5 ms·

Dijkstra is wrong on this one. Siri and Cortana have already achieved this for trivial classes of programs, and they will only improve. People comparing natura

Dijkstra is wrong on this one. Siri and Cortana have already achieved this for trivial classes of programs, and they will only improve. People comparing natural language programming to EULAs are missing the point entirely: natural language input guides a search process for formal programs, it isn't literally "the program" itself.

tel 12y ago
I think Djikstra would not be bothered by this. His arguments tend to be that even with such a search process it's the very providence of formal language to give someone the power to guide that search. In other words, you'd need formal language to be able to specify what you truly want, then would "translate" it to natural language to execute the search, the processor would search for the proper formal language expression, and then you would verify. Or you could just skip all the intermediate steps.
- tree_of_item 12y ago
  It's the developers of agents like Siri and Cortana, not the users, who need formal language. Anyway I don't think we're disagreeing with each other: there is always going to be a place for formal languages, they won't ever go away and be "replaced" with natural language interfaces, it's just that Jane Random will be more than happy to speak some gibberish to her computer and let the machine figure things out.
  - tel 12y ago
    Oh but we are: I don't think Jane Random will ever reach so far into that direction until her desires become vastly simplified. So in a Wall-e style future then yes, but in one where people still do things creatively there will always be need for formality.
mamcx 12y ago
So, they are not programming. The ones that build the backend do it, and put a natural input interface as a frontend.
- tree_of_item 12y ago
  Yes, but that's a bit of a semantic quibble. If they're making their computer do nontrivial things they're essentially programming. If the computer changes state it's because of the execution of a program, and if no programmer actually wrote that specific program then the act of creation can be considered "programming".
  - schoen 12y ago
    By that definition, a user drawing a picture is programming too! Especially if the picture is exported to PostScript.
    - tree_of_item 12y ago
      Yep. I take it you don't enjoy this definition? One alternative I've seen is what happens with artificial intelligence: if we can do it, it's not AI, just "algorithms" or whatever. In reality the definition of "artificial intelligence" is broad enough to cover the things we consider mundane today, like movie recommendations and search engine results. If MS Paint was souped up with things like repetition and conditionals, would you be so opposed to calling that "programming"?

tel 12y ago

I think Djikstra would not be bothered by this. His arguments tend to be that even with such a search process it's the very providence of formal language to give someone the power to guide that search. In other words, you'd need formal language to be able to specify what you truly want, then would "translate" it to natural language to execute the search, the processor would search for the proper formal language expression, and then you would verify. Or you could just skip all the intermediate steps.

tree_of_item 12y ago
It's the developers of agents like Siri and Cortana, not the users, who need formal language. Anyway I don't think we're disagreeing with each other: there is always going to be a place for formal languages, they won't ever go away and be "replaced" with natural language interfaces, it's just that Jane Random will be more than happy to speak some gibberish to her computer and let the machine figure things out.
- tel 12y ago
  Oh but we are: I don't think Jane Random will ever reach so far into that direction until her desires become vastly simplified. So in a Wall-e style future then yes, but in one where people still do things creatively there will always be need for formality.

mamcx 12y ago

So, they are not programming. The ones that build the backend do it, and put a natural input interface as a frontend.

tree_of_item 12y ago
Yes, but that's a bit of a semantic quibble. If they're making their computer do nontrivial things they're essentially programming. If the computer changes state it's because of the execution of a program, and if no programmer actually wrote that specific program then the act of creation can be considered "programming".
- schoen 12y ago
  By that definition, a user drawing a picture is programming too! Especially if the picture is exported to PostScript.
  - tree_of_item 12y ago
    Yep. I take it you don't enjoy this definition? One alternative I've seen is what happens with artificial intelligence: if we can do it, it's not AI, just "algorithms" or whatever. In reality the definition of "artificial intelligence" is broad enough to cover the things we consider mundane today, like movie recommendations and search engine results. If MS Paint was souped up with things like repetition and conditionals, would you be so opposed to calling that "programming"?