I tried to program using general purpose speech recognition and came to the conclusion that programming is too far from regular spoken language. You need a specific grammar that it is tailored to coding (not necessarily language specific). As a result of this experience I looked into programming using speech recognition. It's still only a proof of concept, but to some extent I believe it is doable.
Things to consider:
- If you are healthy and can code at full speed with both hands, you will be faster with a keyboard/mouse. I type at around 60 wpm and there's no way I can go faster with voice. However, I'm a very slow typer with only one hand. I believe that you can decrease the amount of strain on your arms considerably by being assisted by voice commands as opposed to going voice only.
- There are activities within a programming IDE that are not coding/typing. Being able to perform many of these tasks using voice should further reduce strain.
- Not everyone works in an environment where it is feasible to sit and talk to the computer.
A short video of the POC is on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3Lm9nrFeMk
