(2023-05-14) Wardley Maps As Code

Simon Wardley: Maps as Code. Why the fuss about conversational programming? Part II. (2023-01-30) Wardley Why The Fuss About Conversational Programming

I think GPT4 and systems like Github CoPilot are admirable but probably in the wrong space

we’re on a path to conversational programming as highlighted by Nicholas Negroponte and his paper “Architecture by yourself”. As the paper noted, design is the process of a conversation between two or more pespectives in the minds of one or more designers. (Society of Mind)

But, what we’re missing is the graphical conversational part of what is needed. This is the bit that Yona Friedman explored in “Towards a Scientific Architecture”. (Visualization)

To explain, I’m going to use a map of coherent city transport

in transport planning we often failed to consider one of the major transportation systems effecting the world — that of virtual transport

look at the code in figure 1. It would be difficult to make that realisation in a medium that is dominated by syntax, style and rules. In reality, the code was only ever the means to make the map. The conversation happened around the map.

both the text and the map are ways of “coding” the problem space of coherent city travel. One is simply code as text where syntax, styles and rules dominate. The other is simply code as a map where things, relationships and context dominate.

With this in mind, think about where we are with conversational programming today. We’re mostly trapped in syntax, style and rules around code as text. We’re not really having that conversation with the machine but instead giving it instructions

The power of conversational programming will only be truly unleashed if we can escape from the confines of text (where syntax, styles and rules dominate) and into a world of maps (where things, relationships and context matters).

When we’re coding our maps, the only thing that matters is the syntax and completeness of the code to produce the map. The real discussion happens over the map.

I strongly believe that the world of serverless which has already become about stitching components (or gluing things) together and thinking about the context will lend itself more naturally to the world of conversational programming

will come out of the rapidly developing open source space around multi-modal systems.

we maybe in the “Sun Cloud” moment and barking up the wrong tree. That’s where I suspect we are and there is much more to come.

This is no different to the current situation with military organisations around the world slowly realising there are at least five landscapes of sovereignty which matter for the defence of the nation-state — territorial, economic, technological, political and cultural — and most of us only have maps for one of those landscapes.

Four of the other landscapes are still dominated by text — whether written or spoken.

Additional Questions

Q. Where would you look for inspiration of this change?
Two places — the open source world and the gaming world, especially the large and still vibrant community around Skyrim SE where both seem to happen. Hence keep an eye on reddit and discord groups. There’s an awful lot of work going into bringing LLMs into Skyrim SE.

The future of conversational programming is more likely to start with the question of “describe your need”. In many cases, conversational programming may never need a single line of code written.