[jeroenhd]

I think this isn't referring to intent as in "calculate the tax rate for this purchase" but rather "shift this byte three positions to the left". Less about what you're trying to accomplish, and more about what you're trying to make the machine do.

Something like purchase.calculate_tax().await.map_err(|e| TaxCalculationError { source: e })?; is full of intent, but you have no idea what kind of machine code you're going to end up with.

[raincole]

In other words, high-level languages express high-level intents, while low-level languages express low-level intents.

In yet other words, tautology.

[csjh]

Maybe, but from the author's description, it seems like the interpretation of intent that they want is to generally give the most information possible to the compiler, so it can do its thing. I don't see why the right high level language couldn't give the compiler plenty of leeway to optimize.