Source of the matter

Today as a software developer, but even back when I was only a nerdy kid, I constantly stumbled upon the famous PEBKAC acronym.

When I was the nerdy kid said before, I’ve always got that quote wrong... enforcing its meaning even more!

The problem was (and currently is) the Human-Computer Interaction

X + Z = Fast?

In the modern era, everything a computer does is, by order of magnitude faster than the same thing executed by the average human being. It’s a matter of fact, and the current reality runs upon that simple statement.

But what about the one who works with a computer? If you use a computer for your daily tasks, you use generically limited types of input:

• Physical (eg. Keyboard, Mouse, Trackpad)

• Virtual (eg. Generate Virtual Keyboard on your smartphone)

Other cutting edge technologies make a complete separated category by themselves, such as NIA

The latter is indeed the subject of many studies, and the reason many corporations exist. As much futuristic all this stuff looks like, you may be amazed by how many of these companies are founded back in the 90s or even 80s

Note: Take a look at the remarkable work by Federico Faggin about the matter back @ Synaptics, whose work leads to the invention of both the trackpad and the touchscreen technology;

Federico Faggin, which I consider an absolute blessed genius, started a deep exploration about the “consciousness”, maybe started back when he was leading Synaptics

What leads to an unambiguous and seamless link between man and computers? Should computers “behave” as “conscious”, or even “sentient” at the human “input”?

Again, the amazing book Silicon by Faggin himself, set a new point of view on the possible connection between Engineering, Physics (Traditional and Quantum), Philosophy, and Religion, while Faggin retraces his entire life through an introspective autobiography.;

Known speed improvement solutions to whose working “instructing” the computers

As a developer, I often wish I could “input/realize” as fast as something comes to my mind.

Sure, as my friend and mentor “Laszlo” said to me in my early developer days:

“To understand and debug a piece code, you must act like a computer, reading your code line by line”

(the majority of you may also call this Rubber Duck Debugging)

After exploring such a “slow” method of input, after generation of developers, the only solution found was to “adapt” to what was around (Keyboard) and improving its usage

Something like “one interface to rule them all”.

Many of the most experienced and gifted developers I know (both personally and non) use this approach to link “mind” and “action” when communicating their intent to the computer: extreme keyboard layouts and shortcuts.

You surely have already heard about terminal text editors like EMACS or VIM... you get the point

Some of these solutions are very stable and mature, as only a revamped notorious 80s text editor could be.

The only solution found after so many years of computer programming... as to be found going back to the first input/output method ever created to let humans and computers communicate.

Could exists any better way to achieve a good mind/computer interaction?