

Will Keyboards Become Obsolete As PCs Decline? - dcawrey
http://midsizeinsider.com/en-us/article/keyboards-obsolete-as-pcs-decline

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mkautzm
I cannot, even in a world of total science fiction, think of anything short of
straight up mental entry that could totally replace a keyboard.

Even in a world where dictation is perfect, do you really want to be saying
'Colon, Dee' to enter in :D. Not to mention the implications on coding, or
other places where the language we use is simply the middle man.

So, as Aaronem said, 'no'. Maybe one day if/when a device can just read your
mind and immediately put what you are thinking on the screen, but until then,
the keyboard isn't going anywhere.

~~~
kalleboo
> do you really want to be saying 'Colon, Dee' to enter in :D

"Open mouth smiley"

> Not to mention the implications on coding

Could be the renaissance of english-alike programming languages like
HyperTalk.

    
    
       on mouseDown
         answer file "Please select a text file to open."
         if it is empty then exit mouseDown
         put it into filePath
         if there is a file filePath then
           open file filePath
           read from file filePath until return
           put it into card field "some field"
           close file filePath
           set the textStyle of character 1 to 10 of card field "some field" to bold
         end if
       end mouseDown

~~~
mkautzm
> "Open mouth smiley"

But this is ambiguous. That could be ':D' or '=D'.

As for the coding example, I cannot imagine that ending well. I mean, it's
full of little oddities that don't exist in spoken language. Even look at
"filePath". You can't say filePath because while in our heads, we see it like
that, the spoken is 'file path'. Paths themselves are a mess to deal with
since words like 'space' and 'backslash' and other 'reserved words' couldn't
be used in the actual name of the path because they would have to be used in
other places.

Spoken language is just way too context sensitive to work at that level.
Written language is absolute, at least to a machine.

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iambateman
This article was written on a keyboard.

kthxbai.

------
aaronem
No.

~~~
chevas
This is the exact comment I was hoping to add to this thread, but you beat me
to it. This article begs for a straight up "No."

------
_random_
Yes, just like the traditional icon-based GUIs became obsolete on mainstream
tablets and smartphones... NOT.

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hadem
Try typing a paper, thesis, book, etc. on a touch screen...

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n00b101
Betteridge's law: "Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered
by the word no."

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timthorn
What on Earth has virtualization got to do with input devices?

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Globz
Hell no.

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Sagat
It's going to take a long, long while.

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59nadir
Only an idiot would ask the question.

