Coding in natural language is becoming a reality — and not just English. CEO Satya Nadella announced at the Microsoft Build 2024 that developers can now do programming in their native language, including Hindi.
“Think about that — every person can now start programming, whether it’s in Hindi, Brazilian or Portuguese, and bring back the joy of coding in their native language,” said Nadella, emphasising that this would be available in Copilot Workspace.
Nadella added that with Copilot coding features in native languages, we are an order of magnitude closer to a world where any person can go from idea to code in an instant. This is further enabled by Copilot Workspace having the knowledge of existing code and naturally integrating with the workflow.
He presented at the conference the way users can start with an issue and how the Copilot understands the existing codebase and generates a plan to execute the code. Users can edit and control it at every point of deployment. “It is fundamentally a new way of building software,” added Nadella.
The discussion about English being the hottest programming language is slowly shifting to coding in every language. Similar to Nadella, in the latest podcast with Lex Fridman, when asked how much programming people would do in the next 5-10 years, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said, “A lot, but I think it’ll be in a very different shape.”
Altman said that many have already started programming entirely in natural language. “No one programs by writing code…some people do. No one programs the pun cards anymore,” he quipped, adding that it would change the nature and the skillset, not so much the predisposition for who we call programmers in the future.
