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Show HN: Write code using natural language

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81–90 of 118 posts

Re: Show HN: Write code using natural language

#82

This seems more like a novelty than a good idea. No thanks.

And it seems like you created an account just to slag off somebody's work without providing any real constructive criticism; no, thanks.

Are you an iOS or macOS app developer? Then you'll see the benefit of being able to look things like this up, especially in view of how Apple has deprecated a lot of their developer documentation without providing adequate replacements.

Tools like this can seriously help ease the pain for a lot of developers who just want something that should be simple done but don't want to scour Stack Overflow looking at other peoples' terrible code examples from years back.

If you're not an iOS or macOS app developer, then perhaps you don't see the usefulness, but that would only lead to the conclusion that you're giving unhelpfully besmirching something that has little to nothing to do with you.

Re: Show HN: Write code using natural language

#83
Okay so I came here expecring something different. Turns out that this is a stack overflow search engine.

So ever since I read a book on AI I have been pondering on when and how computers will steal our jobs.

I do have an idea on the subject though if anybody is interested in working with me on this please comment: So with github and loads and loads of other open source repos don't we have enough training data.

Couldn't throwing loads and loads of processing power on training an AI on commits create an intelligence with an "actual" understanding of day to day programming problems.

Love to discuss this please comment! Crazy idea but huge if it works!

Re: Show HN: Write code using natural language

#84
post #69

Really awesome stuff for dealing with verbose frameworks. In the code builder demo, it strikes me that all that code in swift could be replaced with a declarative format: let TestVC = viewController( button( padding: { left: 5 }, width: 100, height: 200 ) ) And probably be easier to type than these snippet demos. Has there emerged a good declarative API for iOS? As a web developer, as much as I hate the insanity of t…

That would be awesome! But yeah nothing like that for iOS comes to mind.

React Native?

Re: Show HN: Write code using natural language

#85

This seems more like a helpful glue between documentation and code than "write code using natural language". Nevertheless, very cool!

I was thinking more along the lines of natural language snippet creation. I think one of the key problems here remains that you go from a ~30 word (+your own identifiers) vocabulary to a English language vocabulary where you're not sure how to express something.

The example says constrain x. I wouldn't have searched for constrain, but for saturation, min-max, limit, or something along those lines. I'm not sure this will work as well if you don't use the right vocab.

Re: Show HN: Write code using natural language

#86
post #83

Okay so I came here expecring something different. Turns out that this is a stack overflow search engine. So ever since I read a book on AI I have been pondering on when and how computers will steal our jobs. I do have an idea on the subject though if anybody is interested in working with me on this please comment: So with github and loads and loads of other open source repos don't we have enough training data. Could…

>> Couldn't throwing loads and loads of processing power on training an AI on commits create an intelligence with an "actual" understanding of day to day programming problems.

I'm curious to know why you think it's possible to create "an intelligence" with "actual understanding" thanks to lots of processing power and data. What makes you think this is actually doable? Do you think that this has been done before, for example?

Re: Show HN: Write code using natural language

#87
post #83

Okay so I came here expecring something different. Turns out that this is a stack overflow search engine. So ever since I read a book on AI I have been pondering on when and how computers will steal our jobs. I do have an idea on the subject though if anybody is interested in working with me on this please comment: So with github and loads and loads of other open source repos don't we have enough training data. Could…

https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.02818

Disclaimer: I work at Google.

Re: Show HN: Write code using natural language

#88
post #42

One way to look at Stackoverflow is that it's a gigantic index that maps "intuitive plain English" to "non-intuitive exact syntax". A good exampe of bridging this mismatch is "git" commands. A lot of questions about Git are just translating natural English into the "secret decoder ring" lingo of Git.[0] E.g. "How do I undo a commit?" isn't something obvious like "git undo" . Instead, it's the more cryptic "git reset…

> "How do I undo a commit?" isn't something obvious like "git undo". Instead, it's the more cryptic "git reset HEAD~"[1] The issue with this example is that `git reset HEAD~` doesn't undo anything, and it doesn't undo _any_ commit, just the last one. It will also cause push and merge conflicts if the commit you're "undoing" was public, which may end up with you not really having "undoing" anything at all. It's also n…

>The issue with this example is that `git reset HEAD~` doesn't undo anything, and it doesn't undo _any_ commit, just the last one.

I shortened the question in my comment for brevity. The full question I cited on StackOverflow was worded as: "How do I undo the most recent local commits in Git?"

> It will also cause push and merge conflicts if the commit you're "undoing" was public,

Yes, and StackOverflow answers also warned of that scenario. Again, the full SO question did ask about "_local_ commits".

>It's also not anymore cryptic than any other industry's jargon.

In my comment, "cryptic" doesn't mean the syntax doesn't have its own internal logic that makes sense once one "groks it". It's just non-intuitive for someone who has a goal in their head but the only know plain English for describing that goal.

Re: Show HN: Write code using natural language

#89
post #83

Okay so I came here expecring something different. Turns out that this is a stack overflow search engine. So ever since I read a book on AI I have been pondering on when and how computers will steal our jobs. I do have an idea on the subject though if anybody is interested in working with me on this please comment: So with github and loads and loads of other open source repos don't we have enough training data. Could…

Github basically did this themselves using (comment, code) pairs as training data: https://github.blog/2018-09-18-towards-natural-language-sema...
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