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"The future I imagine is a world in which programming is self-explanatory, where people talk to computers to build software. To get there, programming tools sho

by dkopi 10y ago

"The future I imagine is a world in which programming is self-explanatory, where people talk to computers to build software. To get there, programming tools should first use our language." But is: "For every button on the page that is a "warning" button, replace the background color to red." Necessarily better than? $("button.warning").css("background-color", "red")

malux85 10y ago
Yes - it's miles better. If you're unconciously competant (i.e. good at your job) they might seem like they both take about the same cognitive effort to understand. But think for a beginner: What is $ ? Is it money? What are () for? What is CSS? I want to shade it, so lets do background-shade .. oh, color only works, so you have to know all the terms. Can I do "background-color" "red blue white striped" What is button.warning? Can I do button.border ? These are all questions a newbie could ask - because they have no experience in the "domain language"
- bbctol 10y ago
  The questions raised was "better," not "easier to learn." In absence of everything else, being easy to learn is a point in favor of natural language--but the inefficiencies, ambiguities, and probable weakness of using natural language are big marks against it. Checkers is easier to learn than chess, but has fewer players.
mrob 10y ago
Inform 7 is a programming language that looks similar to natural English. As far as I can tell the only benefit is tricking beginners into thinking it's easy. By the time they figure out it's a normal programming language only with extra verbose syntax, it's too late, they're already a programmer. If we had a real natural language based programming language it would have all the problems of law. Laws are written in a very formal style that takes a lot of training to understand, and despite this they contain enough ambiguity to support a whole industry of lawyers arguing about them. Making programming similar to law would not make anything easier.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  For a previous attempt at the same idea, see COBOL. The original design goal was to make professional programming obsolete.
  - ktRolster 10y ago
    Applescript is worth looking at for the same reasons.
- douche 10y ago
  I used to mess around a bit with Inform 6 (they had a really excellent tutorial[1]). It wasn't great, but since it was basically C-like with some extra DSL stuff sprinkled on top, you could usually figure out what it was doing without too much effort. I tried to get into Inform 7, but the natural language syntax was so fuzzy, I was constantly trying to figure out how things worked and how I had to write things down to get the results I was trying to get. EDIT: Since guess-the-verb was sometimes half the battle with old Infocom games, I suppose its ironically fitting that the experience of writing IF with Inform 7 parallels that experience. [1] http://inform-fiction.org/manual/about_ibg.html http://inform-fiction.org/manual/about_ibg.html
maxxxxx 10y ago
I have to think of AppleScript "Tell xxx to yyy". That was a real winner :-)

by dkopi 10y ago

malux85 10y ago

Yes - it's miles better. If you're unconciously competant (i.e. good at your job) they might seem like they both take about the same cognitive effort to understand. But think for a beginner: What is $ ? Is it money? What are () for? What is CSS? I want to shade it, so lets do background-shade .. oh, color only works, so you have to know all the terms. Can I do "background-color" "red blue white striped" What is button.warning? Can I do button.border ? These are all questions a newbie could ask - because they have no experience in the "domain language"

bbctol 10y ago
The questions raised was "better," not "easier to learn." In absence of everything else, being easy to learn is a point in favor of natural language--but the inefficiencies, ambiguities, and probable weakness of using natural language are big marks against it. Checkers is easier to learn than chess, but has fewer players.

mrob 10y ago

Inform 7 is a programming language that looks similar to natural English. As far as I can tell the only benefit is tricking beginners into thinking it's easy. By the time they figure out it's a normal programming language only with extra verbose syntax, it's too late, they're already a programmer. If we had a real natural language based programming language it would have all the problems of law. Laws are written in a very formal style that takes a lot of training to understand, and despite this they contain enough ambiguity to support a whole industry of lawyers arguing about them. Making programming similar to law would not make anything easier.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
For a previous attempt at the same idea, see COBOL. The original design goal was to make professional programming obsolete.
- ktRolster 10y ago
  Applescript is worth looking at for the same reasons.
douche 10y ago
I used to mess around a bit with Inform 6 (they had a really excellent tutorial[1]). It wasn't great, but since it was basically C-like with some extra DSL stuff sprinkled on top, you could usually figure out what it was doing without too much effort. I tried to get into Inform 7, but the natural language syntax was so fuzzy, I was constantly trying to figure out how things worked and how I had to write things down to get the results I was trying to get. EDIT: Since guess-the-verb was sometimes half the battle with old Infocom games, I suppose its ironically fitting that the experience of writing IF with Inform 7 parallels that experience. [1] http://inform-fiction.org/manual/about_ibg.html http://inform-fiction.org/manual/about_ibg.html

maxxxxx 10y ago

I have to think of AppleScript "Tell xxx to yyy". That was a real winner :-)