The visual display functions a bit like subtitles on TV: I don't really notice it's there, until it can help me. Just like subtitles help when I don't immediately understand something, autocomplete helps when typing something takes a bit longer than I'd like it to or when I'm not entirely sure what I want to write.

The "misuse" of autocomplete always continues to affect my workflow, because I can never ignore it. When it's wrong I have to explicitly opt-out from having it do the wrong thing, instead of quickly opting in to the right thing when it makes sense. It's a lot like auto-correct on phones, correcting words that weren't wrong in the first place. The fact that the popups capture arrow keys makes this effect significantly worse.

After some configuration I now have Emacs set up to handle this perfectly. Enter and movement commands always work like they normally do, never depending on the state of the autocomplete popup. Whenever it's there I can quickly make use of the autocomplete popup using Alt. It never does the wrong thing, because I would have to consciously tell it to do the wrong thing. When it's opt-in, autocomplete for regular English is actually a delight. I notice myself quickly auto-completing long words that take longer to type out.

I fully agree with your third argument. In my experience libraries and language ecosystems that fully expect autocomplete, like Java, tend to become overly verbose. The length of a name or expression affects the reading cost, but autocomplete mostly removes the equivalent writing cost. This then allows programmers to quickly give up on finding better names, or clearer ways of doing things.

I personally am in the affected by visual noise camp. But it appears that some aren't that bothered by it.

Regarding the autocomplete, GMail does do this. It was a bit jarring initially but now I either accept the option or continue on as if it didn't exist.

I'm not sure what your argument for the third is - that it leads to code that relies on auto-complete? Isn't that in fact an optimization? Those lines don't seem particularly egregious to me. I don't know much C++, but I could see exactly what it was doing with those lines of code by being able to read the variables. Is it verbose? Yes it is. I don't take the idea that coming to rely on a tool is a necessarily a bad thing. C# visual studio debugging is head and shoulders above Console.WriteLine() - is it necessary? No, but it's greatly sped up the development process. Same with not having to go to the command line each time I want to compile and run my application.

I understand you understand you're an outlier, and I know you're just making personal arguments, but it kind of feels a bit "old man yells at cloud" - and that's not bad, I just thought there was value in debate.

Yes, that is a very accurate description of how I feel when making this argument :)

It looks like the trend is toward autocomplete suggestions for English too. On my phone keyboard, there are autocomplete suggestions to choose from when typing, and GMail now has Smart Compose [1] to do the same thing.

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/09/gmail-sma...

Sublime Text often inserts "matching" quotes and parentheses. But it doesn't always do the right thing, so I usually have to go back and erase it. But then it erases the original one, too. So I have to move the cursor, add a space, and then erase it.

And when the feature does do what I wanted, it's only saving me literally 1 character --- ~0.1 seconds at my typing speed.

A common example is copying some PHP source code into a new file, then entering "<?php" at the very top of the file. If I'm working quickly and do the natural thing (i.e. hit ENTER afterwards), I end up with "<?phpversion" and I either have to manually delete it, or do a cmd-z dance. Or I have to remember to press RIGHT after "<?php" instead of ENTER.

Many other similar examples (quote characters often seem to cause a problem). But, on the other hand, I know I've made use of autocomplete to help me type a long constant name which happened to be in the same file. So ... swings and roundabouts.

'I think there are very real costs.'

First off all, "misuse" of autocomplete can be very annoying. Some autocomplete system autocompletes with you.

IN ORWELLS REALITY: It isn’t doing the quote matching to save on your typing, but to keep the scanner from providing the wrong tokens to the parser of a compiler that is running all the time while you are typing.

So... 'Human Interface' ? ^^

iOS does this and I assume Android does also. In fact, it’s based on what you type frequently. For instance, I use some phrases so often that I get autocomplete suggestions for them as well as company specific acronyms.

you should try typing with closed eyes. after some time you see the code directly in your mind.

start writing loop, realize I need another variable, go back and initialize the variable, back to where I was, oh this should be brought out into a function, ah this function should is now getting quite large I need to split it, back to where I was, oh that should be an array not a map etc.

I like Visual Studio's 'jump back to where I was' (Ctrl+-) feature because it leaves a trail of bread crumbs across the many files I'm working in of what I've been doing and what's left to be done to implement feature x.

hm, that's interesting. I generally know pretty well the code I want to write before writing it. The question is what is the fastest way to get it from mind to buffer.

What autocomplete has enabled are deep and broad namespaces in programming languages that do support such a concept. Yes, you are definitely correct that the massive namespaces designed today are only possible because of autocomplete: libraries can cram in more functionality because developers will be able to use autocomplete to find it. But what’s the alternative? Less functionality in the libraries so they can be used with autocomplete turned off? There is some merit to that point of view, but simplification can only go so far before you are just missing things you wanted to use in some niche use case.

Er... that happens all the time: various word processors, text messaging, etc. Even Google's autocomplete (which is a rare example of autocomplete being really good) is essentially this.

The right word for that would be code completion or more specific brandings of intellisense, which is completely different from things like T9.

The right word for that would be code completion or more specific brandings of intellisense, which is completely different from things like T9.