

Ask HN: Can Oculus Rift be used for coding? - tsenkov


======
Amadiro
Absolutely not, with where the SDK is currently at.

I've tried quite a few games and demos with the current SDK (the one that is
publicly available,) and several of them included text in menus et cetera. It
was always an absolute eyestrain and pain to read anything. Maybe it'll get
better once the new version is released, which supposedly has a much higher
resolution.

But I suspect even then, it'll be impractical; not being able to see your
keyboard/mouse from your peripheral vision, having to move your head around to
bring different parts of the document into focus, not being able to see a
book/document you have sitting next to your keyboard for reference, the added
strain over time, ... as well as the added complication that most people who
code probably have to look at other peoples screens occasionally, talk to
other people, et cetera, which will involve a lot of switching back-and-forth,
which can be quite disturbing.

See also
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqZZKi4UHuo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqZZKi4UHuo)
this video for some experience from the owlchemy lab guys, who have been using
the rift extensively during development for testing their game.

------
tsenkov
On a plane, on the bus, I often find it pretty hard to open a laptop because
of a too small space between seats. I remember researching HMD (head-mounted
displays) few years back and I couldn't find anything affordable. But $350 for
the dev kit seems pretty nice and made me wonder again.

What do you guys think?

------
Eyes2design
I think its would be a great experiment! I can see this working with a XI3,
some solar panels, a large pack of Li Ion/Li Polymer Batteries, and the
software to have a 3D landscape for 3D desktop. Last how the hell you program?
invent keyboard that require only 5 fingers in a single space... (Ender's
game)

~~~
JackMorgan
Good news, such a keyboard is already over 30 years old! [http://www.loper-
os.org/?p=861](http://www.loper-os.org/?p=861)

~~~
Eyes2design
Need to bring it up to a OLED touch screen and improve non button
functionality.

------
JackMorgan
What I'm excited about for is the infinite view distance for reading. Right
now I have to strain all day to view text which is far too close for my eyes.
I'd love to get to focus at the horizon and still be able to read.

