3 ms·

Concentrating on the "our language" part, we could probably create something that changes setting based on natural language. You'd say Turn the color of bu

by 50CNT 10y ago

Concentrating on the "our language" part, we could probably create something that changes setting based on natural language. You'd say Turn the color of button3 in pane4 red Which would be equivalent to pane4.button3.color = 'red' Which is...actually a bit shorter, and a lot more precise. Who'd have thought. CSS is actually pretty close, descriptive and all. #pane4 #button3 { color:red;} Neat coincidence on the number of WYSIWYG editors too.

a_e_k 10y ago
The "natural language" programming thing has been done a few times. HyperTalk comes to mind for one example.
- 50CNT 10y ago
  And never quite took off. I think python strikes a good balance, naturalish language whenever possible, without forcing it into places where it doesn't fit. At least that's the feel I got from it.
sievebrain 10y ago
That's exactly what Bubble does. Having played with it a bit it seems pretty nice ...basically the latest iteration of tools like Klik & Play or Mediator from the 1990s. You get a visual designer with a few basic widgets, a simple workflow editor that allows for basic sequences of actions and so on. It's programming stripped down to the absolute basics. You get a database, a simple visual query builder thingie that vaguely resembles English, etc. I just showed it to my girlfriend who is learning Python. Her comment was "hmm but is this really easier than learning to code"? Well, it probably IS a lot easier, as long as your app fits within the constraints of what Bubble can do. The problem with such tools is always that you very quickly hit the limits of what they can do, and then you're stuck. You can't easily peel back the abstraction and go deeper. You end up having to scrap the project or just give up on certain things. Bubble's "language" can't do looping, for instance. You can apparently write snippets of Javascript to do other stuff, but then you're back to needing to learn programming again.
ktRolster 10y ago
Turn the color of button3 in pane4 red Cobol had that idea, and Applescript took it farther. For example: tell application "Safari" to activate It starts to get unwieldy because there are so many parts of speech, and remembering them all and how they fit is a pain. Some people call Applescript a "read only" language because of this. "Looking like a natural language" doesn't make the language easier to use, at least until we have AI compilers.
metheus 10y ago
I just had a waking nightmare of AppleScript.
gnud 10y ago
Good! Now, the button should be a slightly different shade if the user is logged in. And it should be blue if the user is an administrator. And the customer requested that it shouldn't show up at all if the user lacks the 'foo' privilege.

by 50CNT 10y ago

a_e_k 10y ago

The "natural language" programming thing has been done a few times. HyperTalk comes to mind for one example.

50CNT 10y ago
And never quite took off. I think python strikes a good balance, naturalish language whenever possible, without forcing it into places where it doesn't fit. At least that's the feel I got from it.

sievebrain 10y ago

That's exactly what Bubble does. Having played with it a bit it seems pretty nice ...basically the latest iteration of tools like Klik & Play or Mediator from the 1990s. You get a visual designer with a few basic widgets, a simple workflow editor that allows for basic sequences of actions and so on. It's programming stripped down to the absolute basics. You get a database, a simple visual query builder thingie that vaguely resembles English, etc. I just showed it to my girlfriend who is learning Python. Her comment was "hmm but is this really easier than learning to code"? Well, it probably IS a lot easier, as long as your app fits within the constraints of what Bubble can do. The problem with such tools is always that you very quickly hit the limits of what they can do, and then you're stuck. You can't easily peel back the abstraction and go deeper. You end up having to scrap the project or just give up on certain things. Bubble's "language" can't do looping, for instance. You can apparently write snippets of Javascript to do other stuff, but then you're back to needing to learn programming again.

ktRolster 10y ago

Turn the color of button3 in pane4 red Cobol had that idea, and Applescript took it farther. For example: tell application "Safari" to activate It starts to get unwieldy because there are so many parts of speech, and remembering them all and how they fit is a pain. Some people call Applescript a "read only" language because of this. "Looking like a natural language" doesn't make the language easier to use, at least until we have AI compilers.

metheus 10y ago

I just had a waking nightmare of AppleScript.

gnud 10y ago

Good! Now, the button should be a slightly different shade if the user is logged in. And it should be blue if the user is an administrator. And the customer requested that it shouldn't show up at all if the user lacks the 'foo' privilege.