VimSpeak Demo

Name: VimSpeak Demo
Uploaded: 2013-04-20T04:40:15Z
Duration: 855 s
Description: Ashley Feniello demonstrates VimSpeak, a voice-controlled interface for Vim inspired by Tavis Rudd's voice programming talk. The demo includes working through a VimGolf challenge by speech.

AAshley Feniello1 video here

YouTube

16K views · Apr 20, 2013 · 14:15 · 1 HN recommender · 3 mentions · discussed 2016–2026

Ashley Feniello demonstrates VimSpeak, a voice-controlled interface for Vim inspired by Tavis Rudd's voice programming talk. The demo includes working through a VimGolf challenge by speech.

Why Hacker News points people here: HN mentions it as an example of voice-driven editing, and one commenter says it clarified how Vim commands compose.

“I found VimSpeak [1] interesting because I somehow understood how to really compose vim commands”HN comment, 2026

Testing, debugging & developer tools Computer vision, speech & NLP Demo #vim #voice programming #speech recognition #vimgolf #accessibility

What Hacker News said 3

RecommendsriedelJan 2026

“I found VimSpeak [1] interesting because I somehow understood how to really compose vim commands”

Shows how vim commands compose, aiding deeper understanding.

Full comment

While I had times discovering myself to accidentally putting 'i' accidentally into MS Word docs and having vom key binding ls in VS Code (and formally eclipse) as well for that reason, I still feel clumsy. I think this is because I mostly rely on muscle memory rather than understanding deeply what I am doing to also allow me to go beyond what I normally do ) which already makes me faster than in any other editor). I found VimSpeak [1] interesting because I somehow understood how to really compose vim commands in a way [1] this video

Cites itpmoriartyDec 2016

Voice input for vim as an example of alternative editor input.

Full comment

Here's voice input for emacs: [1], [2] And for vim (inspired by [2]): [3] I'm sure gesture tracking would probably not be too hard, using any of a number of VR input devices now on the market. Eye tracking would be harder, as I'm not aware of any consumer-level eye-tracking technologies out there. You could certainly have head-tracking pretty easily, though. Now integrating this in a way that would actually be fluid, natural, and useful is another story, though. Also, I'm personally not sure how many big body movements I want to be doing while using my computer (unless I'm trying to exercise, play a game, draw, conduct music, or lose weight). Ideally, I'd want to be as motionless as possible while being as comfortable as possible and while having maximum flexibility and efficiency of input. Keyboards are pretty good for that. [1] - link [2] - link [3] - this video

Cites itmellingJan 2017

“We're getting closer with voice. VimSpeak”

Example of voice-driven vim editing.

Full comment

An IDE does greatly reduce typing. What we need next is some advanced voice input added to our editors. This "John Henry" mentality that developers have about typing never seems to go away. We should be building smarter tools. We're getting closer with voice. VimSpeak: this video Using Dragon: link Using Kaldi: link This toolkit seems to be the most widely used: link Better predictive typing would also be useful. Computer languages often greatly narrow what you probably want to type next, because of scope, for example.