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Using Python to Code by Voice

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68K subscribers • 16 videos on Hallway

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  • Recommended by 17 people: 12 on Hacker News, 1 on Lobsters and 4 in engineering communities.
  • A classic. People kept recommending it from 2013 to 2025.
  • Presented by Tavis Rudd, software developer

Intermediate. Assumes working knowledge.

347K views13 years ago17 recommendations

Tools and practiceProgramming languagesPythonAccessibilityDeveloper productivity

Tavis Rudd demonstrates how he built a voice-control system using Python and Emacs to write code efficiently after developing severe RSI.

Tavis RuddTwo years ago I developed a case of Emacs Pinkie (RSI) so severe my hands went numb and I could no longer type or work. Desperate, I tried voice recognition. At first programming with it was painfully slow but, as I couldn't type, I persevered. After several months of vocab tweaking and duct-tape coding in Python and Emacs Lisp, I had a system that enabled me to code faster and more efficiently by voice than I ever had by hand. In a fast-paced live demo, I will create a small system using Python, plus a few other languages for good measure, and deploy it without touching the keyboard. The demo gods will make a scheduled appearance. I hope to convince you that voice recognition is no longer a crutch for the disabled or limited to plain prose. It's now a highly effective tool that could benefit all programmers.

Why it's here

17 people recommend this

What people say. Highly recommended as an incredible and inspiring demonstration of hands-free programming and custom voice-control systems.

Moments people linked to

u/arrediin r/emacs • Recommends

RSI? Code with your voice in emacs
21View on Reddit

u/tailbalancein r/emacs • Recommends

Code by voice
19View on Reddit

u/murdsdrumin r/emacs • Recommends

Using Emacs and Python to Program by Voice: Awesome!
16View on Reddit

u/jisang-yooin r/emacs • Recommends

Anyone interested in coding by voice in Emacs should probably start from this
15View on Reddit

thomasjameson Hacker News • Recommends

On “VimSpeak”

A similar project using Emacs and really clever use of Python and Dragon Naturally Speaking SDK was my favorite presentation at PyCon this past year. link to this video
View on Hacker News

monsieurbananaon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Art of chording”

Maybe lisp could shine here? While writing lisp code in classic editors, you already shouldn't be editing or navigating code with classic commands, instead you will be using structured editing. Of course it isn't limited to lisp, but languages with C-like syntax are harder to use for structured editing. I highly recommend watching this video, where the speaker uses voice commands to write both in emacs-lisp and in python. link to this video
View on Hacker News

arijunon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Art of chording”

I'm surprised that there seem to be no examples anywhere of anyone seriously using chorded typing for programming. After cheap chorded keyboards entered the market and the associated software became free, I assumed it would only be a matter of time before something like Travis Rudd's incredible demo of voice coding 1 came out. Perhaps that it hasn't speaks to how difficult it is to get real speed improvements with a chorded setup? 1 link to this video
View on Hacker News

pugioon Hacker News • Recommends

On “The case against conversational interfaces”

> The second thing we need to figure out is how we can compress voice input to make it faster to transmit. What’s the voice equivalent of a thumbs-up or a keyboard shortcut? Can I prompt Claude faster with simple sounds and whistles? This reminds me of the amazing 2013 video of Travis Rudd coding python by voice: link to this video The number of times in the last few years I've wanted that level of "verbal hotkeys"... The latencies of many coding llms are still a little bit too low to allow for my ideal level of flow (though admittedly I haven't tried one's hosted on services like groq), but I can clearly envision a time when I'm issuing tight commands to a coder model that's chatting with me and watch…
View on Hacker News

rjbworkon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Annyang.js – Let visitors control your site with voice commands”

You might be interested in watching this talk: link to this video Although, if I recall correctly, he uses Dragon Naturally Speaking, which is a commercial product.
View on Hacker News

srikon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: Anyone using a “no hands” setup for programming?”

This talk by Tavis Rudd( link to this video ) about a system he used when his hands were afflicted with RSI is pretty interesting. Not entirely a no-hands approach, but I can't seem to remember the developer who made his first app in the hospital by typing with one/two fingers. He wrote a blogpost about his process that was really inspiring.
View on Hacker News

beeworkeron Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: I can barely read, is there a way I could still learn to program?”

There was an interesting talk at PyCon 2013 about programming using only your voice: link to this video Might be worth looking into for your case. It's worth mentioning that the guy did this for himself due to severe RSI in the hands, but there was another talk on using a stenographic keyboard to program and I remember this guy stood up and said he wished he'd known about it earlier as it's another approach for people who suffer from RSI since there's less typing.
View on Hacker News

klibertpon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Something is wrong when the ‘telephone app’ on your phone becomes 3rd party”

See this: link to this video > In a fast-paced live demo, I will create a small system using Python, plus a few other languages for good measure, and deploy it without touching the keyboard. The demo gods will make a scheduled appearance. I hope to convince you that voice recognition is no longer a crutch for the disabled or limited to plain prose. It's now a highly effective tool that could benefit all programmers. Turns out it's doable, you just need to invent your own language.
View on Hacker News

DiThion Hacker News • Recommends

On “How a Blind Developer uses Visual Studio [video]”

IMHO I don't think it would fly. The most difficult things of programming are too abstract for that. You may be interested in the guy that did all his coding with voice for a while because he couldn't use his hands, and still uses it to this day about half of the time. link to this video
View on Hacker News

indiv0on Hacker News • Recommends

On “IBM is not doing "cognitive computing" with Watson (2016)”

Your comment reminded me of an interesting video I saw a while back. The video is a talk 0 by a programmer explaining and demonstrating how he developed and used a voice recognition system to program in emacs, after a significant RSI injury. The commands and syntax he uses to interact with the system might be a decent approximation of the custom English syntax you suggest. 0: link to this video
View on Hacker News

n3k5on Hacker News • Recommends

On “What Does a Coder Do If They Can't Type?”

Tavis Rudd's Using Python to Code by Voice 0 is also interesting. Looking up that URL, I came across the more recent Coding by Voice with Dragonfly 1. Haven't seen that one yet, but just quickly skimmed through. Unfortunately the live demos are silent (you can't hear speaker Boudewijn Aasman talk to the computer), but it seems worth checking out if you're interested in setting up some recent voice recognition software with your own custom voice command syntax. 0 link to this video 1 link
View on Hacker News

jffryon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Cursorless – A spoken language for structural code editing”

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 link to this video (demo starts 9 minutes in)
View on Hacker News