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Cursorless – A spoken language for structural code editing

github.com

21–30 of 73 posts

Re: Cursorless – A spoken language for structural code editing

#21

Seems cool. However, I went down a several-hour rabbit hole trying to build non-documented dependencies and eventually gave up. The reliance on mono/skiasharp makes this a far less portable application, and to say there is Linux support seems disingenuous. Binaries only exist for Ubuntu, the binaries are said to work for non-ubuntu systems but nuget fails to install them. Building from scratch leads to several undocu…

You talking about Talon? It comes with all of the dependencies. Use ./run.sh to set the library path and ask on the Slack if there are any further issues. (fwiw it's not skiasharp itself, it's just the mono/skia repo, which is C++)

Thanks for the tip. Any reason run.sh isn't mentioned anywhere in the documentation? https://talonvoice.com/docs/

Re: Cursorless – A spoken language for structural code editing

#22
post #11

Looks great! I've been dreaming about something that lets me use a headband and reads brainwaves to interact with a computer for a long time. Every 4-5 years I look into what's been happening on that front, but so far it seems like we're not even close.

I am hoping for an eye-tracking mouse solution in the meantime, where looking at a portion of the screen and pressing a key on the keyboard will click rather than having to move a hand away from the keyboard to use a mouse, or wait for the analog stick mouse to reach the right point of the screen. Seems to be getting more plausible but still fairly expensive for a few years yet.

Exactly. I hate focus-follows-mouse, but would love focus-follows-gaze.

Re: Cursorless – A spoken language for structural code editing

#23
The issue i have with this and will always with speech to text software. my voice will never pick it up unless im very clear and i take the time to prounouce a word or a chord?. I will have more luck writing in a stenograph keyboard or a chording keyboard then this. I like the fact that this technology assits for those who can have their voice be read by a computer. It will never work for me... Despite how modern a lot of this software has became.

Re: Cursorless – A spoken language for structural code editing

#24
post #11

Looks great! I've been dreaming about something that lets me use a headband and reads brainwaves to interact with a computer for a long time. Every 4-5 years I look into what's been happening on that front, but so far it seems like we're not even close.

I am hoping for an eye-tracking mouse solution in the meantime, where looking at a portion of the screen and pressing a key on the keyboard will click rather than having to move a hand away from the keyboard to use a mouse, or wait for the analog stick mouse to reach the right point of the screen. Seems to be getting more plausible but still fairly expensive for a few years yet.

You've unlocked a memory. Probably 10-15 years ago, I tried a bunch of eye tracking apps and found one that somehow worked really well with my cheap USB webcam. I'm sure it needed to be calibrated first. It was classic developer software, snappy with bare-bones UI. Freeware, ran on Windows 2000, not sure if open source.

I wonder if I have it backed up or could track down what it was again. I was not much of a developer then, but these days it would be simple to wire up simulated mouse events.

Re: Cursorless – A spoken language for structural code editing

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You talking about Talon? It comes with all of the dependencies. Use ./run.sh to set the library path and ask on the Slack if there are any further issues. (fwiw it's not skiasharp itself, it's just the mono/skia repo, which is C++)

Thanks for the tip. Any reason run.sh isn't mentioned anywhere in the documentation? https://talonvoice.com/docs/

Isn't it mentioned in the README in the tarball?

Re: Cursorless – A spoken language for structural code editing

#26
post #7

This kind of work is also fantastic for those who have limited mobility or use of hands. On top of that, it's also a comforting peace of mind for the rest of us that should we ever e.g. lose our hands in a car collision, we might still have a successful path forward in our programming careers and passions. Reminds me of a talk I once saw where a developer developed arthritis and couldn't program effectively anymore,…

Are you thinking perhaps of this [1] PyCon talk by Tavis Rudd, who had RSI and a rotator cuff injury? He demos a voice command system that's all short nonsense syllables, including with a few humorous video clips interspersed, and then explains it after the demo.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI (demo starts 9 minutes in)

Re: Cursorless – A spoken language for structural code editing

#28

Imho text editing speed is not an issue for programmers.

It’s more complicated than that I think. You don’t spend much time typing, but how much does the time you spend (and the cognitive load of) typing deconstruct the mental architecture you’ve created to solve a problem? This is at the core of why vim/others are still so popular. The micro-gains in typing efficiency translate to much more efficient problem solving because you don’t “lose your place” within your mental p…

I find typing can be helpful. I think more about certain aspects of the problem as I type, so I often discover edge cases I hadn't thought about or potential performance pitfalls.

I guess it's a bit like navigating using only the map in the war room vs navigating on the ground without a map. The ideal route comes through a combination of both, and typing allows for the latter point of view.

Though after typing for a while, I'll take a step back and think about the overall solution again, going over it in my mind. Then back to typing.

That said, I gotta have a responsive editor.

Re: Cursorless – A spoken language for structural code editing

#29
post #4

I find it annoying that they are not using the standard phoenetic alphabet

In my experience, the vast majority of people haven't even heard of the NATO alphabet, unless they've had exposure to certain industries which use it heavily, like military/aerospace.

Re: Cursorless – A spoken language for structural code editing

#30
post #4

I find it annoying that they are not using the standard phoenetic alphabet

In my experience, the vast majority of people haven't even heard of the NATO alphabet, unless they've had exposure to certain industries which use it heavily, like military/aerospace.

But, before using this, all people are unfamiliar with this proprietary one. If you have to learn something..?
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