Tuesday, March 06, 2012

[vwjndhpn] The future of programming with a keyboard

We write computer programs with a keyboard, a device originally designed for writing English prose.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, as it is a very good device for that.  Consider some possibilities for improvement:

* Redesign a computer language to look more like English prose.  Mostly it means getting rid of a lot of the punctuation that languages like Perl and C++ have become enamored.  However, what displays on screen does not necessarily have to be what you type.

* Completely redesign a computer language for modern input devices.  Perhaps mouse, stylus, speech, gestures, touchscreens, and 3D displays can all play a part.  Technologies which don't exist yet could make things interesting.

* Aggresively rethink how the current keyboard is used for coding.  Think of the keys not as a way merely to type identifiers and reserved words, but a 100+ button box for selecting items in one keystroke.  Even more choices if chords.  Perhaps some aggressive predictive text.  I feel the right hand numeric keypad could be used more.  However, distant keys will take a long time for the fingers to reach.

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