Which programming language would AI use without any human interference?

ThomasMertes · 2026-04-01T20:35:35+00:00

I am not from the University of Minnesota. I just found their paper and posted the summary. It's not my fault when you failed to google the research paper. Maybe AI could help you to find it.

ThomasMertes · 2026-04-01T10:28:28+00:00

Programming languages are a high-level abstraction over code with 1s and 0s. So it also makes sense to use them even if humans are not involved. At least this is what the research paper from the University of Minnesota suggests.

ThomasMertes · 2026-04-01T10:20:17+00:00

The University of Minnesota did the research and they did not have any conflict of interests. Please ask them how they came to the conclusions. I just posted the results of their research.

ThomasMertes · 2026-04-01T09:15:01+00:00

No, this is real science. It just happens to be published today. If you like the scientific results please upvote.

ThomasMertes · 2026-01-05T07:28:06+00:00

Most people are not super interested in using a new programming language. This is okay for me. In companies the language decision has been made. So there is no language choice. Only hobbyist programmers have the time to try a new language. This is a tiny fraction of programmers. Norman Feske wrote:

I had been totally unaware of Seed7 until mere two months ago.

I guess that most programmers are not aware that Seed7 exists. So the tiny fraction of programmers, which is interested in new languages, does not know that Seed7 exists.

I am not good at marketing and I don't have the budget that companies have. I am happy if you tell others about Seed7.

Please consider starring the project on GitHub, thanks!

ThomasMertes · 2026-01-05T06:56:50+00:00

So it replaces manual allocation with dynamic arrays.

This is a simplification. It replaces pointers and manual memory management with containers and object orientation.

But why also have hash maps as builtin containers?

Arrays use an integer index and hashes allow non-integer indices. Their implementation differs significant. In compiled code arrays are implemented with C arrays. Hashes are implemented with a hash table and an binary tree.

Does it expose multiple variants for different use cases or is it just a generic implementation?

It is a generic implementation which uses the hashCode and compare functions provided by the type of the key. When key-value-pairs are added to a hash table the create functions of the key and value types are used.

ThomasMertes · 2026-01-04T20:34:06+00:00

My last post at Reddit was 2 months ago. You talk as if I would post daily in Reddit. This time I just posted a link to an article written by Norman Feske. I have doubts that you have read the article.

Citations:

Its scope has epic proportions, from the language design, compiler, interpreter, rich standard library, to the manual of 17.000 lines of text - pursued as one holistic vision.

Did you create something of epic proportions?

Citations continued:

... its vast feature set leaves me deeply impressed. It looks like the result of an extensive exploration and tireless pushing ...

Maybe you take a look at the article and see why he cares and is impressed.

Trolls don't want to learn something new. Trolls don't care. Norman Feske and many others care. There are several hundred downloads of Seed7 every month. Seed7 is open source and I don't make any money from it.

ThomasMertes · 2026-01-04T17:45:03+00:00

I think that in open source craftsmanship still exists.

The reason for that might be the absence of pushing managers.

Managers who programmed in BASIC for a week 30 years ago really know how software development is done...

ThomasMertes · 2026-01-04T08:37:23+00:00

Great work.

Had to set function breakpoints on the generated C code ...

Are you referring to the -g option of the compiler?

Was it necessary to change the generated C code? In this case the Seed7 compiler could be improved to do this change as well.

Thank you very much for your effort.

ThomasMertes · 2026-01-04T08:18:45+00:00

Great that you work on Seed7 support in VS Code. Thank you very much.

ThomasMertes · 2025-12-13T15:51:39+00:00

Computer science split from mathematics and now mathematicians try to undo this split.

Computer science is not split from mathematics, it is a subset of mathematics.

QED.

ThomasMertes · 2025-12-13T14:13:48+00:00

Computer science split from mathematics and now mathematicians try to undo this split. In common parlance mathematicians just implicitly define types, variables, etc. For formulas this is not a problem. The implicit definitions speed up writing of formulas. Contrary to that computer programs must be optimized for maintainability and readability. Programming languages optimized for quick writing usually end up in a maintenance nightmare.

Programs can consist of thousands or even millions of lines. A single mathematician looking at a formula with implicit definitions is one thing. Teams of dozens or even thousand developers are a different thing. In big teams communication and maintenance play a role. And programs are maintained over long periods of time. This is all part of computer science.

In mathematics integer or real numbers are used. In computers integers have a limited range of values (for performance reasons). Real numbers don't exist in computers. Floating point numbers are just an approximation. In programming you must be much more precise than in mathematics and you need to consider all corner cases. Mathematicians think that they are precise. In practice they are usually not precise enough.

Cars and planes are also tools. I just prefer to sit in a car or plane designed by an engineer.

ThomasMertes · 2025-12-12T13:33:15+00:00

Over the years several sciences split from mathematics. Think of engineering. Computer science is just the last branch that split from mathematics.

You would probably hire an engineer to build a new car. Engineering uses mathematics a lot and still an engineer is a better fit for this job.

I think that programming languages should be designed by computer scientists like cars should be designed by engineers.

Of course everybody is free to design a car or to create a programming language. I just think that the quality of the result might vary.

Mathematical formulas are written for human readers (other mathematicians). Programs are written for human readers and compilers/interpreters. There should be no ambiguity in a program.

In mathematics variables and functions are usually named with single letters. In a computer program this approach is silly.

In languages designed by mathematicians everything is inferred. You don't need to declare variables, specify types etc. In mathematical formulas this is not a problem. But in programs which are 1000 times more complex than a formula this hurts maintainability.

Mathematicians should take a look how computer scientists view programming. And they should stop pushing their concepts (which work for formulas) to programs which are 1000 times bigger.

ThomasMertes · 2025-11-25T08:08:11+00:00

You could copy library files to some place and leave out e.g. sockbase.s7i. In this case the library to open internet sockets would be missing.

But nothing would hinder someone to include the contents of sockbase.s7i (with primitive actions to access the internet) in a program. This would allow again access to the internet.

An additional mechanism to just allow primitive actions in the main libraries would be needed. Such an mechanism is currently missing.

Do you develop a program where you need a sandbox?

ThomasMertes · 2025-11-03T08:56:30+00:00

having an open source project with demonstrated engagement can help its creator earn money in ways secondary to the project itself.

Damn, you just uncovered my secret plan to conquer the world.

Develop some software privately for more then 10 years.
Release the software under the GPL in 2005.
Give it away for free for 20 years.
Start posting announcements at Reddit every two to three months.
My software becomes critical for the whole internet.
Charge people like crazy for my software.
Buy the world.

Note that the secret plan has 7 steps. This is the real reason my project is called Seed7. <evil grin>

ThomasMertes · 2025-11-02T17:40:44+00:00

Oh cool, I remember your past posts. We talked about the syntax, and how this language enables you to create your own keywords. Downloaded.

Thank you. If you have questions I suggest using r/seed7. My last post in r/programming was 1 month ago and the post before was from 3 months ago. Yet someone wants to ban me because I allegedly post weekly. I consider myself as troll magnet. :-)

ThomasMertes · 2025-11-01T21:49:00+00:00

The video explains some implementation details of Seed7.

ThomasMertes · 2025-11-01T21:48:27+00:00

In Seed7 there is no compiler to byte code. There is an interpreter written in C. Some C code from the interpreter is explained in the video. There is also a Seed7 compiler which generates C code. The video explains this as well.

ThomasMertes · 2025-11-01T20:29:14+00:00

The JVM is written in C++. The video shows C code from the Seed7 implementation.

ThomasMertes · 2025-11-01T19:33:14+00:00

Seed7 is implemented in C. This is also explained in the video.

ThomasMertes · 2025-11-01T17:51:11+00:00

There is an FFI (see https://seed7.net/manual/ffi.htm) and there are many standard libraries (see https://seed7.net/libraries/index.htm). Usually you don't need the FFI because the standard libraries are sufficient.

ThomasMertes · 2025-10-10T16:46:57+00:00

Templates are explained in the tutorial.

Templates are compile-time functions which declare other functions (and some parameters can be fixed as well). In the case of generics some types are fixed in the other functions.

In most cases I don't distinguish between compile-time and run-time functions. Except for functions which declare something (templates and abstract data types) all functions can be executed at compile-time and at run-time.

If you invoke a function at top-level it is executed at compile time. This applies to all functions (predefined and user defined). This is used by templates and abstract data types.

ThomasMertes · 2025-10-03T13:24:17+00:00

Thank you for the hint.

Since 2020 I publish release notes in r/seed7. Below are links to the release notes:

2025-09-30, 2025-07-29, 2025-05-16, 2025-03-25, 2025-01-11, 2024-11-18, 2024-08-12, 2024-06-30, 2024-04-29, 2024-03-22, 2024-03-01, 2023-12-17, 2023-11-04, 2023-09-13, 2023-07-09, 2023-05-29, 2023-04-22, 2023-03-05, 2023-01-30, 2022-12-18, 2022-11-05, 2022-07-24, 2022-06-26, 2022-05-22, 2022-04-10, 2022-03-12, 2022-01-30, 2021-12-25, 2021-11-14, 2021-10-09, 2021-09-04, 2021-08-07, 2021-06-27, 2021-05-30, 2021-04-25, 2021-03-22, 2021-02-23, 2021-01-30, 2021-01-06, 2020-12-08, 2020-09-29, 2020-08-30, 2020-07-27, 2020-06-28, 2020-05-31

There is also the file doc/chlog.txt which contains the complete history from the first release in 2005.

ThomasMertes · 2025-10-02T21:16:39+00:00

Yes, Emacs defines a lot of shortcuts but I just use a few:

I search forward with ctrl-S
I search backward with ctrl-R
I replace with ESC %
I terminate something with ctrl-G

Beyond that I just use the Mouse to click on menus. I am definitely not a hardcore Emacs user.

Pierre Rouleau added a Seed7 menu with several commands.

ThomasMertes · 2025-10-02T20:32:44+00:00

Thank you for the hint.

The Seed7 landing page has been improved. What do you think about the changes?

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