Can Programming Be Liberated, Period?

Januray 2008

The author describes his dream about freeing ourselves from the straightjackets of programming, making the process of getting computers to do what we want intuitive, natural, and also fun. He recommends harnessing the great power of computing and transforming a natural and almost playful means of programming so that it becomes fully operational and machine-doable.Nine years ago, I sat down to write about a dream, one that would allow us to go from intuitively "played-in" scenarios to running code. Some of its most technically challenging parts were stated without providing too much support for their feasibility. Hence the choice of the term "dream." Ever since that paper was first published in 2000, 1 not only hasn't the dream evaporated, but it has continued to have a nagging presence, looming even larger in my mind, and getting broader and more elaborate by the year.
More significant is the fact that quite a bit of work has been carried out since then, which, while still a far cry from justifying the replacement of a dream by a plan, does now seem to offer some preliminary evidence of feasibility. Consequently, I've decided to revisit the topic and to describe the dream anew, or, more correctly (but possibly not very wisely), to propose a more dramatic and sweeping version thereof.
I should apologize to the reader at the start that this article doesn't get very specific or technical at all. Moreover, with the exception of the sidebar, it might read like the ramblings of a crazed, or dazed, individual. I should also point out that this article's title is, of course, intended to be a catchy take on the title of John Backus's wonderful Turing Award lecture and paper, "Can Programming Be Liberated from the von Neumann Style? A Functional Style and Its Algebra of Programs."

David Harel
Weizmann Institute of Science