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Programming by Voice May Be the Next Frontier in Software Development
Programming by Voice May Be the Next Frontier in Software Development
By SHALINI PANCHAL 2,120 views
TECH

Programming by Voice May Be the Next Frontier in Software Development

Many years ago, everything started with SOUND, and then we reached WORD (text). As per a study, 90% of human communication still happens through voice only as it is a natural system. With the changing time, technology has advanced a lot and gadgets have started interacting with us.
 
One of the common examples is Siri by Apple or Alexa, these can be found in most of the household today. People have been using it as a basic necessity of day-to-day life.
 
These have are accompanied by automotive assistants like Apple CarPlay, and also certain applications. That is sensitive to voice commands and biometrics.
 
In today’s world, technology has stepped ahead and now the technology itself is being built by the voice. So, now there is no use of a keyboard and mouse to write the code but it can be done by giving the voice instructions.
 
There was Wave I of the voice-based intelligent systems during 2011-13. When the number of voice platforms was introduced like Siri, S Voice, Nina, Google Now and during Wave II in 2014-Present date. We have seen the launch of Amazon’s Echo, Hound, Google Home, VIV, Facebook’s M, and Jibo.
 
The way by which the natural and intelligent User Interface. It is becoming part of our daily lives then Advanced Voice technology will soon be present everywhere.
 
Beginning of Programming by Voice:
 
Voice coding has layers of technology which makes it a complex system. With the voice coding platforms, the Custom Software Development Services India needs to utter the commands to create a code. Then create a customized command. As per requirement, it automates the complete workflow.
  • SERENADE
Serenade, which is a re-known voice coding application and has raised 2.1 million dollars in 2020 in the seed funding round. It has an engine that converts speech-to-text and it is developed specifically for code. It is not at all like speech-to-text API by Google which is designed for conversational speech.
 
Serenade came into existence out of necessity. This technology was invented by two software engineers who were injured.
 
One of the co-founders, Matt Weithoff was detected with a repetitive strain injury in 2019 and he had to leave his job at Quora as a software Engineer ad. He was unable to work anymore by using his hands.
 
Then he was left with either of the options, one was to change the career option which does not require too much typing. And the other was to find a solution to an existing problem. And Matt decided to look for a solution to his problem rather than quitting this career option. And then he invented a new method of programming where one does not need to use their hand or keyboard or mouse, it is all by voice. This is how the voice-coding platform was generated.
 
In Serenade, when the software developer utters the code, then the engine of Serenade processes it into its natural language. Machine-learning models are trained in such a way that it identifies. It converts the common programming language to valid code.
 
As per a co-founder of Serenade, it is quite easier to be able to describe what you want to do. Example-rather than typing, it is easier to say-Move these lines down or copy this method. 
 
In short, Serenade gives your wrists to rest but still once can be productive. Also, it evolves the automation of workflow of any project which includes the process of compiling the code and running the tests.
  • TALON
Similarly, Talon came into existence. Ryan Hileman also has the same experience; he had severe hand pain in 2017 due to which he was bound to leave his full-time job as a software engineer. It was when he thought of developing a hands-free coding method and developed Talon. The concept of Talon was to completely replace the keyboard and mouse for coding.
 
Talon has three different components which include- speech recognition, noise recognition, and eye-tracking. The speech recognition system of Talon is based on Wav2letter by Facebook. Hileman extended to set the voice coding commands.
 
The capabilities of eye-tracking and noise recognition simulates navigation. With the help of a mouse and moving a cursor across the screen which completely depends on eye movements and making clicks based on mouth pops.
 
According to Hileman, the non-verbal way of clicking the mouse which does not cause vocal strain and requires less effort and low latency.
 
There are also some open-source voice coding platforms. Like Caster and Anea which are completely free and they both depend on a speech-recognition engine named Dragon.
 
Voice Coding Requirements:
 
Voice-based programming needs few gadgets for apt programming:
 
1) A good quality decent microphone
 
This will enable to cancel all the unnecessary noise in the background.
 
2) Eye-tracking hardware
 
If one wants to run the Talon with its feature of eye-tracking, then they should have good eye-tracking hardware.
 
Benefits of Voice Coding:
 
– It helps in improving the productivity of software developers. In coding and that too by using the voice commands to abstract the manipulated code and automate the entire workflow.
 
– It gives chance to the people who are facing repetitive strain injuries. Chronic pain conditions, to continue their career without switching the field.
 
– It narrows down the barrier for any non-technical person to enter the field of software development. If one thinks about the code, then there is a machine enable to write the code in a structured way.
 
Conclusion:
 
Despite having several benefits, it is quite difficult for the large number of software engineers and developers to shift from their conventional way of typing the code and writing the syntax codes through keyboard and mouse. But undoubtedly, voice coding opens a huge platform of different possibilities in the world of programming. The Software development company India enables many of the developers to do the coding as per the need of the business be it by voice coding or the traditional way of programming.
Shalini Panchal
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SHALINI PANCHAL

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