[Idle-Dev] Making Python Speech-Friendly Under IDLE

[JP S-C]

On Wed, 06 Dec 2000, David Ascher wrote:
> A few months back, after a scary bout with wrist 
> pains, I spent a fair bit of time thinking about how
> to code in Python w/o being bound to the keyboard. 
> For what it's worth, I think that the answer lies in

> breaking the whole serial token metaphors, and to 
> think about coding at a higher level of actions,
such
>  as "define a class", "define a function", "define a
> method", 
... 
> My lazy experiments with speech recognition didn't
> prove very successful, and my hands are still
usable,
> even if more fragile, so I wasn't limited to speech
> input;  

I'm glad your wrist pains ceased or diminished.

> I 'noticed' that one of the nice things
> about Python (from a UI perspective) is that the 
> branching factor is quite low at any given context
of
> a program, with some branches having much
> higher probabilities of being what the programmer 
> needs than others.  For example, inside a class, the
> 'define-method' branch has a high likelihood of
being
> the correct branch to take, as opposed to an 
> if-statement or a looping construct.

Very interesting.

You seem to be describing two ideas: one about
programming by speech and another about minimizing
human computer interaction.

VoiceCode (http://sourceforge.net/projects/voicecode)
is working on the first idea:

"VoiceCode is an Open Source initiative started by the
National Research Council of Canada, to develop a
programming by voice toolbox. The aim of the project
is to make programming through voice input as easy and

productive as with mouse and keyboard."  Source: 
http://sourceforge.net/projects/voicecode

I talked to someone from VoiceCode a while ago and
they seemed to be concentrating on developing basic
features (e.g., support for different languages). 
Eventually, it would be nice if VoiceCode could be
integrated with
text-to-speech software to make a hands free, eyes
free, and theoretically, ears free IDE.


I think the second idea about minimizing human
computer interaction is the one we should focus on and
discuss further.  There are a huge number of
applications for what you have described, including
newbie/intermediate
programming and any environment that wants to maximize
a user's efficiency (especially a user who is not
using a mouse, keyboard, or possibly a monitor).  

> I could go on like that for a long time, but that's 
> probably useless as I'm unable to commit the time it
> would take to expand these ideas.  I just wanted to 
> suggest that people think a little outside the box, 
> and examine the properties of the language.  

Thank you, that's always a good suggestion.

> The proposals I've seen on the
> list so far could apply just as well to Perl as to 
> Python, but the two languages are fundamentally
>  different and should be spoken differently =).

True, although I think basic "tab", "indent",
"dedent", "x number spaces" would work decently for
both.

> What I will do is volunteer to organize a 
> get-together at IPC9 on the topic, as long as it's
> over some drinks.  I'm pretty sure we can get 
> a couple of speech-recognition experts to partake.
=)

That would be nice.  I am not currently planning to
attend IPC9, but I'll check.  If most of you live in
California or are interested, our project (Project
Ocularis) is going to be having an event in L.A. in 
late March.

Thanks for your well thought out comments.  Talk to
you soon.

--JP


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