Why is autocompletion not more popular?
In my opinion, there are two fundamental reasons for this:
1. The applications themselves are not models of clarity. Word's Autotext, for example, is cumbersome and off-putting whereas Intellicomplete, a model of simplicity once you get the hang of it, is surrounded by too much extraneous matter. It's a case of not seeing the woods for the trees and I think the developer would have been better advised to focus on just this one feature.
2. The second reason is very interesting at an intellectual, almost philosophical level! We are all the same, aren't we? Very often, we fail to get the most out of a product because we can't be bothered to spend a little time getting to know how it works. And you might think the same holds true for autocompletion, but curiously enough almost the opposite is true! How so? Here, the temptation is to amass a whole series of snippets to be autocompleted or pasted at any time in the future. I myself started out by amassing veritable libraries of words and phrases which I thought would stand me in good stead. But it doesn't work like that - at least not in the world of the computer!
Here is the golden rule: autocompletion is geared to our SHORT-TERM memory. You see, if you recorded a phrase a few hours ago (not to mention, days, weeks, months or years ago!) there is a strong possibility that you won't even remember you can autocomplete it. There is of course a prompt window to help you but even here you will have interrupted your work flow, just as you do when you look for a text to paste from a list.
Much better, in my view, to get rid of the dead weight of the past, and to start each session anew. You may lose a little time at the beginning, but this will be more than offset by the advantage of having your words and phrases fresh in your mind, ready to be completed WITHOUT EVEN HAVING TO LOOK AT THE PROMPT WINDOW!
Once I discovered this elementary truth my productivity increased no end. Yours will too!
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