On Tue, 03 Apr 2012 08:39:14 -0400, Nathan Rice wrote: > Much like > with the terminal to GUI transition, you will have people attacking > declarative natural language programming as a stupid practice for noobs, > and the end of computing (even though it will allow people with much > less experience to be more productive than them).
I cry every time I consider GUI programming these days. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Apple released a product, Hypercard, that was a combination GUI framework and natural-ish language programming language. It was an astonishing hit with non-programmers, as it allowed people to easily move up from "point and click" programming to "real" programming as their skills improved. Alas, it has been abandoned by Apple, and while a few of its intellectual successors still exit, it very niche. I *really* miss Hypercard. Not so much for the natural language syntax, as for the astonishingly simple and obvious GUI framework. To get a flavour of the syntax, see OpenXION: http://www.openxion.org and for a hint of the framework, see Pythoncard: http://pythoncard.sourceforge.net > Ultimately, the answers to your questions exist in the world for you to > see. How does a surgeon describe a surgical procedure? How does a chef > describe a recipe? How does a carpenter describe the process of > building cabinets? Aside from specific words, they all use natural > language, and it works just fine. No they don't. In general they don't use written language at all, but when they are forced to, they use a combination of drawings or illustrations plus a subset of natural language plus specialist jargon. Programming languages include both specialist grammar and specialist semantics. That makes it a cant or an argot. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list