Edsger W. Dijkstra argues that trying to program computers in everyday natural languages is misguided: it redistributes complexity rather than reducing it. Machines have always been literal and thus exposed human imprecision; the response has been higher-level formal languages that catch many errors with simple, checkable rules. Replacing formal notation with natural-language interfaces would vastly increase the machine's burden and the communication costs on both sides, and might even make programming harder rather than easier. Narrow, well-defined interfaces are preferable because they limit the joint work required to cooperate across them.
He supports this with historical analogy and practical critique: mathematics advanced only when thinkers adopted concise symbolisms (Vieta, Descartes, Leibniz, Boole) that made manipulation rigorous and accessible, whereas periods dominated by rhetorical or pictorial exposition stagnated. Formal notation is thus a privilege that extends reasoning beyond a few geniuses. He also warns that declining language mastery ("the New Illiteracy") weakens any case for natural-language programming. His concluding verdict is blunt: machines programmable in natural tongues would be both difficult to build and to use.
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