> The problem with speech to code has always been that precise syntax is hard
The biggest problem is that talking sucks. You presumably can handle voice input as well as is possible, yet here we are typing to you anyway, and for good reason. Even if the natural language part is nailed, you may as well type in that natural language.
I imagine it will bring some quality of life improvements to those with certain disabilities, but I don't see why the typical developer would want to go in that direction.
I don't want to disparage their work, because it's really impressive, but "fill null values of column Fare with average column values" is closer to AppleScript than it is to natural language.
It solves the issue of trying to speak obscure code syntax like “close parenthesis semicolon newline”.
That’s enough to lower the barrier to entry for many people; I don’t know how good it is practically but it’s disingenuous to suggest it’s not offering a novel solution to an old problem.
The problem with speech to code has always been that precise syntax is hard, but AI codegen solves that.
So, no, it might not take off, but I feel like if it does, then it means ai-codegen will become the dominant way code is crafted.
That would be paradigm shifting.
It’s inconceivable that it wouldn’t be.