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by warrenm 1608 days ago
Sure they do: `cp file1 file2`

Vs properly enunciating "Kah-Pee f-i-l-e-1 to f-i-l-e-2"

2 comments

When I did hands-free coding, I named my variables things that I could say as words. So you'd be saying 'copy file-num-one file-num-two' or something, rather than spelling it out letter by letter. I actually ended up naming things more verbose names because I didn't have to type it all out. So it might be:

enunciating: 'copy snake-geary-street-financial-report snake-divisadero-street-financial-report'

versus typing: 'cp gearyStreetFinancialReport divisaderoStreetFinancialReport'

If you're trying to exactly replicate something designed (and named) for text input, you're absolutely right, but I thought we were talking about hypothetical designed-for-voice systems.

tab completion handles goofy and long file names quite handily ... and lot faster than speaking
Tab completion relies on a limited context. If you're trying to type gearyStreetFinancialReport and the two names in context are gearyStreetFinancialReport and unrelated, you're right, but if there's a very large number of choices, it benefits you less. And new names aren't going to be in context, so even in the best case of my example, you're going to end up typing:

'cp g-[TAB] divisaderoStreetFinancialReport'

I'd expect that to be an advantage of voice stuff; that you can go fast in new kinds of large scope contexts, maybe even whole-machine context. A system designed from the ground up could exploit that in interesting ways.

And now you also have camelcaps and other goofy spellings to worry about

typing and shell help is always going to be faster than speaking

`c g-[TAB] g-[TAB]` then replace the couple characters at the front with 'divisadero'

there's no way you can do that faster speaking

I timed myself. 2.18 seconds to say it. Less time than it takes to type it.
you must type slow ... because I can type it in under half the time you claim it took you to speak it