How Is Backspace Four Times Easier?

What is it with everything adding in auto complete to their list of features?

Alright, I understand that probably more than half the computer using population out there hunts and pecks their keys, and another good chunk of people simply don't know how to spell out there. (I'm terrible at spelling in English, but that's a blog for another time.) However, why do I have to ware out my backspace key just so other people can be lazy?

I think auto-complete would be nice if it only used one key to determine whether or not to finish a word for me. The TAB key would probably be a nice option, though a computer geek like myself would actually prefer F2 or something.

I find it so annoying when I am typing something and I hit the space bar or enter key and auto-complete decides to change my word on me! Just because I used the word "camping" earlier in my paper doesn't mean that I want to use the word "camping" every other place in my paper. I type "I went camping last week." at the beginning of my story, and then later I try to write, "I went back to camp." and the auto-complete decides to be helpful and put "ing" at the end for me. Well ain't that wonderful! So, I end up with "I went back to camping."

The solution of course is to turn off auto-complete entirely. However, in some programs auto-complete can be quite helpful. For example, I use a compiler named Torsion for writing TorqueScript. It would be nice to use the auto-complete feature to make sure all of my variable names are correct. However, when it starts making me hit the backspace key 20 times (or mouse over and highlight) to change function names back to the function name I intended, it becomes more of a pain than a boon.

I tend to wonder if the people who write these programs actually use the features they write into them. I can't imagine some Microsoft programmer using auto-complete in MS Word, the way auto-complete functions right now. If they're not using the feature, I think they should take that as a clue that something needs fixed.

I have another rant for auto-formatting too.