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E.W. Dijkstra argues against the idea of natural language programming, emphasizing that programming requires formal symbolism and accuracy. He highlights historical failures of verbal and pictorial mathematics and praises the effectiveness of formal texts for their simplicity and error-reduction. Dijkstra also warns about the decline in language mastery, known as 'The New Illiteracy', which undermines the feasibility of natural language programming.

E.W.Dijkstra Archive: On the foolishness of "natural language programming". (EWD 667)

<p>I like his take on ‘The New Illiteracy’  but it certainly makes more sense within context of a ‘discipline’ rather than what we understand about linguistics.</p>
