The programming langauge of the future ?

[maverickmonster]

What do you guys/galls think the langauge that we all will be using in the future ?

 

[harebrain]

<preface>

No language will ever cover-up the follies of an idiot using it.

</preface>

So, I predict the future belongs to natural language. Heck, COBOL was supposed to be natural language. SQL was supposed to be natural language. (Insert your own examples here.) Somebody's bound to pull it off sooner or later.

Besides, don't you guys watch any Sci-Fi?

 

[haslo]

It depends on the time frame. If by "future" you mean "another 200-300 years", then you're probably right. When I said Python, I meant another 5-10 years, because beyond that, we can't make any reasonable predictions anyway, IMHO. But with natural language you might be pretty close.

(By the way, there is Python.NET, but that's not really Python in .NET, it's rather Python using .NET)

On the other hand, while there still are applications that use all of a computer's resources, you won't reach the specificiality a programming language needs today with natural language, there are just too many ambiguities. And if "debugging a program" means "removing the ambiguities from natural language", I'd rather stick with programming languages that are everything but natural language. Hell, I'd even prefer Perl to such a thing ;-)

haslo@haslo.ch - www.haslo.ch​

 

[harebrain]

I think we'll break the barriers to natural language programming in a few decades, not a few centuries. Consider the resources needed: CPU, memory, and R&D. Moore's Law will take care of the first two, and the addition of billions of brains in China, India, and elsewhere will take care of the R&D.

As for the ambiguities you mention as an obstacle, that's precisely what I was alluding to in my preface above. It's interesting to ponder whether we'll ever get to the point where software can understand us better than we can express ourselves. That, in a sense, would make machines smarter than some humans. (Then again, I already know people who are dumber than a box of rocks, so it wouldn't be a giant leap!)

 

[dilettante]

Makes me want to sit in the dark with a flashlight and chant "In the year 2000..."

O'Brien Y2K

 

[kmfna]

Man, I hope it is C#, given the amount of effort I am putting into picking it up...I'm too lazy to have to learn too many new languages...though I have seen increasing demand for Java developers...so there is really no telling. Plus, the decision is going to be driven by the industry that you are in...ie some industries are going to want the languages that make creating UI really simple much like a VB setup, others are going to want the stronger number crunching abilities of C languages and not care about any UI...so I suppose it all depends on where you are and what you need to do.

Kevin

- "The truth hurts, maybe not as much as jumping on a bicycle with no seat, but it hurts.