[cassepipe]

Vim stockholm syndrome ?

I don't know about RSI yet but I do know one thing : Vim workflow is to make a quick edit and then go back to normal mode as quickly as you can. This prevent accidental inserts and you are always back at the command center for your next edit. The same way some people understood most of the time is spent reading code rather than writing, vim's insight is that more time is spent doing edits than actually inserting text. So maybe strecthing your pinkie to the far (but admittedly easily locatable) corner of your keyboard is good RSI exercise I don't know but the Caps lock is just as easy for your finger to locate and don't require strechting. It's just better.

[Izkata]

For me it's the same as them, and it's because I don't bother with home row typing. Too restrictive, my fingers don't easily bend that way. Instead I do a sort of whole-(laptop)-keyboard thing where I know where the keys are relative to the edges, and use my shoulders and elbows to move my hands as much as I use my wrists - no twisting needed, so Escape is as easy to hit as most other keys.

[hollerith]

>use my shoulders and elbows to move my hands as much as I use my wrists

Yes, that is what I do. In particular, no muscle ever needs to stretch to anything close to the limit of its range of motion the way I type because the shoulders and the elbows can move over a much larger range than what is needed for moving the hand around its half of the keyboard.

Note that there is a third alternative, namely to keep the palm of the hand stationary and use the tiny muscles that move the finger left or right relative to the palm, which strikes me as even worse than bending the wrist left or right, and there is a keyboard called the DataHand that encourages, nay, requires, that:

https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?t=16008

This DataHand keyboard has very bad ergonomics, IMHO, and my guess is that switching to it causes more RSI than it prevents.