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Comment by ThinkBeat | Hacker News Reader

A girlfriend of mine had surgery on both wrists.

She got the Dragon Speech software, and I was surprised at how good it was.

You can of course dictate all your notes, documents emails. It also provides means to navigate your OS, start programs, close them, and a lot more.

It is expensive but she could do most of her work with two hands that didnt work.

A while back I saw a video about a guy who wrote code using such software (not sure what he used in particular). This can be tedious "Open bracket", "new line" etc.

He had spent a long time tuning it so it was fast and efficient. He used a set of custom grunts and noises as "macros" for all the bracket brace, and other symbols that are in heavy use in programming languages.

If you were just listening to him and didn't know what he was doing it sounded a bit distressing.

https://www.nuance.com/dragon/businesbs-solutions/dragon-pro...

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You refer to Tavis Rudd's PyCon 2013 demo: https://youtu.be/8SkdfdXWYaI

I write code with speech to text, and it's nothing like this.

Anything that's can be templated is. There's natural language integration with LSP. I use Vim mode "naturally" etc...

It's not like reading what's on your screen word by word. It's less input than typing.

what software did you use?

To add to that:

You'd use a custom vocabulary as well. So rather than "curly open" you'd use "heck", and instead of "enter" it would be "bark". I'm just making the actual words up here, but the point is to use a different/more simplified vocabulary that's also easier to understand by the computer.

https://talonvoice.com/ is also worth keeping an eye on.

I'd love to hear a short sample of what this sounds like!

Simple example of mine:

  def tree_size(n: Node) -> int:
    if not n:
      return 0
    return 1 + tree_size(n.left) + tree_size(n.right)

would be:

funk tree size takes near type cap node returns int slap

if op not near next return zero slap zing

return op one plus call tree size pass near dot left

op plus call tree size pass near dot right

commands like "funk", "op" and "if" insert snippets

slap = end enter, zing = shift tab, next = move to next snippet placeholder, near = letter n

still a work in progress as I find ways to make it flow better.

I wonder with copilot would you just say "new function called" and it would make your block statement.

I worked with a guy who wrote code like this. He was, indeed, pretty productive, but it was hell sitting next to him without good headphones. Was this guy you're referring to a long haired, kinda scruffy guy who had worked at Amazon at one point?

Did your GF or friend ever consider using foot pedals at all? I knew a programmer once who used various foot pedal combinations for different punctuation marks and tabs.

yes.

I have been looking into pedals before this ever started, and we looked at some different options, but could not find something that seemed worth it.

I really want a set of foot controls to act as my mouse since growing a third arm is currently not practical. I keep looking around and I know there are some solutions out there, but not in my price range that seems solid.

Have you considered buying a USB gamepad and putting it on the floor?

404 link

https://www.nuance.com/dragon/business-solutions/dragon-prof...

I wonder if the parent comment typed that URL by hand.

I suspect a laptop touchpad, because the touchpad might have buttons at the top, and the extra "b" could be close to them.

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