Programming in natural language
Would it be possible to create a programming language from the C ++ code comments? I think of a web page with code search, in which the user searches in natural language and the site shows the program from the comments of the code in its database.
Doxygen is a program that can put together a complete documentation, including tables and formatting, from C++ comments.
Anyway those comment must follow some rules.
Doxygen can save the documentation in several format, even HTML, and there are C++ IDE which integrate doxygen in their menu - for example Qt Creator offers a doxygen plugin.
http://www.doxygen.nl/
Anyway those comment must follow some rules.
Doxygen can save the documentation in several format, even HTML, and there are C++ IDE which integrate doxygen in their menu - for example Qt Creator offers a doxygen plugin.
http://www.doxygen.nl/
it is intractable to process human to executable. Programming languages need structure and by nature human language is unstructured in ways no machine can yet comprehend.
As an example of this, let me simply point to google translate. Go find a nice page in some other language and translate it. Now read it. It will say something like "for the next step, put the dog in the vacuum" from time to time. Your program in natural language would be about like that...it would work sometimes, and other times it would have crazy bugs that would be unpossible to track down or even comprehend how it got there from what you put in.
In theory it is possible, but our computers are able to 'understand' natural language on par with someone who has spent maybe 2 months learning the language. They don't get expressions/idioms, syntax, slang, jargon, etc and mangle subject verb agreement, use the wrong words, misspell everything, and so on.
We are not there yet. We have some really potent code stringers out there, that is a different idea. I have a database tool where you drag icons around and fill in a few blanks to make a complete program that would have taken 1000 lines of C++ to do. Its a step toward what you are talking about, and there are many examples of this, but they can only do so much and still require structure. If someone does manage it, it may not be english on the first cut... english is horrible to parse for 'understanding'.
As an example of this, let me simply point to google translate. Go find a nice page in some other language and translate it. Now read it. It will say something like "for the next step, put the dog in the vacuum" from time to time. Your program in natural language would be about like that...it would work sometimes, and other times it would have crazy bugs that would be unpossible to track down or even comprehend how it got there from what you put in.
In theory it is possible, but our computers are able to 'understand' natural language on par with someone who has spent maybe 2 months learning the language. They don't get expressions/idioms, syntax, slang, jargon, etc and mangle subject verb agreement, use the wrong words, misspell everything, and so on.
We are not there yet. We have some really potent code stringers out there, that is a different idea. I have a database tool where you drag icons around and fill in a few blanks to make a complete program that would have taken 1000 lines of C++ to do. Its a step toward what you are talking about, and there are many examples of this, but they can only do so much and still require structure. If someone does manage it, it may not be english on the first cut... english is horrible to parse for 'understanding'.
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