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I wonder if the authors have tried programming with AppleScript? John Gruber has a good article exploring the problem with "English-like" programming (http://da

I wonder if the authors have tried programming with AppleScript? John Gruber has a good article exploring the problem with "English-like" programming (http://daringfireball.net/2005/09/englishlikeness_monster http://daringfireball.net/2005/09/englishlikeness_monster).

jacobolus 18y ago
Yes. Also, “syntax-free” is a misleading name. What they mean instead is just “flexible natural-language-like syntax”. The problem with the natural-language approach is that (a) it is unpredictable and fickle, hard to clearly document, and often buggy, even in an implementation which has been tested for 15–20 years, and (b) it doesn’t scale well to even medium-sized projects. Anyone who can learn to write quick one-off scripts in a language like AppleScript or the one suggested here can as quickly learn to write quick one-off scripts in Python (90% of the language can be ignored and it's still useful for such tasks). But if they learn Python, as soon as that simple script grows, learning new language features will allow scaling the script up in complexity.
apinstein 18y ago
I used to do a lot of AppleScript programming. When I initially learned about the "natural" syntax I though "this is gonna be so easy!" But ultimately it works against you. Computers are very precise beasts, and they need to know exactly what you want them to do. The looser the "syntax" gets, the more guesses the compiler has to make to come up with a set of precise instructions. What I initially thought would be easy and liberating turned out to be a total PITA. AppleScript programming is horrible. Ultimately there is an underlying syntax, but it's harder to remember because it's less consistent (ie "natural"). I had to spend way too much time trying to understand what goofy "natural" grammar I had to use to get it to do what I wanted. Even if you assume an "ideal AI," I still don't think that a natural language syntax is a good idea, since language itself has a lack of specificity that requires even an "ideal AI" to make guesses that could be logically wrong. I prefer well-designed languages or DSLs when I program to reduce cognitive load and ensure I know exactly what's going on.

jacobolus 18y ago

Yes. Also, “syntax-free” is a misleading name. What they mean instead is just “flexible natural-language-like syntax”. The problem with the natural-language approach is that (a) it is unpredictable and fickle, hard to clearly document, and often buggy, even in an implementation which has been tested for 15–20 years, and (b) it doesn’t scale well to even medium-sized projects. Anyone who can learn to write quick one-off scripts in a language like AppleScript or the one suggested here can as quickly learn to write quick one-off scripts in Python (90% of the language can be ignored and it's still useful for such tasks). But if they learn Python, as soon as that simple script grows, learning new language features will allow scaling the script up in complexity.

apinstein 18y ago

I used to do a lot of AppleScript programming. When I initially learned about the "natural" syntax I though "this is gonna be so easy!" But ultimately it works against you. Computers are very precise beasts, and they need to know exactly what you want them to do. The looser the "syntax" gets, the more guesses the compiler has to make to come up with a set of precise instructions. What I initially thought would be easy and liberating turned out to be a total PITA. AppleScript programming is horrible. Ultimately there is an underlying syntax, but it's harder to remember because it's less consistent (ie "natural"). I had to spend way too much time trying to understand what goofy "natural" grammar I had to use to get it to do what I wanted. Even if you assume an "ideal AI," I still don't think that a natural language syntax is a good idea, since language itself has a lack of specificity that requires even an "ideal AI" to make guesses that could be logically wrong. I prefer well-designed languages or DSLs when I program to reduce cognitive load and ensure I know exactly what's going on.