Does a prose to code compiler exist?

Question

I have seen some horrible code in my time including people virtually duplicating the code in comments

// add 4 to x
x+=4;

// for each i in 0 to 9 
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
    // multiply x by i
    x *= i;
}

Taking this concept further, I'm curious whether prose to code compilers exist.

• Is there a valid use case for English prose to code?
• Do compilers exist that do this?

The distinction between this and auto generated code, is that auto generated code is generally always a subset of a project. Can we have complete projects auto generated from english prose?

I realise that this might overlap with the concept of declarative languages.

Answer 1

There are lots of prose to code compilers. It's even an entire class of tools. They are commonly called "programmers" or "software engineers".

Apart from that, writing software without knowing programming languages (which is what having a prose-to-code compiler would typically attempt to achieve) has fundamental problems. There is an entire field dedicated to dealing with these fundamental problems called Natural Language Processing. The biggest problem is that natural languages are typically extremely ambiguous (even short sentences can have thousands of potential parses).

Answer 2

Wolfram|Alpha is able to calculate queries written in plain-English, so eventually they may be able to extend that to some more of programming. In general, even if you could get prose to be rigorous enough, it would be much too long, so regular programming would be much more efficient.

Answer 3

Is there a valid use case for English prose to code?

In some domains. For example Inform language for interactive fiction. Example program in Inform 7:

"Hello Deductible" by "I.F. Author"
The story headline is "An Interactive Example".
The Living Room is a room. "A comfortably furnished living room."
The Kitchen is north of the Living Room.
The Front Door is south of the Living Room.
The Front Door is a door. The Front Door is closed and locked.
The insurance salesman is a man in the Living Room. "An insurance salesman in a tacky polyester suit. He seems eager to speak to you." Understand "man" as the insurance salesman.
A briefcase is carried by the insurance salesman. The description is "A slightly worn, black briefcase." Understand "case" as the briefcase.
The insurance paperwork is in the briefcase. The description is "Page after page of small legalese." Understand "papers" or "documents" or "forms" as the paperwork.
Instead of listening to the insurance salesman for the first time:
say "The salesman bores you with a discussion of life insurance policies. From his briefcase he pulls some paperwork which he hands to you.";
move the insurance paperwork to the player.

---

For general purpose programming, COBOL was attempt to build a language, which would be as close to English prose as possible:

One of the design goals of COBOL was that non-programmers—managers, supervisors, and users—could read and understand the code. This is why COBOL has an English-like syntax and structural elements—including: nouns, verbs, clauses, sentences, sections, and divisions.

Answer 4

Take a look at cdecl. It is a little tool which can convert C-declarations to English and vice versa. It is not exactly converting any code to English prose, but perhaps the closest you can get.