Spock: A Spoken Programming Language
In December 2023, I came up with the idea of a programming language you would be able to speak out loud, into your phone or computer, hands-free. I thought it was an interesting idea for a couple of reasons:
- It would allow you to program on the go without a laptop, while still approaching threshold efficiency (130wpm output[^1]). Also, reducing the time from thought → action seemed like a powerful way to increase productivity.
- It would be an interesting experiment to see how voice programming would change software: Would being able to speak algorithms increase fluency with them? Would programming languages naturally become more terse and expressive, mirroring natural language? Would voice-written software libraries become spaghetti, or would the necessity of fitting the entire problem domain in your brain at once lead to more elegant solutions?
- There are many voice assistants which run code on your behalf, but none that are Turing complete. A language that allows you to communicate any task that a computer can conceivably do would be the ultimate in power and flexibility.
At the time, I couldn’t really pursue the idea due to other projects, nor had I really done any work in programming languages since second year, so I was forced to give up on the idea. Nonetheless, I briefly reviewed my course notes and kept the idea on the back burner.