Programming by voice… no.
A long long time ago, I managed to find an IBM ViaVoice edition at a fleamarket, for one guilder. (It’s voice recognition software).
I was working on an assembler project back then, which has a very simple and small instruction set. I had a whacky plan to use the ViaVoice software to allow me to program by speaking, instead of typing. I honestly thought it would be able to program faster, it wasn’t some sort of noble goal to help programmers around the world suffering from RSI.
I guess my younger self wasn’t all that smart.
The project failed miserably, as customizing the dictionary wasn’t really possible, and you type something like MOV, or 0xFF a lot faster than you can say it.
Vista ships with a notorious and tempramental voice recognition module. Hmmmmm…. perhaps almost a decade of software improvement has brought programming-by-voice closer to reality?
Let’s check it out! (YouTube video)
“Funny” doesn’t cover the half of it. I practically fell off my chair.
NB: the sheer level of frustration reminds me of the Custom Super Mario level from Hell (swearing abounds, careful if you’re at work).
All kidding aside for a moment, the performance really isn’t that bad, and perl isn’t exactly the most natural language; it’s closer to cartoon swearing. If the software knows about the grammar and syntax of the programming language, this almost looks like it might work. The one time I ever got serious RSI indicators is when I tried to teach myself dvorak, but, certainly, the number of programmers suffering from RSI out there should be large enough that there just might be an interesting market for creating voice recognition software for programmers. I know, I know - there are far more ideas out there compared to entrepreneurs, but this particular idea should be just perfect for a Master’s thesis at my old alma mater, Media and Knowledge Engineering at the Delft University of Technology.
oliver3 http://oliver3.nl/index.html
May 5th, 2007Hilarious videos! Below another way to do a mario level
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbm_-Gk4HZo
(ps: comment-preview would be nice..)
oliver3 http://oliver3.nl/index.html
May 5th, 2007Comments with url’s not allowed??
Cristiano Betta http://www.ibbydibby.com/
May 5th, 2007Considering that a computer language us far better specified than human language it is probably even less difficult.
Reinier http://zwitserloot.com
May 6th, 2007They are allowed, Oliver, but that particular post didn’t make it past Akismet. I don’t blame akismet: 2 lines, one of which is a URL, a smily, and the text ‘hilarious’.
Not your fault, and I’ll promise to check akismet’s logs at least once a day to correct any mistakes.
oliver3 http://oliver3.nl/index.html
May 7th, 2007Maybe akismet was right.. However, I was logged in using OpenID.
Cristiano Betta http://www.ibbydibby.com/
May 7th, 2007yeah, I noticed before that akismat doesn’t have a rule to ignore registered users.
alper http://alper.nl
May 7th, 2007Yeah, so? OpenID creates identity, not trust which is a different matter.
Cristiano Betta http://www.ibbydibby.com/
May 7th, 2007@Oliver: I am looking for a comment preview plugin that is compatible with this theme.
Ruben Wieman
August 28th, 2007Why does google search on ‘Programmer Dvorak’ bring me to this site? Anyone any experience with such a keyboard?
I tried Philips Freespeech about 5 years ago but couldnt even navigate around Win98.
Reinier http://zwitserloot.com
August 28th, 2007I have no idea, Ruben. Alper, one of our article writers, uses Dvorak. He’s on vacation until the 10th of september, though.
Cristiano Betta http://cristianobetta.com/
August 28th, 2007@Ruben: Why, do you want to switch to DVORAK?
@Reinier: Seriously? Didn’t know that.
Ruben Wieman
August 29th, 2007RSI. Mostly due to mouse but also due to bad keyboard. I do lots of programming and documentation and I’m always looking for better/more pleasant ways to do my work. I’d like to try something new, just to see if it works for me.
alper http://www.alper.nl
August 29th, 2007Yes, guys. I am one of many happy Dvorak users. The speed might not be the biggest win but I do think that the placement of the keys leads to less stress and awkward finger positions. Further if you can’t yet touch type and are going to learn it, you might as well learn this. It’s mostly Kool-Aid though; read some argumentation online pro and con.
I don’t know if it will significantly improve your RSI situation. For that it looks like it is good to nurture a work habit which involves proper posture and lots of breaks. Get out of your chair a lot, and when you are in your chair type really really fast be it in Dvorak or QWERTY.