Natural language is ambiguous. Grammars for computer languages are designed to remove ambiguity. A natural language that is used to program a computer, too, will have to remove ambiguity, thus only using a severely constricted subset of a natural language. Is it worth it beyond curiosity? If a person can't grok a computer language are they going to grok such a terse natural language?
Show HN: Write code using natural language
21–30 of 118 posts
Re: Show HN: Write code using natural language
#22Nice landing page, it made it extremely clear what your product was and how I might use it.
I'm usually skeptical about programming language abstractions but from the demo it looks like this is more of a "helpful addition" then something you need to fully commit to which is interesting. I don't do a lot of Swift but will keep this in mind if I do. Best of luck!
Re: Show HN: Write code using natural language
#23If you want to understand why this is bad just look at AppleScript, probably the closest thing I've ever seen to natural language, the only problem is that it's impossible to just figure something out if there isn't a tutorial, because there's no real convention you can make guesses based on.
Re: Show HN: Write code using natural language
#24Is there a summary in text? I don't watch videos without a reason.
Re: Show HN: Write code using natural language
#25It's actually kind of cool to watch the animation, the tool maybe can help teach people how to code in a much faster time-lapse way. I personally don't know how to code in Swift but I think I learned a lot just watching the animation and the different snippets. Maybe you can livestream your Metacode app on Twitch for a learning channel.
Re: Show HN: Write code using natural language
#26Project will end when it discovers it has reinvented HyperCard.
Re: Show HN: Write code using natural language
#27If you want to understand why this is bad just look at AppleScript, probably the closest thing I've ever seen to natural language, the only problem is that it's impossible to just figure something out if there isn't a tutorial, because there's no real convention you can make guesses based on.
AppleScript (and COBOL before it) was my first thought, too. Gruber calls the problem it exemplifies the "English-likeness monster" (https://daringfireball.net/2005/09/english-likeness_monster).
Re: Show HN: Write code using natural language
#28Natural language is ambiguous. Grammars for computer languages are designed to remove ambiguity. A natural language that is used to program a computer, too, will have to remove ambiguity, thus only using a severely constricted subset of a natural language. Is it worth it beyond curiosity? If a person can't grok a computer language are they going to grok such a terse natural language?
Only a Subset of features of natural langage introduce ambiguities, equivocations, etc.
It is perfectly doable to force one and only one meaning per keyword (just like do programming keywords already (if, while, etc), removing the ability to use coreferences, etc
I would love to see a great constrained English, formal without the readability and expressivity loss of formal symbolic grammars / formal maths
Re: Show HN: Write code using natural language
#29Natural language is ambiguous. Grammars for computer languages are designed to remove ambiguity. A natural language that is used to program a computer, too, will have to remove ambiguity, thus only using a severely constricted subset of a natural language. Is it worth it beyond curiosity? If a person can't grok a computer language are they going to grok such a terse natural language?
Ruby on Rails is designed to add it right back in.
"Cookies set? Oh, that must be the plural of Cooky" -> actually happened in live coding demonstration before.
Re: Show HN: Write code using natural language
#30Natural language is ambiguous. Grammars for computer languages are designed to remove ambiguity. A natural language that is used to program a computer, too, will have to remove ambiguity, thus only using a severely constricted subset of a natural language. Is it worth it beyond curiosity? If a person can't grok a computer language are they going to grok such a terse natural language?
Only a Subset of features of natural langage introduce ambiguities, equivocations, etc. It is perfectly doable to force one and only one meaning per keyword (just like do programming keywords already (if, while, etc), removing the ability to use coreferences, etc I would love to see a great constrained English, formal without the readability and expressivity loss of formal symbolic grammars / formal maths
>Only a Subset of features of natural langage introduce ambiguities, equivocations, et
I wish! People won't even use "literally" consistently, despite it existing to prevent you having to guess which sense a speaker means.
Edit: Toned down.