Program that makes Programs

[r3dsh1ft]

As much as i do not want to put some of you programmers out of business, when will we be at the point in computer evolution where i could tell my computer to "upon execution provide ______ function. collect the data of ______ and provide _______ function."

In other words, when will a program be intelligent enough to understand the language of a program designer without the designer requiring a programmer. The designer would also not need to learn a complicated computer language. He could speak his native tongue.

Thoughts?

p.s. no visual basic does not count.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

Lets put it this way - if you're alive right now, that will not happen in your lifespan.

 

[Markbnj]

Perhaps never. The issue will ultimately turn on humans and the shortcomings of our own "interface" rather than that of the computer. Voice control may make perfect sense for some things that the computer already knows how to do. Whether it will ever make sense for instructing a computer on how to do something new is open to question.

 

[Merad]

Not anytime soon.

I'm sure that even today you might be able to set up a utility that could let you some simple programming by voice control. But I don't see how you'd set up anything remotely complex.

 

[Train]

I'd say this is the same as the singularity. Which some "experts" predict will hit as early as 2025, or as late as 2075.

Once computers can be instructed to improve on themselves, the iterations will be so fast it will be like a technology explosion. I'd also imagine the resulting computers/programs would move away from being understandable by humans, a scary thought. I don't think the above scenario requires true AI to happen.

 

[Cerb]

As much as i do not want to put some of you programmers out of business, when will we be at the point in computer evolution where i could tell my computer to "upon execution provide ______ function. collect the data of ______ and provide _______ function."

In other words, when will a program be intelligent enough to understand the language of a program designer without the designer requiring a programmer. The designer would also not need to learn a complicated computer language. He could speak his native tongue.

Thoughts?

p.s. no visual basic does not count.

Never. All human languages are too ambiguous. You must be able to express your problem as a set of outputs for some set of inputs (or guard clauses, or truth tables, or a rough algorithm, or some other logically precise way). Mathy stuff. Programming languages that have attempted to be like human languages are potential correctness and performance minefields (SQL is a good example).

What would put most programmers out of business would be core math and logic education at a young age, so that a fair amount of the population isn't clueless about it, not the Star Trek ship computer . Some code takes longer to write than other code, but the biggest problem that most users face is that the requirements and infrastructure are always changing, and users have a difficult time expressing problems with a program, and problems they want to the program to help them handle, in a suitable precise way. This is part of why, at least under the direction of someone with vision, MS and Apple have been able to be successful telling people what they want: because what they told them they should want was close enough to what they actually wanted that it worked out.

 

[Markbnj]

Never. All human languages are too ambiguous. You must be able to express your problem as a set of outputs for some set of inputs (or guard clauses, or truth tables, or a rough algorithm, or some other logically precise way). Mathy stuff. Programming languages that have attempted to be like human languages are potential correctness and performance minefields (SQL is a good example).

Interesting to note that even in realms where humans are talking to other humans, and presumably should be able to understand each other to a high degree of accuracy, we don't rely on spoken language to convey requirements. I'm not sure why everyone seems to think that some day in the far future we'll be talking to computers in order to get them to perform complex tasks.

The whole "star trek computer" analogy is flawed, by the way. The computer on the Enterprise had a very advanced natural language voice interface and a suite of applications tailored for the use of a starship crew in their daily tasks. There was no implication that the original application developers walked around talking to the machine about what they wanted it to do. In fact, in the one significant example of "programming" that I can remember I think the show depicted it as manipulation of visual symbols on a touch screen.

 

[KLin]

Interesting to note that even in realms where humans are talking to other humans, and presumably should be able to understand each other to a high degree of accuracy, we don't rely on spoken language to convey requirements. I'm not sure why everyone seems to think that some day in the far future we'll be talking to computers in order to get them to perform complex tasks.

The whole "star trek computer" analogy is flawed, by the way. The computer on the Enterprise had a very advanced natural language voice interface and a suite of applications tailored for the use of a starship crew in their daily tasks. There was no implication that the original application developers walked around talking to the machine about what they wanted it to do. In fact, in the one significant example of "programming" that I can remember I think the show depicted it as manipulation of visual symbols on a touch screen.

People take science fiction way too seriously.

 

[Cerb]

The whole "star trek computer" analogy is flawed, by the way. The computer on the Enterprise had a very advanced natural language voice interface and a suite of applications tailored for the use of a starship crew in their daily tasks. There was no implication that the original application developers walked around talking to the machine about what they wanted it to do. In fact, in the one significant example of "programming" that I can remember I think the show depicted it as manipulation of visual symbols on a touch screen.

Nice scifi trivia to know.

I'm not sure why everyone seems to think that some day in the far future we'll be talking to computers in order to get them to perform complex tasks.

Because nobody fails to crack a smile at Scotty trying to talk into a mouse, and nobody ever forgets that scene.

People take science fiction way too seriously.

One of the ultimate cases for that point: the Clarke Belt.

 

[veri745]

When we prove P=NP, then we can start working on a program that can create any other program.