4 ms·

An interesting take, though I thought most IDEs have most of those features already? (I personally dislike features that auto-jump me around apart from auto-ind

by Jach 15y ago

An interesting take, though I thought most IDEs have most of those features already? (I personally dislike features that auto-jump me around apart from auto-indent.) It's funny she brought up vim since vim can be made to do those things as well; it's not limited to 26 characters since you can have multicharacter commands in any mode just fine. I still don't really "get" the syllable perspective but it seems like it's just a mapping of one stroke (I think my confusion is what constitutes a "stroke") on specialized hardware to several on a qwerty board? So I guess you're limited to the number of keys on a qwerty board for single-point-of-entry commands with vim, but you could always use the specialty keyboard and map the output of those as multi-character vim commands... It seems the main benefit is having those mappings done for you and available system-wide.

naner 15y ago
I still don't really "get" the syllable perspective but it seems like it's just a mapping of one stroke (I think my confusion is what constitutes a "stroke") on specialized hardware to several on a qwerty board? As far as I can tell, steno works by mapping a "stroke" (a combination of keys pressed at once -- like a chord on a musical instrument) to a "syllable" which appears to be a chunk of a word for prose but apparently can be any chunk of text for things like programming. I think this is why she recommends a 45$ "gamer's keyboard", most regular keyboards have a limit to the number of simultaneous key presses that will be registered. Also it appears that when using a keyboard for steno you still only use a limited number of keys. From the video it looks like she barely strayed from the home position.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  Isn't the standard keyboard simultaneous keypress limit already something like 9 keys though?
  - tomku 15y ago
    Keyboard ghosting: https://www.microsoft.com/appliedsciences/AntiGhostingExplained.mspx https://www.microsoft.com/appliedsciences/AntiGhostingExplai... Gaming on a keyboard with severe ghosting problems is infuriating, and I'd imagine that steno would be just as painful.
    - ken 15y ago
      Another description which I found easier to understand: http://www.dribin.org/dave/keyboard/one_html/ http://www.dribin.org/dave/keyboard/one_html/
  - honza 15y ago
    Das Keyboard has unlimited n-key roll-over. Press all keys at once, all register.
  - loup-vaillant 15y ago
    6 Keys on USB, if I recall correctly. However, PS2 doesn't limit you at all, and a number of keyboard let you press any number of keys you want. (Typically high-end mechanical keyboards, or gaming keyboards.) A honza mention in his (dead) comment, the technical term is "n-key rollover" where n=6 for USB, and n="n" when it's unlimited.
    - ploversteno 15y ago
      The newer USB keyboards with n-key rollover don't have this limit. I'm able to depress 22 keys at a time on a Sidewinder X4 ($45) or a Filco Majestouch ($120) connected via USB and have them all register perfectly. Yep, the steno layout is only two rows for fingers, one row for thumbs, and one meta-row for numbers. There's very little movement of the hands required, which makes it both ergonomic and efficient. Chords of 1 to 22 keys are mapped to syllables, words, or phrases. It's a lot like playing a piano.
ricardobeat 15y ago
Zen Coding [1] gives you some of that advantage, by turning many complex constructs into 3-4 character keywords, and placing the caret automatically at meaningful places (some textmate bundles do this too). The approach works really well for CSS and HTML. 1. http://code.google.com/p/zen-coding/ http://code.google.com/p/zen-coding/
jodrellblank 15y ago
I still don't really "get" the syllable perspective but it seems like it's just a mapping of one stroke (I think my confusion is what constitutes a "stroke") on specialized hardware to several on a qwerty board? [..] It seems the main benefit is having those mappings done for you and available system-wide. From playing around with it for a few minutes, there's a little bit more to it than that. It auto-inserts spaces between words, but there are some keys which add to the end of the previous word (e.g. one button adds 'es' to words ending in 's' or 's' to other words, or makes a new word if part of another chord). So it isn't a direct one-chord-to-one-string-of-characters mapping.

by Jach 15y ago

naner 15y ago

I still don't really "get" the syllable perspective but it seems like it's just a mapping of one stroke (I think my confusion is what constitutes a "stroke") on specialized hardware to several on a qwerty board? As far as I can tell, steno works by mapping a "stroke" (a combination of keys pressed at once -- like a chord on a musical instrument) to a "syllable" which appears to be a chunk of a word for prose but apparently can be any chunk of text for things like programming. I think this is why she recommends a 45$ "gamer's keyboard", most regular keyboards have a limit to the number of simultaneous key presses that will be registered. Also it appears that when using a keyboard for steno you still only use a limited number of keys. From the video it looks like she barely strayed from the home position.

sliverstorm 15y ago
Isn't the standard keyboard simultaneous keypress limit already something like 9 keys though?
- tomku 15y ago
  Keyboard ghosting: https://www.microsoft.com/appliedsciences/AntiGhostingExplained.mspx https://www.microsoft.com/appliedsciences/AntiGhostingExplai... Gaming on a keyboard with severe ghosting problems is infuriating, and I'd imagine that steno would be just as painful.
  - ken 15y ago
    Another description which I found easier to understand: http://www.dribin.org/dave/keyboard/one_html/ http://www.dribin.org/dave/keyboard/one_html/
- honza 15y ago
  Das Keyboard has unlimited n-key roll-over. Press all keys at once, all register.
- loup-vaillant 15y ago
  6 Keys on USB, if I recall correctly. However, PS2 doesn't limit you at all, and a number of keyboard let you press any number of keys you want. (Typically high-end mechanical keyboards, or gaming keyboards.) A honza mention in his (dead) comment, the technical term is "n-key rollover" where n=6 for USB, and n="n" when it's unlimited.
  - ploversteno 15y ago
    The newer USB keyboards with n-key rollover don't have this limit. I'm able to depress 22 keys at a time on a Sidewinder X4 ($45) or a Filco Majestouch ($120) connected via USB and have them all register perfectly. Yep, the steno layout is only two rows for fingers, one row for thumbs, and one meta-row for numbers. There's very little movement of the hands required, which makes it both ergonomic and efficient. Chords of 1 to 22 keys are mapped to syllables, words, or phrases. It's a lot like playing a piano.

ricardobeat 15y ago

Zen Coding [1] gives you some of that advantage, by turning many complex constructs into 3-4 character keywords, and placing the caret automatically at meaningful places (some textmate bundles do this too). The approach works really well for CSS and HTML. 1. http://code.google.com/p/zen-coding/ http://code.google.com/p/zen-coding/

jodrellblank 15y ago

I still don't really "get" the syllable perspective but it seems like it's just a mapping of one stroke (I think my confusion is what constitutes a "stroke") on specialized hardware to several on a qwerty board? [..] It seems the main benefit is having those mappings done for you and available system-wide. From playing around with it for a few minutes, there's a little bit more to it than that. It auto-inserts spaces between words, but there are some keys which add to the end of the previous word (e.g. one button adds 'es' to words ending in 's' or 's' to other words, or makes a new word if part of another chord). So it isn't a direct one-chord-to-one-string-of-characters mapping.