The Programmer Identity Crisis

The problem I have with this argument is that it actually is English this time.

COBOL and SQL aren't English, they're formal languages with keywords that look like English. LLMs work with informal language in a way that computers have never been able to before.

Say that to the prompt guys and their AGENT.md rules.

Formalism is way easier than whatever this guys are concocting. And true programmer bliss is live programming. Common programming is like writing a sheet music and having someone else play it. Live programming is you at the instrument tweaking each part.

Yes natural languages are by nature ambiguous. Sometimes it's better to write specification in code rather than in a natural language(Jetbrains MPS for example).

On the other hand, the problem is exactly that it’s not a formal language.

This is true.

But in faithful adherence to some kind of uncertainty principle, LLM prompts are also not a programming language, no matter if you turn down the temperature to zero and use a specialized coding model.

They can just use programming languages as their output.

This is also a strength. Formal languages struggle to work with concepts that cannot be precisely defined, which are especially common in the physical world.

e.g. it is difficult to write a traditional program to wash dishes, because how do you formally define a dish? You can only show examples of dishes and not-dishes. This is where informal language and neural networks shine.

I can't agree more.

I can't wait to bring a whole restaurant's dishwashing to a halt with an adversarial plate that has some droplets of paint on it the color of steak sauce.