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One way to view a programming language, that differs from the traditional math-oriented perspective, is that a programming language is a subset of a natural lan
by dusted 3y ago
One way to view a programming language, that differs from the traditional math-oriented perspective, is that a programming language is a subset of a natural language which has become sufficiently unambiguous.
Ambiguity is in my opinion the biggest reason why "plain {insert natural language} programming won't be a thing"..
The major challenge in normal commercial software development is not writing working code, it's aligning expectations and identifying assumptions and eliminating ambiguities.. At that point, the coding part is more or less mapping the description to whatever particular words the implementation language is using.
- fsflover 3y ago> Ambiguity is in my opinion the biggest reason why "plain {insert natural language} programming won't be a thing" How about Ithkuil? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36022731 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36022731
- classified 3y agoYou're joking. Even the inventor doesn't speak it fluently.
- fsflover 3y agoI wasn't talking about fluency, just about possibility to use it for programming.
- thomastjeffery 3y agoProgramming languages don't entirely remove ambiguity: they isolate themselves from it. Everything in a program is unambiguous, but no useful program stays entirely within its own black box. Ambiguity still exists between programs. This ambiguity is the source of incompatibility.