mousing is profoundly good if you let it into your life as a programmer, but for me it had the knock-on effect of making programming at a desktop unappealing. i find the ergonomics of alternating between mouse and keyboard that much better on a laptop, whether it's subconsciously just thumbing the trackpad for small motions, or moving my index finger a mere 1.5 keys to the left to smoosh a trackpoint.

this must be the impulse behind the yoda and similar[1], but these still don't do it for me: i could not comfortably daily drive anything that solders into a cherry mx footprint, and any mech switches i like would demand a costly, time-consuming from-scratch build.

some mac accessory makers have put out a wrist rest that mounts a magic trackpad in front of an apple keyboard, which sounds like it could be really cool adapted to fit a “proper keyboard”, but user testimonies are that the lack of palm rejection drives them nuts.

for reference, a trackpad to the right of the keyboard defeats the purpose from my point of view, as if i'm going to perform a whole-arm motion to access a different input device, i may as well have my hand land on my trusty wireless mouse: if it's good enough for getting headshots it's good enough for selecting text, plus i get proper mouse chording, which i must admit to missing over in trackpad land.

so, laptop it is. here's hoping my spine doesn't hate me when i'm fifty.

[1] https://i.imgur.com/VBk868o.jpeg