Why English will never be a programming language

slater.dev

3 points·sltr··4 comments

These kind of articles show a deep misunderstanding about how computers work. The only code ever run is machine code burned into the chip. Humans write programming languages that are compiled into that code, and so do LLMs.

Suggesting that using an LLM to write a programming language which is then compiled is the same as using "English to program" is skipping steps. No one does that. We use English to generate program code in a traditional language. That's how the LLM was trained and that's what it outputs.

Generating code this way, later to be compiled and run, does turn out to be faster than generating such code the other way and that's why it's popular.

Thanks for reading. The question the article addresses is, "What would have to be true to check in English to the repo' and the answer is grounded in how business works: it seeks to minimize costs. Maintenance of code rather than very detailed English happens to be cheaper.

We already do check English into the repo. That's context doc and rules for agents. But we also keep programming language source. It's not an either/or. Having both the context doc and the generated source is very useful for debugging or extending the app.

Your point and problem are both moot, I fear. The way we program has changed.

If the question is not worth asking, why did Thoughtworks ask it?

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