Slashdot Mirror
Metafor: Translating Natural Language to Code
vivin writes "Computer programming is second nature to most of the Slashdot crowd. However, this is not true for the vast majority of people. Formal programming languages are not as expressive or flexible as natural languages. This becomes more evident when we try to translate user requirements into actual code. Researchers at MIT have come up with a program that bridges this gap. It's not so much a tool that turns English into code, as it is a program that translates requirements (in English) to code. When Metafor analyzes English, nouns phrases become objects, verbs become functions, and adjectives become object attributes (or properties). In addition to helping programmers visualize their program better, I think it also promotes writing concise (and therefore) requirements and descriptions. Metafor doesn't handle run-on sentences (or bad English) that well." Update For for the dupe. Not going well. Appreciate all the hate mail. Really encourages improvement.
Second post. yeah baby yeah.
Hi. I'm Linus Torvalds, creator of the Open Source OS Linux. I'm glad CmdrTaco and company have created a forum for Open Source news and views, and I am so thankful for being able to post in the Slashdot forums. But now I must get something off my chest.
As you all know, I am a fairly clean cut, well-kempt person (I know, I have a beer gut only ESR could dare to challenge, but you'll have that if you spend 18 hours a day coding and eating Cheezie Doodlez), and in the GNU community that is an anomoly: virtually all users of GNU software and the GPL, under which my Linux kernel falls under, are unkempt, long-haired, beast-bearded dirty GNU hippies, and I am sick and tired of having to deal with them.
The person I have the greatest problem with is the (in)famous communist, RMS. Now, RMS may have been responsible for GNU, the GPL, GCC, and many other contributions to the computing community, but his stance, as well as stench, displayed in his essays and actions, nauseates me. I mean, with that filth-ridden beard of his, where does he have room to demand Linux distros demarkate the OS as GNU/Linux? When he is as clean-shaven as I, he may have the right. Until then, as he sits and plays his little flutes and drops acid like there is no tomorrow, he can shut his mouth and go back to reading Marx. I am sorry to sound so harsh, but a little hygeine every once in a while is a Good Thing(TM). Makes me wish I'd went with the BSD license back in the day.
Next in line of dirty scuzballs I have to deal with, and probably the worst thorn in my side, is Alan Cox, the primary coder of my kernel's TCP/IP stack (ha, what a joke!) and all around dirty GNU hippy. The man's wife, who I spent a few years with at the University of Helsinki, often calls me crying in the middle of the night to complain of the rank, unbearable stench the man exudes after sex. On several occasions I have personally had to withstand his torrent of rotten odor at trade shows, exhibitions, and beer bashes that permeates every inch of his toxic person. Along with the typical GNU hygeine (mis)habits he practices, he also bitches and whines about... well, everything. He lies a lot too; evidence for this can be seen in the fact he almost always wears cheap black sunglasses when talking to people he knows are better than him (such as myself).
And then we come to ESR. I won't reiterate the sewerdweller-like cleansing habits he practices as well, but I would like to focus on his general lifestyle. Firstly, he's never been to school. As a German expatriate, education should have been his priority; however, becoming a Gas Baron was his ambition in life until he realized he would fail at it. I wish he'd make that realization with the other things he tries to do. Secondly, the man is a sub-intelligent hillbilly. You know, the kind that goes to inner-city computer stores and buys 386s to set up as servers all over his house, with cigarette smoke-stained 14" monitors piled high upon his kitchen table. He has no cooth and can't integrate himself into any social situation involving "white collar" executives without rambling into a tirade on gun rights or tanning roadkill. Couple the above facts with his ruddy complection (from drinking Jagermeister like it's water) and his gnat-ridden handlebar mustache and you've got the makings of one more person who pisses me off.
Well, that's it for now. Hopefully with these feelings off my chest and into the Open Source community, things will change for the better. I'd like just once to talk to a Linux user or advocate who washes and changes their clothes at least weekly. Until then, thanks to CmdrTaco, Slashdot, and you, the reader, for the opportunity to bring things to the table and share for the betterment of our community.
if subject of new article is the same as a previous article then abort posting.
(Sung to the tune of the William Tell Overture)
Dupe, dada dupe, dada dupe, dupe, dupe.
Dupe, dada dupe, dada dupe, dupe, dupe.
Dupe, dada dupe, dada dupe, dupe, dupe.
Dupe, dada dupe, dupe, dupe.
please take this garbage out to the dumpster because it stinks too bad to put in the trash can. smells worse than 3-day-old PFChangs.
thanks.
Lol. I love how stating that the post is a dupe is modded as offtopic. The whole entire article posting should be modded offtopic.
Really, what's it got against Bad English? Okay, so it was Top 40 glurge, but no worse than other "supergroup" bands at the time.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
Excuse? Sir, you are way off base.
I'm addressing the fact that some people are arguing the actual need for a dupe-checking methodology greater than what Taco has in place. Not only that, but one of them just got modded to (Score: 5, insightful). That pissed me off, simply because when that happened, it seemed as though it was a affirmative nod to the critic's offensive, off-topic, and Taco-targetted content, when in fact I (personally) don't give a flying leap if the origin article was a dupe or not. I find it a weak basis for a mod that high on an offensive post. If I had meta-mod points left I would have tried to hit that "not insightful" checkbox so hard that the modder would have felt it.
If the critic needs the functionality so bad, they can go and write it themselves, and quit bitching. It's not an open source burnout stance, it's a point of opinion from an offended reader of highly modded Taco critic. I'll side with Taco, immediately, regardless of how he is going to approach the dupe subject in the future, and on whatever time-scale Slashdot chooses. No-one doing this job actually deserves to be treated that way. And if it involves code to produce a fix for some moron's peeve (read: lack of innate brain-based dupe-filter), then they can go and code the thing themselves.
So, no... I will not "cut it with the 'you try and do that' responses". Maybe YOU could come up with that dupe filter it seems you so desperately need. I could care less about such a thing, and what that actually proves to me is that it's superfluous to my daily routine of reading some of the best news the net has to offer in one place.
Your choice to use my post as a springboard to bash the site, or Taco, even further is really nothing more than a grab at attention. I was succinct with my statement, and now that I've explained it to the readers of your post, I have nothing further. Get modded however you like. Thank you very much.