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Autocomplete as an Interface (2015)

benkuhn.net

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Re: Autocomplete as an Interface (2015)

#2

Post by flyinglizard »

> Here’s why the high-bandwidth visual interface is important: The common thread in between the autocompletion in zsh, IPython, Xcode and OS X help is that it makes it easy to find hidden things.

The best I’ve seen in this regard of discovering hidden things is the Visual Studio C# auto suggestions which refractors your code to use modern language features. It’s quite magical, sometimes doing non-trivial refactors.

I find it a great way to get exposed to the ongoing evolution of C# without actively polling the language spec.

Re: Autocomplete as an Interface (2015)

#3

Post by ktpsns »

I could not agree more to this article. Not only am I a happy IPython and zsh user, but also like searchable menus (also refered to as "OSD search" or similar in non-Mac OS X contexts).

My feeling is that we experience a revival of keyboard-based searchable/explorable GUIs due to two reasons:

(1.) Many people use notebooks where both hands rest on the keyboard (in contrast to an external mouse where one hand permanently rests).

(2.) Desktop searches, or virtually any kind of search with a fast index took over (clearly pioneered by Apples Spotlight). That's the Google spirit of searching for things instead of clicking menus.

This is probably one of the changes where in the retrospective we can say "the 2010s" brought us. :-)

Re: Autocomplete as an Interface (2015)

#6

Post by emilfihlman »

While IPython is cool, lets not forget autocomplete exists even in the default python interpreter

  Python 3.5.3 (default, Sep 27 2018, 17:25:39)
  [GCC 6.3.0 20170516] on linux
  Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
  >>> s=""
  >>> s.[TABTAB]
  s.__add__(           s.__getattribute__(  s.__lt__(            s.__rmul__(          s.encode(            s.isdecimal(         s.join(              s.rjust(             s.title(
  s.__class__(         s.__getitem__(       s.__mod__(           s.__setattr__(       s.endswith(          s.isdigit(           s.ljust(             s.rpartition(        s.translate(
  s.__contains__(      s.__getnewargs__(    s.__mul__(           s.__sizeof__(        s.expandtabs(        s.isidentifier(      s.lower(             s.rsplit(            s.upper(
  s.__delattr__(       s.__gt__(            s.__ne__(            s.__str__(           s.find(              s.islower(           s.lstrip(            s.rstrip(            s.zfill(
  s.__dir__(           s.__hash__(          s.__new__(           s.__subclasshook__(  s.format(            s.isnumeric(         s.maketrans(         s.split(
  s.__doc__            s.__init__(          s.__reduce__(        s.capitalize(        s.format_map(        s.isprintable(       s.partition(         s.splitlines(
  s.__eq__(            s.__iter__(          s.__reduce_ex__(     s.casefold(          s.index(             s.isspace(           s.replace(           s.startswith(
  s.__format__(        s.__le__(            s.__repr__(          s.center(            s.isalnum(           s.istitle(           s.rfind(             s.strip(
  s.__ge__(            s.__len__(           s.__rmod__(          s.count(             s.isalpha(           s.isupper(           s.rindex(            s.swapcase(
  >>>

Re: Autocomplete as an Interface (2015)

#7

Post by jen20 »

flyinglizard wrote: post #2

> Here’s why the high-bandwidth visual interface is important: The common thread in between the autocompletion in zsh, IPython, Xcode and OS X help is that it makes it easy to find hidden things. The best I’ve seen in this regard of discovering hidden things is the Visual Studio C# auto suggestions which refractors your code to use modern language features. It’s quite magical, sometimes doing non-trivial refactors. I…

JetBrains pioneered that with IntelliJ for Java (and then for .NET with Resharper also) - it's great to see it spreading to other languages like Go and Rust too via the IntelliJ support!

Re: Autocomplete as an Interface (2015)

#8

Post by martopix »

You should probably try TabNine ('autocompletion with deep learning'). It is trained on a compendium of pre-existing code, and suggests really sophisticated completions. Sometimes it freaks me out how it suggests solutions, almost like having somebody code for me.

Re: Autocomplete as an Interface (2015)

#9

Post by zitterbewegung »

ktpsns wrote: post #3

I could not agree more to this article. Not only am I a happy IPython and zsh user, but also like searchable menus (also refered to as "OSD search" or similar in non-Mac OS X contexts). My feeling is that we experience a revival of keyboard-based searchable/explorable GUIs due to two reasons: (1.) Many people use notebooks where both hands rest on the keyboard (in contrast to an external mouse where one hand permanen…

Helm makes Emacs so much more discoverable . It saves me an enormous amount of time by giving me discovery of feature and for the most part approaching DWIM.

https://github.com/emacs-helm/helm

Re: Autocomplete as an Interface (2015)

#10

Post by jefftk »

emilfihlman wrote: post #6

While IPython is cool, lets not forget autocomplete exists even in the default python interpreter Python 3.5.3 (default, Sep 27 2018, 17:25:39) [GCC 6.3.0 20170516] on linux Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> s="" >>> s.[TABTAB] s.__add__( s.__getattribute__( s.__lt__( s.__rmul__( s.encode( s.isdecimal( s.join( s.rjust( s.title( s.__class__( s.__getitem__( s.__mod__( s.__setatt…

That's the case now, but it wasn't in 2015 when this post was published.
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