Skip to content
Hallway
0:00 / 0:00

#voicecoding#perl#talonvoice

Emily Shea - "Perl Out Loud"

The Perl and Raku Conference - Greenville, SC 2026

3.7K subscribers • 5 videos on Hallway

YouTube
  • Recommended by 4 people: 3 on Hacker News and 1 on Lobsters.
  • A classic. People kept recommending it from 2019 to 2022.
  • Presented by Emily Shea, software engineer

Beginner. No background in the topic needed.

32K views7 years ago4 recommendations

Tools and practiceProgramming languagesDeveloper productivityVim, Emacs and editors

Emily Shea shares her experience using voice dictation to write Perl after developing RSI, demonstrating how she designs custom voice commands.

As a Senior Software Engineer at Fastly, I use voice dictation as my main form of interacting with the computer. I will talk about my experience with Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) and how this led me to discover voice dictation and subsequently change my perception of the viability of using voice dictation for software development. I will cover some unique challenges to using voice dictation, from homophones and defining custom vocabulary, to designing and building my own voice commands to write Perl. This talk is relevant to anyone who might find themselves unable to use a keyboard or mouse, anyone curious about exploring new ways of interacting with a computer, anyone writing software for people using different input methods, and anyone interested in learning what it's like writing Perl by voice in 2019. It's important to make known that voice dictation is a viable option for those who can benefit from it, and as more people are using voice assistants to interact with their phones and computers, we should be thinking about using voice for software development.

Why it's here

4 people recommend this

What people say. Highly recommended as an inspiring and practical demonstration of coding entirely by voice to overcome repetitive strain injury.

rkagereron Hacker News • Recommends

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

Developed RSI 15 years ago, tried all kinds of contraptions. Here's what helped me: - Kinesis Advantage keyboard w/ footswitch link - Ambidextrous mousing (one on each side, to split the load). Favor your PageUp / PageDown buttons over the evil mousewheel. - Lifestyle changes (biggest bang for the buck). Try to get at least 20 minutes of aerobic exercise in each day, e.g. running. - Proper ergonomic positioning This video from the article is a phenomenal demonstration of dictation coding: link to this video Fun fact (or myth?): Your tongue is one of the few muscles in the body that can't get RSI. I played around prototyping a tongue-switch a while back using a flex sensor.
View on Hacker News

tmtvlon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Short Thoughts on Computers and Programming”

Yeah, when I saw Emily Shea's talk* I became aware of the accessibility-unfriendly code I normally put out. I still find myself writing bad code, but at least now I'm aware what to be aware of. * link to this video
View on Hacker News

b2gillson Hacker News • Recommends

On “Try APL”

You can if you put in the work to set it up. There are two (nearly identical) talks by Emily Shea - Perl Out Loud link to this video - Voice Driven Development: Who needs a keyboard anyway? link
View on Hacker News

tigerlilyon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Open-Source Code for Hand Gesture Recognition – Sign Language Translation”

Ha, I read the headline and thought it was "git by gesture". This is because I'd recently watched "Perl out loud", a talk this year by Emily Shea (2shea): link to this video
View on Hacker News

ksajon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Google Engineer Codes with Voice”

Here's a video of someone discussing programming PERL by voice. I think I found it on HN in a different post months ago. link to this video
View on Hacker News

bmn__on Hacker News • Mentions

On “Sherbet: An Ergonomic Gaming Keypad”

cap abstract cap factory join leb cap factory leb capital letter india cap enumerable join leb capital letter tango cap data join cap type join reb reb reb slap link to this video
View on Hacker News

lunixbochson Hacker News • Mentions

On “On Voice Coding”

link to this video at 4:15 is when she plays the Perl Vista video (note the fiddling around video playing isn’t a fundamental issue with voice input, google slides with video embeds turned out to be pretty unreliable with keyboard input and I believe that was ironed out in her later talks)
View on Hacker News

u/PurpleYoshiEggin r/ProgrammingLanguages • Mentions

On “Would you use a language like this? Looking for feedback on my idea.”

I don't have much to say on the rest of the post, but I think most if not all of it is valid at first glance, and I think the language attempt is worth it. I would recommend looking at Forth and many Forth-like implementations as seem to de-emphasize braces and other such similar characters (though the comment documentation on stack operations for a function (called a word in Forth) uses parentheses, so failing snippet insertions, that may be a point against it). I won't say Forth isn't awkward in comparison to most languages, but it may be good inspiration. > I hate having to take the time to hold down shift and move my finger up to the parenthesis keys, and having to carefully keep trac…
1View on Reddit