Monday, December 05, 2005

Typeless Translator - Naturally Selected?

Here is an example of what I mean by Darwinian software development.

Last year I felt some pain: "I'm a crap typist. I need to type faster and more accurately."

So I came up with an idea: "Imagine if you could write code in abbreviated form like, SMS txt mesgs."

And a task: "Create a Perl module to help me type less: TypelessTranslator.pm."

The TypelessTranslator works as a post-edit filter. It scans my edited code for abbreviated code and expands it. For example, "fe m $member (@a)" expands to "foreach my $member (@array)". In a similar way that you, or your mobile phone, expands SMS messages. The idea is to "type less" but "read more".

Sadly, from a Darwinian software development point of view, this one is tettering on the edge of falling back into the primordial soup. It turns out to be quite tricky to implement and has an annoying habit of expanding into the wrong words. But it is an idea worth having as it may mutate into something truly useful.

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