in terms of the choice that, in retrospect, feels like the right one.

[JM]: Because a lot of the...

[JM]: industry has, over the last couple of decades, moved very firmly in the direction of MacOS, in terms of perhaps not the general global population,

[JM]: but those of us who are passionate about software and information technology. The vast majority of us use a non Windows platform, at least in my experience.

[JM]: So this is one of those instances where, looking back, my decision to follow my own path feels like it was the right one.

[JM]: What about you, Dan?

[JM]: Do you have an example, whether it's in this case of Mac versus Windows...

[JM]: Or is there another example that stands out to you as like an early decision that you had to make?

[JM]: And how did it go for you?

[DJ]: I wanna stick with the Mac versus Windows decision for now, because you and I ended up with the same outcome, which is we were both Mac users, but got there in different ways. Because you talked about using Apple computers back before like the ubiquitous Windows PC was really a thing.

[DJ]: And then Windows PCs sort of took over and you stuck with Apple computers.

[DJ]: And then eventually Apple had a resurgence...

[DJ]: and you kept using Apple computers.

[DJ]: That's an interesting one, because you made what was at the time a relatively popular choice because there was a time where Apple computers were a popular alternative to other types of computer.

[DJ]: This was really before personal computing was even a thing, really.

[JM]: There wasn't even much of a choice.

[JM]: It was more or less the only choice at the time.

[DJ]: Right.

[DJ]: I mean, what else was there?

[DJ]: Like the Atari 2600 or something like that?

[JM]: At the time of my first computer, which was the Apple II+, there wasn't really much of anything other than computers that I can't even think of in this moment because they never got enough traction.

[DJ]: Right, so you adopted a computing platform just before the dawn of personal computing becoming ubiquitous, like so-called normal people all had a computer in their home.

[DJ]: Whereas I really only got into computing in the mid-90s, which was just about exactly the time that the wave of so-called IBM PC compatibles running Windows...

[DJ]: swept through the world.

[DJ]: And so my first computer at home was a PC running DOS and then Windows 3.1, blessed Windows 3.1 and its hot-dog-stand theme.

[DJ]: Fondly do I remember it.

[DJ]: So I started off with Windows at home and I used Windows at work in my first few jobs, but eventually I switched to Macs for my personal computing.

[DJ]: I think the first thing that really got me to shift was...

[DJ]: when I was in university, we all had laptops in computer science, and a friend of mine had the old white plastic MacBook, and I just thought it was the coolest little computer I'd ever seen compared to my relatively stodgy, although beloved, ThinkPad.

[DJ]: And I got to use one of those Macs on one of my co-op jobs, and long story short — well, not that short —

[DJ]: There were things about these computers and their operating system that I liked a lot and I sort of preferred over Windows.

[DJ]: So I ended up buying myself an iMac in maybe 2007 and have predominantly owned Apple computers for my personal computing since.

[DJ]: So for me, this felt less like sticking with my own path as the so-called herd changed.

[DJ]: And more like starting off in the herd because I really wasn't making computer purchasing decisions when I was, you know, 13.

[DJ]: So I was just going to have whatever computer my dad bought.

[DJ]: And that was basically the same computer he used at his job.

[DJ]: So he bought a PC, but eventually I decided to follow the Apple path when I think that was still a bit of a niche decision.

[DJ]: Like certainly after the iMac came out, they were...

[DJ]: a thing again.

[DJ]: But it wasn't really until a couple of years later when the iPhone hit the scene that suddenly Apple was like everywhere, like the coolest company in the universe or whatever.

[DJ]: And even now, as you sort of pointed out, like Apple computers are not the predominant ones.

[DJ]: They are a substantial minority, certainly, and especially they're overweight in certain sectors.

[DJ]: Like for a long time now, people who are...

[DJ]: professional technologists like software developers overwhelmingly seem to use Macs as opposed to Windows PCs.

[DJ]: So what are our conclusions about this notion of following our own path where Mac versus Windows is concerned?

[DJ]: And then also, are there other examples that are even more niche?

[DJ]: Because one thing that's a little funny about talking about Windows versus Mac in 2025 is that Apple and Microsoft are two...

[DJ]: of the biggest and most successful companies that have ever existed in the entire history of the human race.

[DJ]: So it's a little less of the way it felt 30 years ago.

[DJ]: It was like, "Oh, these Apple weirdos with their weird little weird computers."

[DJ]: And now it really does feel a lot more like they are equivalent, roughly, to some degree, in terms of popularity.

[DJ]: So I'm curious what other examples of this we might have where there remains a much bigger difference in popularity between the herd option and the follow your own path option.

[JM]: Before jumping to the first thing that comes to mind in terms of other choices like this, I think it's worth pointing out, and I think you already understand this, that when I was making this choice about whether to continue, they definitely were not anywhere near comparable.

[JM]: There were times where Apple's future as a going concern was very much being called into question, where Michael Dell gets up on stage in a panel and says, "If I were the CEO of Apple, I would liquidate the company and return the proceeds to shareholders."

[JM]: And this is a time when...

[JM]: in terms of following my own path, a lot of people were buying Microsoft stock because it was the hottest company to own at that time.

[JM]: And I made a very contrarian decision, which is I bought some of Apple's stock because this was a company that I believed in, even when everyone else didn't.

[JM]: And that investment, as you can imagine, has paid off very handsomely.

[JM]: Not that an investment in Microsoft stock would have done you any disservice.

[JM]: But at the time that I bought it, yeah, no question.

[JM]: The return at that point in time, is far, far higher for Apple than for Microsoft.

[JM]: So this is an example of where following my own path was rewarding, not only in terms of I got to use a great computer and everyone else kind of rallied around that, but it also paid off very handsomely financially, which is great.

[JM]: But to answer your question, in terms of another thing that pops into my head is version control.

[JM]: And that is the process by which we check code or other text files, or really files in general, into a repository.

[JM]: And you can go back over time and view different versions of particular files and folders.

[JM]: There was a time when Git was new.

[JM]: And there was a competing version control system called Mercurial.

[DJ]: I like how you say "was", as though Mercurial didn't still exist, but perhaps to the point...

[JM]: Mercurial does indeed still exist, but I would venture to say that there are a very significant number of people who are software developers...

[JM]: that's what they would consider themselves to be, who are familiar with Git and have never even heard of Mercurial.

[JM]: So that's why I phrase it that way.

[DJ]: Oh, totally.

[DJ]: Well, I actually wonder how many software developers working today, if they, let's say if they've been only been practicing software development in the last ten years, are even familiar with any version control system other than Git, because it's so ubiquitous at this point.

[JM]: This is definitely one of those areas where network externalities favors a winner-takes-all type of situation, where there just isn't any room really for anything other than Git.

[JM]: And that's why no one else has ever heard of anything other than Git unless they are of a particular age.

[JM]: If you were a software developer twenty-plus years ago, then you would probably have heard of Subversion.

[JM]: But otherwise you wouldn't, because Git just overtook all of that version control.

[DJ]: God help you if you're familiar with Microsoft's Visual Source Safe.

[DJ]: I feel you out there.

[DJ]: We still bear the scars.

[JM]: Thankfully, I have never had the displeasure.

[DJ]: That's how you really know you made the right decision to stick with Macs instead of Windows.

[JM]: So there was this brief amount of time when Git was new, and Mercurial was a contender at the time.

[JM]: And I preferred Mercurial for a variety of reasons, in part because it had a much more user-friendly interface.

[JM]: Anyone who has ever used Git has come to the inevitable conclusion that it has become popular despite its usability flaws and not because of them.

[JM]: And Mercurial had some other advantages that aren't worth getting into.

[JM]: But the reality is that I used it for a while and was faced with the same decision.

[JM]: Do I continue using it knowing that it works really well for me and that there are some things about it that are better than Git?

[JM]: Or do I follow the rest of the herd, which was rapidly moving in the other direction and growing in size?

[JM]: And the Mercurial contingent was just getting smaller and smaller in relative terms.

[JM]: And ultimately, it just did not make any sense for me to continue to use Mercurial.

[JM]: Because everything I was doing in terms of collaboration with other people, professionally and in open source, zero percent of those interactions involved Mercurial, to the point where it just didn't make any sense to continue using it.

[JM]: And switching over to Git was slightly annoying in the beginning because of said usability "bumpiness", but it didn't take too long to get past that.

[JM]: And now I feel quite comfortable with it and don't really have any regrets about making that switch.

[DJ]: For something like a version control system, I think there just isn't enough differentiation.

[DJ]: As you mentioned the sort of winner-take-all dynamics, and especially because the most common use of version control arguably is collaboration, then it's very natural that everyone's gonna use what everyone uses, and they're not gonna use things that people don't use.

[DJ]: If you're like, "Well, I really love this version control system, but everyone else uses X, you're going to use X because they don't interoperate with each other."

[DJ]: And ultimately what matters is that you can all contribute to this shared repository.

[DJ]: So I agree that there was always going to be one winner probably when it came to large scale version control.

[DJ]: Like there was a big jump from centralized to distributed version control systems that I remember.

[DJ]: That's when Git and Mercurial really came on the scene.

[DJ]: And those have real advantages for collaboration over a version control system that works...

[DJ]: like, if you can imagine printing all your code out on pieces of paper and putting them in like a storage locker, and each one of you can only take a given page out of the locker at one time and have to put it back before the next person can take it out.

[DJ]: Like, that's what using version control on a team used to be like back at the dawn of time.

[DJ]: So there was this huge evolution when Git and Mercurial came out, but it makes a lot of sense that only one of them could really win.

[DJ]: And in this case, I guess in my mind, it matters less.

[DJ]: It's a little less consequential than your choice of, say, an entire computing platform, because ultimately all you care about is the outcome.

[DJ]: Like, can you diff these files?

[DJ]: Can you and I work on these files without, and easily resolve, merge conflicts?

[DJ]: Like, as long as the answer to those things is "Yes", it really doesn't matter what the software is.

[JM]: Right.

[JM]: And it was relatively easy to migrate, say, from Mercurial to Git.

[JM]: So the switching cost was very low.

[JM]: And ultimately, like you said, it just made sense to do it because one of the primary purposes of version control is to collaborate with other people.

[JM]: So it doesn't make sense to be on your own island.

[JM]: One of the other decisions that I made, what feels like a long time ago at this point, probably because it was, was the choice of which shell to use in a terminal console.

[JM]: Say about 15 years ago, pretty much everyone used Bash.

[JM]: Bash is the shell that came on every single Unix flavored computer that you might use, whether that's...

[JM]: MacOS or Linux, it came with Bash, when you launched your terminal console, and you got a prompt, it was Bash.

[JM]: Right around that time, I started experimenting with an alternative shell called the Fish shell, which a tiny, tiny proportion of shell-using folks used.

[JM]: And one of the things that I loved about it is that, and again, this was say roughly 2010, give or take, I don't remember exactly the year where I started using it.

[JM]: But I remember that when I first went to use it, I went to their web site.

[JM]: And at the top, it said and still says, "Finally, a command-line shell for the 90s."

[JM]: Because even when it came out, which was *not* in the 1990s, even when it came out, it was just like this obvious, like, "Okay, we've updated it to a more modern era, but not that far."

[JM]: It's like, we still understand that this is...

[JM]: not what computing looks like in, say, the 2010s.

[JM]: It's really more of like what computing looked like in the 1990s.

[JM]: And we're going to bring it that far instead of Bash, which was like the 1970s.

[JM]: So it was like, we're bringing you up a couple of decades, but not to the current day. Which I always thought was kind of like a funny tagline.

[DJ]: It is a good one.

[DJ]: Yeah.

[DJ]: Fish versus bash is interesting because it's like the opposite of the Mercurial versus Git choice, which is to say that, you know, only you, you're the only person who suffers from your choice of a shell generally.

[JM]: That is true that this doesn't really impact a lot of collaboration.

[JM]: If you collaborate with folks in a server environment and the server environment is running Bash, which it probably is, or the newer variant of it, which is Z-shell or ZSH, then I suppose it matters.

[JM]: But the reality is you probably aren't running Fish in your server environment anyway, even if you run it on your primary local workstation.

[JM]: So, in the end, it doesn't really matter whether you use Fish or not.

[JM]: It's not really impacting your collaboration with other people, by and large.

[JM]: And in the beginning, using Fish was a bit challenging because if you're used to certain Bash-isms, the whole idea behind Fish is, "Yeah, we're throwing all that out the window."

[JM]: "The things that you would normally do in Bash won't work here, and they won't work here because we think they were a bad idea, and that's why we threw them out the window."

[JM]: And so you will get folks often on the Internet complaining about this fact that Fish is not POSIX-compliant.

[JM]: And, "I have all these Bash scripts."

[JM]: "And now I can't use them anymore," which by the way, is just wrong.

[JM]: Bash scripts run just fine.

[JM]: You just don't run that code as Fish code — you just run the Bash script, and the Bash interpreter that is already on your machine...

[JM]: that or ZSH, will run your script just fine.

[JM]: It's a common misconception.

[JM]: There's a lot of misconceptions when it comes to Fish.

[JM]: POSIX-compliance being another one.

[JM]: Most of the time, who cares?

[JM]: It doesn't matter.

[JM]: It's a theoretical purism.

[JM]: It's not rooted in everyday reality, in terms of something that's going to get in the way of doing what you want to do.

[JM]: At least it hasn't for me.

[JM]: And so I put Fish in the category of, here's a time where I followed my own path...

[JM]: and just like MacOS, it feels like the right one.

[JM]: A lot of people over the intervening 15 years have moved over to Fish. Not like MacOS, for example...

[JM]: Many more people, proportionally, moved over to MacOS from Windows than have moved from Bash or ZSH to Fish shell.

[JM]: But there are still a ton of people that run Fish shell.

[JM]: It is by no means regulated to some obscure corner of the I.T. world like Mercurial.

[JM]: Sorry, Mercurial.

[JM]: And I love Fish.

[JM]: It's a great shell.

[JM]: They have, in the intervening years, decided to add support for some of the Bash-isms that they originally decided not to implement.

[JM]: So there are certain things that you used to be able to do in Bash and ZSH that you couldn't do in Fish but now can.

[DJ]: If it helps, I've decided that that latter shell is pronounced "Zish".

[DJ]: So feel free to just say that.

[JM]: I should just call it Z-shell, since that's what it's called.

[DJ]: You could, except I'm Canadian.

[DJ]: And for some reason, we pronounce the last letter of the alphabet "zed" instead of "zee".

[DJ]: And "Zed shell" is just unappealing.

[DJ]: So I just call it Zish.

[DJ]: And personally, I just use Zish because it's the one that comes on the Mac.

[DJ]: And it's a powerful and flexible shell.

[DJ]: And for whatever reason thus far in my computing journey, I've never felt moved to switch shells, really.

[DJ]: Well, I guess I'm curious, what was your impetus for switching?

[DJ]: Was it that there were things about Bash at the time that you really didn't like, and so you were on the hunt for alternatives?

[DJ]: What eventually got you to try Fish?

[JM]: Like a lot of things, in this case I saw someone who I respect who had written an article about Fish shell and their experimentation with it and why they appreciated it.

[JM]: And this topic comes up a lot.

[JM]: Every time someone mentions Fish shell on the internet, there's always some comment of like, "Okay, well, why would I use it over Z-shell or Bash?"

[JM]: I switched to Fish because it offered a ton more interesting functionality out of the box, without any additional configuration or monkeying, than Bash offered...

[JM]: and I would argue, then Z-shell even offers today. You can accomplish a lot of what Fish shell does, if not all of it, with Z-shell by adding additional third-party...

[JM]: plugins and configuration.

[JM]: But I think that out of the box, Fish does some really cool things that Z-shell doesn't really do, but I haven't used Z-shell in, well, ever.

[JM]: So I can't really say that with any degree of confidence.

[JM]: That's just what I understand from having read various things on the internet.

[DJ]: That's fair.

[DJ]: There's certainly a theme with a lot of these things where switching costs are relatively high.

[DJ]: So it's interesting because there can sometimes be a moment where you choose to follow your own path.

[DJ]: And then once you do, you're probably going to stick with it.

[DJ]: Because as you say, like at this point, it would be quite laborious to decide, "Well, actually, I'm going to start using Zish now, right?"

[DJ]: And likewise, trying to use a different...

[DJ]: a different operating system or a different version control system.

[DJ]: There's some examples we might get to later where the switching costs are potentially a little lower.

[DJ]: And that's an interesting point of inquiry, I think, as to what are the various things that lead us to choose the less-conventional option.

[DJ]: But I think looking at our list here, maybe first we're going to talk about the decision that has the highest switching costs imaginable.

[DJ]: Would you like to introduce it?

[JM]: I think we have alluded to it in the past, but yes, we are talking about keyboard layouts.

[JM]: And I remember doing this experiment, I don't know, a decade or so ago, and I was experimenting with the Ergodox keyboard layout, which...

[JM]: has a thumb cluster and the idea is that instead of using pinkies for very common things like Delete, you can use your thumbs: much more powerful, capable fingers to do things like hitting Return and Delete, et cetera.

[JM]: And at that time, I thought, "Well, if I'm going to make this big change, because I'm a masochist I'm going to also add another big change at the exact same time and just combine it all in one big painful switch.

[JM]: And at that time, I decided to experiment with Colemak, which is an alternative keyboard layout.

[JM]: So I have a new keyboard, I have a new key layout, and it was really painful.

[JM]: My typing speed dropped to single digits, percentage-wise, compared to where it was before.

[JM]: But over time it became more natural.

[JM]: And now that is the only...

[JM]: keyboard layout that I am proficient in.

[JM]: I cannot use QWERTY anymore.

[JM]: I grew up using QWERTY.

[JM]: QWERTY was like a second mother tongue to me, and now it is completely foreign and alien and I have to look at keys in a way in which I haven't since I was a child if I am at a keyboard that I have not configured to use Colemak on.

[JM]: So I think I would put this in the category of, you know, when to follow your own path and when to move with the herd...

[JM]: This is not a choice that I am glad that I pursued.

[JM]: This is a choice that I regret.

[JM]: I want to be clear about that.

[DJ]: Is that so?

[DJ]: Wow.

[JM]: It is.

[JM]: There are benefits in theory to using Colemak.

[JM]: That's why this person came up with this keyboard layout to begin with.

[JM]: You are spending more of your time on the home row.

[JM]: Your fingers theoretically are not moving around as much as they would when using QWERTY.

[JM]: And that's probably true.

[JM]: However, there are significant downsides that just aren't worth it.

[JM]: I would not recommend anyone who's already proficient in QWERTY to use any other keyboard layout.

[JM]: I just think this is one of those cases where there are other network-like effects, whether you're sitting in front of someone else's machine...

[JM]: if you're ever using remote desktop, where you're trying to access some computer over the network, which again, not a particularly common use case for a lot of people, but if you do that, chances are good it's not gonna work the way you want it to.

[JM]: You have things like phones and tablets...

[JM]: where the keyboard layout is inevitably going to be QWERTY.

[JM]: And yeah, that is one area where I guess I am multilingual.

[JM]: Like, I can use QWERTY just fine on a phone, but not on a computer anymore.

[JM]: The muscle memory is just totally wired for one device and then for a different layout on the other device.

[JM]: But yeah, this is just not a switch that I can recommend to really anyone.

[DJ]: Well, it's too late for me, Justin, because I also made such a switch.

[DJ]: This is an interesting trap for a certain kind of person, because I think you're probably right.

[DJ]: I decided to pursue both a split layout keyboard, similar to yours, by the same company, actually.

[DJ]: I have a ZSA Voyager, as opposed to the Ergodox, or I think the Moonlander is what you've got now.

[DJ]: And I did the same thing where I decided I was going to get a fancy schmancy keyboard, which requires me to use different fingers for different things anyway.

[DJ]: So now would be a great time to abandon the QWERTY layout.

[DJ]: And why did I do any of this?

[DJ]: My rationale was from ergonomics, and I don't know how rigorously proven this is, but...

[DJ]: There are a variety of ways that some of these keyboards we're talking about sell themselves, that some of the benefits are it's better for the health of your body because you move your hands and wrists and fingers and shoulders in different ways, and that's beneficial.

[DJ]: And I guess my thinking was between being a writer and being a software developer, I spend a disproportionately large amount of my waking life using a computer keyboard.

[DJ]: And if that's the case, it might be worth the effort to make that experience as ergonomic as possible.

[DJ]: Then it's also the case that these keyboards we're talking about have all kinds of cool, nerdy features like customizable lighting schemes and mechanical key-switches that make a pleasant sound when you press them and customizable firmware so you can hold down a key and the other keys suddenly gain all kinds of different magic capabilities.

[DJ]: It's all a very tempting trap, but it does have...

[DJ]: the potential problem that if you spend years and years exclusively using this different layout, that you can lose the ability because it is all based on muscle memory.

[DJ]: Lose the ability to use a normal keyboard.

[DJ]: I would say, I still use the built-in keyboard on my laptop often enough that I'm still relatively proficient with QWERTY. On the other hand, I'm not as proficient with my chosen layout, which is Workman, for some reason, as I would be if I truly insisted on using that keyboard all the time, so I also don't really know if this trade-off is worthwhile.

[DJ]: I am generally enjoying it, so I'll probably stick with it.

[DJ]: And I guess I will hope that, not that I'll ever get to do the comparison, but that the "me" that exists in this universe ends up with fewer keyboard-related health issues than the Dan in a parallel universe that just stuck with a non-separated, non-isolinear QWERTY layout keyboard for his entire life.

[JM]: I had similar motivations when I made this switch, which was, "I spend a lot of time in front of a computer."

[JM]: "I'm gonna be typing millions of keystrokes over the course of my life."

[JM]: "It probably makes sense to find a more efficient way."

[JM]: "If indeed this is a more efficient way, then it seems like a good idea and I should do it."

[JM]: "However painful it might be in the beginning,"

[JM]: "it'll be worth it in the long run."

[JM]: And maybe it is, and maybe it will be.

[JM]: But I just hadn't accounted, I think, for some of the drawbacks that I mentioned.

[JM]: And that's why I don't think I would do this over again.

[JM]: I'm fine with it.

[JM]: It's a system that works very well for me today.

[JM]: But I just don't know that it's necessarily a decision I would make again.

[JM]: And I definitely would not recommend it to anyone unless you have notable repetitive stress injury or pain, and you feel very confident that this could address it.

[JM]: That's probably the only use case where I would recommend it.

[JM]: Otherwise, I just don't think it's worth it.

[DJ]: That is an important point about ergonomics: there is no magical cure to doing something that is in some ways fundamentally unhealthy, right?

[DJ]: Like, I have a very expensive, very ergonomic office chair, but it's still not good for me to sit in it for eight straight hours...

[DJ]: no matter what.

[DJ]: And so one way that it would probably benefit most of us to follow our own path rather than move with the herd would be to do things like use computers less and get more healthier movement in our lives.

[DJ]: So that's just one we can add to the list to consider.

[JM]: Absolutely.

[JM]: That is definitely sage advice.

[JM]: All right, that's all for this episode.

[JM]: Thanks everyone for listening.

[JM]: You can find me on the web at justinmayer.com and you can find Dan on the web at danj.ca.

[JM]: Reach out with your thoughts about this episode via the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space.