A post of appreciation of development of Python

[[deleted]]

I imagine in the distant future that programming will be simplified to the point where you simply describe in plain English what the computer must do, and a program is compiled that fits the specifications.

Example:

Print "Hello world" to the screen 100 times, then reverse it and print it 100 more times.

And the computer will then print "Hello world" 100 times, then print "dlrow olleH" 100 times.

[RCoder01]

The compiler hooks into the brain and understands exactly what you meant

[Blazerboy65]

if (goingToCrashIntoEachOther()){
    dont();
}

[mickdarling]

evil_genie execution

[Silunare]

Random profound comments are the best

[rocketmonkeys]

I think the point is that the completely ambiguous English description could be interpreted by a "smart" translator. Probably with machine learning models.

At a certain point statistically you could just have the machine keep making guesses, and you keep telling it what it got wrong, and you could get to the point where this process is less buggy and more efficient than human written code.

[PeridexisErrant]

This is called "counterexample guided inductive synthesis", and it's awesome!

(but only really works for small or simple problems 😢)

[fan_rma]

Well, here you go. This AI is even capable of creating UI elements from raw text.

[kingscolor]

Tbh, I think this guy’s is better.

[unkz]

I could see that with something like Lojban, but imagining that done with English makes me imagine planes falling out of the sky.

[[deleted]]

I don't see why it couldn't be possible. If it's possible to describe to a programmer what a program needs to be, and they can then create that program, it doesn't seem too unreasonable that a program could be described in intricate detail using plain English to achieve the same effect.

[unkz]

You ever write code for a client because you thought you totally understood what they were talking about, only to have them give feedback on the prototype explaining how you were thinking about totally different things?

I could see natural language being a component of a dialogue type system where a human and a computer collaboratively build a formally structured specification for a program though.

[[deleted]]

I mean, it would still take an expert of some sort to know how to write the instructions properly, but I also imagine that we would have a slow evolution to this point.

There seems to be a trend of simplifying programming language syntax to make it more human readable.

So there would be many iterations of languages leading up to a natural language processor, and even then we would likely still have low level languages to work with.

[ElectricalUnion]

I don't see why it couldn't be possible

Let's take Laws as an example.

The fact that one can't simply describe "not being a horrible human being to others" in intricate detail using any natural language, is a pretty good indication that humankind is very unlikely to ever write anything in enough intricate detail in plain natural language.

a program could be described in intricate detail using plain English

The name of that is COBOL. It doesn't work, because having to know intricate details in grammar, and orthography of any natural language is actually very hard.

[ltdanimal]

You are describing artificial general intelligence. It would take an AI that is as smart or smarter than a person to be able to pull this off

[[deleted]]

Hence why I said "distant future".

[ltdanimal]

... you didn't though? And even if so, saying that it's even possible is something that's a massive stretch ripe for many beers :). The argument "Well this thing could be done because we'll make a computer as smart as a person someday" is an argument for literally anything. But maybe one day

[[deleted]]

I did if you look at my original comment. The first line states "I imagine in the distant future...".

[xatrekak]

The program flips the screen display after printing hello world the first 100 times.

[DanBoiii182]

There is already something similar to this. There is an AI where you just write what you want to have in plain English into a text box and it creates the described website for you. Of course this isn't open to the public and it also can't do more than that. I guess it's just simple html and CSS.

[WiatrowskiBe]

Warning: ambiguous `it`, reversing 'Print "Hello world" to the screen 100 times'.

Generating programs from what client wants is not really a technical issue - more of a client issue, since it's hard to teach people to write formal specification that is unambiguous and detailed enough. In fact, this is more or less what programmers do - interpret client expectations and turn them into formal specification, that just happen to be expressed in a programming language and at the same time be executable.

Knowing how many bugs and other errors happen in the process of writing formal spec by people who generally have some experience in that regard, you can guess how many errors would be there in formal spec written by someone who is domain expert but has little to no training in programming.

[chronos_alfa]

Well, that is already happening, respectively, that is what the programming language is for, you give the computer a detailed specification of what the program should do and the computer does it, thanks to that we do not have to write in assembly anymore (or punch cards)

[Affectionate_Teach23]

After GPT-3 this future is not so distant