Foundations of the case for natural-language programming

  • Authors:

  • Mark Halpern

  • Affiliations:

  • Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratory, Palo Alto, California

  • Venue:
  • AFIPS '66 (Fall) Proceedings of the November 7-10, 1966, fall joint computer conference
  • Year:
  • 1966

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Abstract

A running debate, mostly subterranean, has long been going on over the suitability of natural language for use as a programming language. From time to time the debate surfaces in the form of sharp exchanges at technical conferences and strong letters to the journals, but these casual encounters have been insufficient even to make clear to the general reader what the issues are, let alone to resolve them. The absence of open and lively debate between those who favor and those who oppose natural-language programming has left the problem to be dealt with by each language designer as best he can, without benefit of others' experience and ideas. Two opposite but equally undesirable ways of handling the conflict are in common use: one is a mutual turning of backs by the two parties, as may be seen in the increasingly wide gulf between research and practice in the design of programming languages; the other is a tendency toward superficial, makeshift compromise, with the usual result of satisfying no one. The possibility that the issues underlying the controversy are too fundamental to allow any useful exchange between the two parties cannot be dismissed, but it seems worth some effort to find out; the result should be at least a clearer idea of what we are disagreeing about.