pep 8 constants

[Eric S. Johansson]

Horace Blegg wrote:
> I've been kinda following this. I have a cousin who is permanently wheel
> chair bound and doesn't have perfect control of her hands, but still
> manages to use a computer and interact with society. However, the
> idea/thought of disabled programmers was new to me/hadn't ever occurred
> to me.
> 
> You say that using your hands is painful, but what about your feet?
> Wouldn't it be possible to rig up some kind of foot peddle for
> shift/caps lock? Kinda like the power peddle used with sowing machines,
> so the hands are free to hold fabric.
> 
> I don't mean this in a condescending manor, and I apologize if you take
> it as such. I'm genuinely curious if you think something like this could
> work.
> 
> The way I was envisioning it working last night (and I haven't the
> faintest clue how SR works, nor have I ever used SR) was that you would
> hit the foot peddle, which would tell the SR program to capitalize the
> first letter of the next word (a smart shift, basically, so you don't
> end up doing something like ... WONderland -or- "stocks are up 1,0))%
> TOday".)
> 
> Possible? Stupid?
> 
it's not stupid.

People have used foot pedals for decades for a variety of controls. I don't
think foot pedals would work for me because when I am dictating, I pace.
Standing, sitting, I pace. With a cord headset, I'm forced to stay within about
4 feet of the computer. But what I'm using a Bluetooth headset, I will sometimes
ramble as far as 10 or 15 feet from the computer. It helps if I make the font
larger so I can glance over and see what kind of errors I've gotten.

I really love a Bluetooth headset with speech recognition. It's so liberating.

Your question about foot pedals makes me think of alternative. would it make
sense to have a handheld keyboard which would be used for command-and-control
functionality or as an adjunct to speech recognition use? It would have to be
designed in such a way that it doesn't aggravate a hand injury which may not be
possible. Anyway, just thinking out loud.