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Plain English Programming wrote:Imagine a programming language that:

• Has keywords like A, AN and THE
  Lets you code what you're thinking
  Can recompile itself in 3 seconds

It's Plain English.
Our Sample Application
Imagine a program that can paint:

• Any person, place, or thing you name
  In the style of Claude Monet
  In 300 lines of Plain English code

The Complete Package

• Full-Screen Desktop Interface
  Super-Smooth Text Editor
  Elegant Page Layout Program
  Plain English Compiler and Linker
  General Purpose Subroutine Library
  Over 100 Pages of Documentation
  Source Code for All of the Above

Frequently Asked Questions
What language is it written in? - Plain English.
Does it produce native code? - Nothing but.
Does it need a runtime library? - Absolutely not.
What do I need to run it? - Windows XP, Vista or 7. Yuk.
How big is the download? - About 1 megabyte.
What format is the documentation? - PDF with Plain English source.

thepowersgang wrote:Interesting concept, but just as en experiment.

Programming needs to be too precise to be properly controlled using a "natural" language, especially English.

mikegonta wrote:

Plain English Programming wrote:...

to add to some blocks:
create a block.
to create a block:
allocate memory for the block.
to allocate memory:
...

thepowersgang wrote:Interesting concept, but just as en experiment.

Programming needs to be too precise to be properly controlled using a "natural" language, especially English.

I foresee a large-ish project in this language being as incomprehensible as legalese, except filled with clumsy terms in stead of precise terms.

to add to some blocks:
  create a block.
to create a block:
  allocate memory for the block.
to allocate memory:

para agregar algunos bloques:
  crear un bloque.
para crear un bloque:
  asignar memoría para el bloque.
para asignar memoría:
  ...

embryo wrote:Also I see here an example of an almost ideal self-documenting code. Really useful feature.

xyz++; /* Increase the value of xyz by one */

KemyLand wrote:This a grade of magnitude harder to parse than its English equivalent.

Alrighty then. Here's how I manage to do so much with so little.

(1) I really only understand five kinds of sentences:
(a) type definitions, which always start with A, AN, or SOME;
(b) global variable definitions, which always start with THE;
(c) routine headers, which always start with TO;
(d) conditional statements, which always start with IF; and
(e) imperative statements, which start with anything else.

(2) I treat as a name anything after A, AN, ANOTHER, SOME, or THE, up to:
(a) any simple verb, like IS, ARE, CAN, or DO, or
(b) any conjunction, like AND or OR, or
(c) any preposition, like OVER, UNDER, AROUND, or THRU, or
(d) any literal, like 123 or "Hello, World!", or
(e) any punctuation mark.

(3) I consider almost all other words to be just words, except for:
(a) infix operators: PLUS, MINUS, TIMES, DIVIDED BY and THEN;
(b) special definition words: CALLED and EQUAL; and
(c) reserved imperatives: LOOP, BREAK, EXIT, REPEAT, and SAY.

Kevin wrote:

embryo wrote:Also I see here an example of an almost ideal self-documenting code. Really useful feature.

Only if you think that this is ideal documentation:

Code: Select all

xyz++; /* Increase the value of xyz by one */

Usually the job of documentation is to explain higher level concepts, not to describe the code line by line and expression by expression.