Programming by dictation?
- by Andrew M
ie. you speak out the code, and someone else across the room types it in
Anyone tried this?
Obviously the person taking the dictation would need to be a coder too, so you didn't have to explain everything and go into tedious detail (not 'open bracket, new line...' but more like 'create a new class called myParser that takes three arguments, first one is...').
I thought of it because sometimes I'm too easily distracted at my computer. Surrounded by buttons, instant gratification a click away, the world at my fingertips. To get stuff done, I want to get away, write my code on paper. But that would mean losing access to necessary resources, and necessitate tedious typing-up later on. The solution? Dictate.
Pros:
no chance to check reddit, stackexchange, gmail, etc.
code while you pace the room, lie down, play billiards, whatever
train your brain to think more abstractedly (have to visualize things if you can't just see the screen)
skip the tedious details (closing brackets etc.)
the typist gets to shadow a more experienced programmer and learn how they work
the typist can provide assistance/suggestions
external pressure of typist expecting instructions, urging you to stay focussed
Cons
might be too hard
might not work any better
rather inefficient use of assisting programmer
need to find/pay someone to do this
