[mantrax4]

This is why the description is good.

Sure, it tests whether you can write a set of statements a computer can understand.

But it also tests whether you can understand the intent behind a set of statements a human would make, without going on a diatribe about how the definition is not good enough.

After all, if English was a formal strict language where only one right way existed to express something, we wouldn't need programmers, would we?

[dragonwriter]

> After all, if English was a formal strict language where only one right way existed to express something, we wouldn't need programmers, would we?

If you just solved the fact that one meaning can have many expressions, we'd still need programmers (and, more relevantly, system analysts) just as much.

The relevant problem is that English isn't a formal strict language where a particular expression can only have one meaning (and, more importantly, that, people don't use it that way even when it superficially seems to be.)

That is, the problem that requires specialized work to develop unambiguous requirements for the implementation of (among other things) information systems isn't that English maps (many expressions) -> (one meaning), but that it maps (one expression) -> (many meanings).

[nilkn]

I think you could have made this point without subtly referring to my post as a "diatribe." I'm more than aware of what the intended interpretation is. Posting what I felt was a very minor and amusing observation hardly constitutes a "diatribe."

> After all, if English was a formal strict language where only one right way existed to express something, we wouldn't need programmers, would we?

This is very off-topic, but I'm not sure I agree with it. You're assuming that it would be easy to find the one unique way to express a given computation such that anybody could write it down. Even if English had this uniqueness property, I don't think that would be true at all.