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August 26, 2013 9:45 AM   Subscribe

Code By Voice Faster Than By Hand

Two years ago I developed a case of Emacs Pinkie (RSI) so severe my hands went numb and I could no longer type or work. Desperate, I tried voice recognition. At first programming with it was painfully slow but, as I couldn't type, I persevered. After several months of vocab tweaking and duct-tape coding in Python and Emacs Lisp, I had a system that enabled me to code faster and more efficiently by voice than I ever had by hand. via

He starts to demo it at around the 9 minute mark.
posted by not_the_water (10 comments total) 13 users marked this as a favorite
 
I know this guy through the local dev community and I've seen him do this demo in person. It's awesome to behold.
posted by fatbird at 10:08 AM on August 26, 2013


The voice recognition on my Android phone is so good that I rarely type out texts or searches anymore, it's so much quicker to just say it. Can get a bit awkward out in public, though.
posted by zombieflanders at 10:11 AM on August 26, 2013 [2 favorites]


I was skeptical, but this is pretty fast. He's created a whole separate language just for coding in Emacs.

With my still-functioning pinkies, think how fast I could code by adding a second channel! (Officemate may object, however.)
posted by DU at 10:16 AM on August 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yeah, um, not unless they change my work area back from open concept cube farm to offices.
Or combine this with sub-vocalization sensors or something.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 10:20 AM on August 26, 2013


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenomask
posted by Wild_Eep at 10:22 AM on August 26, 2013 [6 favorites]


Interesting... I've been taking it for granted that meaningful coding by voice would continue to be a hopeless prospect.
posted by Zed at 10:28 AM on August 26, 2013 [1 favorite]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenomask
posted by Wild_Eep


Oh my god. A cubical farm filled with people using stenomasks is straight out of the Matrix.
posted by not_the_water at 10:41 AM on August 26, 2013 [3 favorites]


As long as he codes at home. Could you imagine a cube farm full of devs shouting 'slurp' 'slap' 'jive' 'lape' all at the same time?

It would be like being a Baptist revival where everyone is speaking in tongue. "Key binding bind you to the devil. Ctrl+x Ctrl+s is the Mark of the Beast"
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 12:54 PM on August 26, 2013


In stenomask, no one can hear you scream.

But they can read about it in the code comments.
posted by IAmBroom at 2:06 PM on August 26, 2013 [4 favorites]


Anything that can get what's in my head into the computer more efficiently is something I'm going to spend some time looking into. Thanks for posting this.
posted by ob1quixote at 7:45 PM on August 26, 2013


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