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manx | 5 months ago

This pre-AI article makes a very similar argument: https://mortoray.com/programming-wont-be-automated-or-it-alr...

Once we realize that what we actually want is turning specifications into software, I think that English will become the base for a new, high level specification language.

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skydhash|5 months ago

We are turning specifications into software precisely because English (and any natural languages) lacks the formality that makes it not reliable (necessary quality for a tool), but great for imagination (the source of invention).

We always start from natural language. RFC, docs, tickets,... are in natural language. But gaining formality (losing ambiguity) is what programming is (software engineering is doing programming well). People that struggled with programming struggle in fact with formality.