Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The English Programming Language

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 78 posts

Re: The English Programming Language

#21

Post by SanjayMehta »

jancsika wrote: post #11
throwaway1492 wrote: post #4

As someone who worked on a 35 million loc cobol and jcl system for several years in the late 90's, I don't find this to be funny at all. Cobol was purported to be readable with english language like syntax to make it more understandable. Giving gems such as: MULTIPLY TAX-RATE OF STATE(43) BY BALANCE GIVING SALES-TAX-AMOUNT. Note the period is sigificant.

That is surprisingly readable and makes me want to go learn COBOL. Could I now get you to criticize eating healthy, please? :)

Before jumping in with both feet, please check out the ALTER statement. GOTO on steroids and more.

Re: The English Programming Language

#22

Post by andreygrehov »

Fantastic repo. Love it!

Looking back, we can see how Machine Code, with its intricate and challenging nature, paved the way for more accessible options. Assembly language then emerged, providing a higher level of abstraction and reducing the complexities of directly working with machine instructions. And of course, C followed suit, offering even greater simplicity and ease of use compared to Assembly.

Imagine a future where programming languages, as we know them today, become akin to CPU instructions – a foundational and low-level primitive. LLMs will revolutionize the way we interact with code, providing a unified interface where the complexities of various languages are distilled into a common representation. The proliferation of individual programming languages will wane. Knowing Java or C++ will become a rare skill, akin to individuals specializing in low-level optimizations using Assembly language these days.

Edit: as time progresses, even the convenience of LLMs may pose challenges, given our inherent tendency towards laziness, so an additional layer of abstraction will be introduced, bridging the gap between LLMs and spoken languages. BCIs will revolutionize the act of coding itself so that individuals can seamlessly "code" by simply "thinking" about their desired actions.

Re: The English Programming Language

#23

Post by quickthrower2 »

maxbond wrote: post #8
paddw wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no doubt English like syntax is a terrible idea but this seems like a surprisingly readable example.

Agreed, I rather like this line of code, but I must admit that the C-like version is perhaps better: sales_tax_amount = balance * state[42].tax_rate; (Assuming I've guessed the meaning of the Cobol correctly - perhaps that's the rub.) (ETA: Added semicolon.) (ETA2: Fixed critical indexing bug.)

    #define MULTIPLY sales_tax_amount = balance * state[43].tax_rate; //

Re: The English Programming Language

#25

Post by heywoodlh »

noman-land wrote: post #13
getmeinrn wrote: post #3

Cool language! I wish there was more standard interpreter support though. Everyone seems to be using a different flavor, which yields different results depending on where the code runs.

Works on my machine. Have you tried turning it off for a bit?

Just use the container

Re: The English Programming Language

#26

Post by bdcravens »

i-use-nixos-btw wrote: post #9

> There are millions of English libraries available. You can look for the closest in Google Maps. LOL! Though I have a bug report. There are actually only 320k. This makes me feel sad.

A number of libraries in the Southern states have biased maintainers who have merged in pull requests deleting a large number of classes in bulk, despite the fact that the tests have passed for years and those classes are in use by a large number of language users.

Re: The English Programming Language

#27

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

SanjayMehta wrote: post #21
jancsika wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is surprisingly readable and makes me want to go learn COBOL. Could I now get you to criticize eating healthy, please? :)

Before jumping in with both feet, please check out the ALTER statement. GOTO on steroids and more.

> The ALTER statement changes the transfer point specified in a GO TO statement.

What could go wrong?

Re: The English Programming Language

#28

Post by p-e-w »

throwaway1492 wrote: post #4

As someone who worked on a 35 million loc cobol and jcl system for several years in the late 90's, I don't find this to be funny at all. Cobol was purported to be readable with english language like syntax to make it more understandable. Giving gems such as: MULTIPLY TAX-RATE OF STATE(43) BY BALANCE GIVING SALES-TAX-AMOUNT. Note the period is sigificant.

It's actually a pretty interesting question why programming languages that work like that are a bad idea.

From decades of experience, I know intuitively that they are, but I find myself unable to formulate a concise description of what exactly is wrong with this approach.

Re: The English Programming Language

#29

Post by throwanem »

zabzonk wrote: post #6
nathell wrote: post #2

> Currently, the only compiler available is Wernicke Well, there’s Inform 7: https://ganelson.github.io/inform-website/ :)

ooh, inform. before you can work out the english grammar for interacting with the game when the game is running, you have to work out how to interact with the english grammar when writing the grame itself. worst software idea ever, in my opinion.

I don't know.

I found it as you describe, but that was after spending decades with more conventional programming languages. Meanwhile, there are folks over in the IF community who, despite to the best of my knowledge never having written a meaningful amount of what you and I would recognize as code, turn out works of complexity I'd never have imagined you could achieve with Inform 7.

It doesn't have all that much value to me, although I've found it fun to play with, but too many people have done too well with it for me to want to write it off entirely. I think we're just no more for it than it is for us.

Post reply on HN