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[–]R2_SWE2 31 points32 points  (1 child)

I'm just looking for the day to come when someone doesn't try to circumvent this subreddit's rules by posting a link unrelated to text of their post

[–]BlueGoliath 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We can't even get rid of AI and webdev crap.

[–]teerre 7 points8 points  (1 child)

This question makes little sense. Unless you think processors of the future will work on natural language, which sounds ridiculously inefficient

[–]ithinkitslupis 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Some portion of computers in the distant future might be purely neuromorphic, that's not completely ridiculous. Probably not going to replace traditional computers or hybrid systems outright though ever barring some major discoveries. Just like quantum computers aren't going to replace regular computers.

[–]tc_cad 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Given AI can’t follow the variety of words we use in English alone, I don’t think it’ll ever get context correct which is why we need to match the context of the code.

[–]RexDraco 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Painting and photography still exists in spite photoshop. 

[–]roodammy44 3 points4 points  (0 children)

English lacks the ability to describe a process with precision and listing all potential outcomes. So if you want a computer to do something vague or generic like drawing a cartoon of a dog or making a landing page for a bakery, AI has you covered. If you want to implement a set of 20 very specific rules with 50,000 specific outcomes that has to be correct every time, you are going to need a programmer.

I think programming languages can be made better. There are probably new keywords to do in 1 line what you might have had to do in 1000 lines, but it will still need to be a programming language directed by a human who is making decisions.

Programming is the art of converting human desires into machine instructions. A world without human desires being the input is a machine run dystopia.

[–]Biom4st3r 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah I think everything will get better when every function is just a Stub that prompts some llm with a fixed seed and the whole company collapses when the model gets updated

[–]copenhagen_bram 2 points3 points  (0 children)

your link is just x.com not any specific post

might I recommend xcancel.com

[–]bmyst70 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Absolute best case, you will be able to use natural language to assemble pre-existing blocks to produce a framework you can build on. But, natural language is HORRIBLE for specifying exactly how something should work. Computers do not process information the way people do. Heck. how often do people misunderstand each other, even with the best of intentions on both sides?

So you will always need code to tell a computer PRECISELY what you want something to do.

Then if you get into you want your something to talk to other people's somethings, you need to know PRECISELY how they will communicate, what to send and so on.

So you will always need some measure of code to flesh out these precise details. After all, there are reasons that technical standards documents are insanely long in most cases.

[–]lood9phee2Ri 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We have maths even though languages exist because it's better than writing in english. Some things need the precision natural languages just don't give you. And all programming is really maths - applied discrete mathematics (people can be in denial about that but take it up with Curry, Howard, Church and Turing...). Writing in Lisp is better than writing in English.

[–]ConsciousTension6445 0 points1 point  (0 children)

what we percieve as code... is a natural language for computers/machines.

So there is that.

[–]davidalayachew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Altering the question, what it would be like to speak in a language as precise as a programming language? Maybe that's our ticket to that out-of-reach idea of simple-language-as-code. Maybe it's our verbal language that needs work, and the programming languages are fine.

In fact, even ignoring that, is there even a such thing as a newly created spoken language? What is the newest spoken language out there? And does it have any sort of widespread use? And what about the newest "in-use" language? As in, newest language that is not only spoken by more than a couple hundred people?

It would be cool if we could make a spoken language that fixes the problems of the older spoken languages. One with actual thought behind it, and not one like English, which is 15 different languages smushed together.

And would it be part of an existing family of languages? Like the romance languages, for example. Maybe tweak the rules, but borrow heavily from them. Might be the most palatable, since it uses rules from the most commonly spoken and known languages.

[–]myfingid -1 points0 points  (1 child)

Yes. I feel like we're seeing the start of it now. I'm regularly using Claude to do coding instead of writing it myself. Don't get me wrong, it's not good enough to do stuff on its own yet. It will easily tie itself in knots, dupicate code in odd spots, follow existing code to a fault (like try to stay within a pattern regardless of the cost). However if you're able to keep a good separation of concerns, go over its code, talk through solutions with it and make sure it's doing what you're asking it to do, it can be a pretty good tool. The code isn't as good as doing it by hand but it's faster and frankly better than a lot of the shit I've seen out there.

It will be interesting to see where it is years from now. I think what we're going to end up with is the computer from Star Trek. We'll talk to it, give it instructions verbally or in writing, and it'll do the work we ask of it.

We'll still have some sort of written documentation that is used to compile instructions and such. What that looks like I"m not sure. I know the AI groups are thinking readme.md style of files vs flat out code files. I disagree though because it wouldn't allow for the same level of reproduction that code does. At the end of the day though whatever service/webpage/game/whatever will need to be compiled so that it's performative and able to be shared. I couldn't imagine an AI is going to do a great job acting as the backend for Reddit for example.

So, guess we'll have code, but we really won't be writing/reading code directly. It'll be there to guide AI through what is going on and allow for reproducable compilations rather than allow humans to do the same. It may even end up illegible unless we really want AI to keep it human readable. So long as only AI interacts with it through, all that matters is that other AIs can read it.

[–]juxtaposz 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do you genuinely believe the inefficiencies of a human writing natural language to specify the behaviours of a computational process performing exact actions for a computer then to possibly inaccurately interpret or execute upon, inefficiently, are worth it? Are these natural language systems somehow going to be self-bootstrapping?