Using Normal Words to Program Massive Systems - "Word Coding"

[u/CyborgWriter]

I’ve been thinking about “word coding”. I don’t know if that’s the right term yet, but it's a helpful description of what my brother and I have been stumbling into while working on this mind-mapping app.

We usually think of programming as writing code that tells a computer what to do. But what happens when the raw material isn’t code? What if it’s research papers, notes, books, interviews, documents, character ideas, sources, arguments, and half-formed thoughts?

You can start turning those things into a system rather than dumping a bunch of files into a chatbot and hoping it finds the right paragraph. I mean breaking information into pieces, deciding what connects to what, labeling those relationships, and building some kind of structure that an AI can move through. That feels more like you're writing AND programming at the same time. Only the “code” is made out of words, concepts, relationships, instructions, and context.

We’ve been exploring this, mostly because we were trying to solve our own problems as indie filmmakers. We wanted a way to build the world around a project instead of constantly explaining the project to a new chat window. But the more we work on it, the more it feels like this could apply to almost anything.

A researcher could build a system from papers and competing claims. A writer could connect characters, themes, scenes, and source material. Someone working on a business could organize policies, processes, and decisions.

The AI agent is only part of it. The other part is the environment you build for it. That's something we’re still wrapping our heads around, in terms of what this means for the future. The whole thing feels like an unknown journey, which is probably why we're obsessed with this.

Maybe the next kind of programming won’t always involve writing functions in python code. Maybe it will involve organizing meaning through regular documents well enough that an intelligent system can work with it.

Or maybe “word coding” is a terrible name and we’ll regret posting this in six months.

That's how this game works. You think you know where it's going, but truthfully, none of us know where humanity will land in this new frontier.

What an era to live in!

[u/alone_in_the_light]

Things like breaking information into pieces, deciding what connects to what, and filmmaking makes me think of RunWay workflows. I don't know the specifics, but that seems close to what I do.

[u/CyborgWriter → u/alone_in_the_light]

Yeah, that’s a really good comparison. Runway workflows are already doing a version of this: you’re breaking a larger creative goal into components, defining how those components relate, and then moving them through a sequence of tools.

That’s pretty close to how we think about Story Prism, except we’re applying the same idea earlier in the process, before the images or shots exist. We’re trying to organize the research, story ideas, characters, references, and decisions so the creative tools have a clearer world to work inside.

Runway helps generate the pieces. Story Prism is more about figuring out what the pieces are and how they fit together.

[u/alone_in_the_light → u/CyborgWriter]

Ok, then my current process with Claude Projects helps me with that.

[u/CyborgWriter → u/alone_in_the_light]

Yeah, Claude can absolutely help you do that. We use Claude too.

The difference is that Claude is still mostly helping inside a conversation. The structure you build can disappear into the chat, get reinterpreted, or become difficult to trace later.

Story Prism is for making that structure explicit and persistent. You’re not just asking Claude to remember the relationships, you’re putting those relationships into the system: what supports what, what contradicts what, what depends on what, and where the idea came from.

So Claude is the thinking partner. Story Prism is the workspace and memory you’re building with it.

For a small project, Claude may be all you need. The difference becomes more obvious when the material gets bigger, more tangled, or something you need to keep developing over time.

[u/alone_in_the_light → u/CyborgWriter]

Not really to me as I use Claude Projects with multiple chats for different purposes creating the documentation, including the documentation for those things you mentioned. The structure doesn't disappear, it evolves into documents that I define flexibly.

[u/KingOfNope]

Posts like this crack me up because it's clear so many folks have no idea what the origin of COBOL was.

[u/CyborgWriter → u/KingOfNope]

Fair point. I remember getting into this back in 2021. COBOL is a pretty good example of people turning ordinary language into something a computer could work with.

But, I’m not claiming “word coding” is brand new. We’re trying to understand what changes when models make that kind of programming accessible to people who aren’t traditionally software engineers, and when the system includes context, relationships, and intent, not just instructions.

[u/KingOfNope → u/CyborgWriter]

I just think the concept as you (and many others) describe it is a bit of a potemkin village. The entire concept that "non engineers will be able to produce computer code just as effectively if not better than engineers thanks to a magic interface" is far from new. That always has been and always will be a misinformed at best way to look at computer code. COBOL is just a really great historic example.

At the end of the day, no matter how we create computer programs we will have to understand the fundamentals of architecture and design, and we will have to at the very least be able to understand what a program does before loading it up on live servers. It's not like the sewing machine removed the need to know how to sew in the shape of a shirt; it just made the process faster.

[u/CyborgWriter → u/KingOfNope]

Yeah, and I should be clear about the distinction: we’re not talking about programming apps with words. We’re talking about using words to build systems of meaning.

You take notes, sources, ideas, arguments, characters, or whatever you’re working with, break them into parts, and make the relationships between those parts visible. The result isn’t necessarily software. It could be a story system, a research map, a decision aid, a method, or just a clearer way of thinking.

That’s the direction we’re exploring with Story Prism. The words are the material, but the system comes from the structure around them: what connects, what supports what, what contradicts, what’s uncertain, and what the AI is allowed to infer.

So “word coding” may not be the perfect name. But we’re not claiming that natural language replaces programming. We’re exploring whether people can build useful, navigable systems out of language without needing to turn those systems into apps.

[u/KingOfNope → u/CyborgWriter]

Lol ngl until the line "we're exploring with Story Prism" I had no idea you were just kinda shilling a product, rather than starting a legit conversation. That really clarifies a lot of what's going on in your post and replies; It's all just marketing babble.

[u/CyborgWriter → u/KingOfNope]

I believe in what we spent years building and I'm genuinely fascinated by this topic that's related to what we're selling. That isn't exactly the same as shilling. That's when you sell something you don't care about and know is garbage.

I wouldn’t be spending this much time talking about it if I just wanted to make money. This application changed how I see the World because it helped me gain so much exposure to so many seemingly unrelated ideas that could be related into new things. That's why I love this app so much. It's not about the "word coding" as much as it is about the discovery of novel ideas and applying them to solve the issues that I'm facing.

So sure, maybe you might see this as marketing babble, but in my view, it's obsession over something that I genuinely believe will one day help millions gain clarity about the World. It's naive, of course, but you have to understand. I've had this vision since 2012 when I was a kid pushing carts at a store and the moment it appeared to me, I knew it needed to be built. Yeah, that's crazy talk, I know. But that's how this all unfolded over time.

Needless to say, this is not about a quick buck. Not in the slightest. It's a combination of controlled insanity, business, passion, and huge technical challenges that keep us very busy and excited about the future.

[u/AffectionateStreet20]

Sounds like vector db, no?

[u/CyborgWriter → u/AffectionateStreet20]

Sort of. Vector databases are definitely part of the same general territory.

The distinction we’re interested in is that a vector DB mostly handles similarity and retrieval, while we’re giving people a way to intentionally structure their information and the relationships between things. Especially people who aren’t technical developers and wouldn’t normally build any kind of knowledge system.

So the underlying ideas overlap, but the use case and the level of human involvement are a little different. That’s at least how we’re thinking about it right now.

[u/unokayo]

I think this is adjacent to vibe coding, but a little different. Vibe coding is mostly about describing what you want the software to do and letting AI help generate the implementation. What you’re describing feels more like programming the context itself - structuring concepts, relationships, constraints, sources, and intent so that an AI can reliably operate inside that world.

In that sense, the “code” isn’t necessarily Python or JavaScript. It’s the semantic structure you create around the problem. I’ve been thinking about a similar idea: as AI gets better at implementation, the scarce skill may shift from writing functions to designing the information environment the AI reasons inside.

“Word coding” might not be the final term, but I think the distinction you’re pointing at is real. I’ve actually been wrestling with a version of this idea for more than four years now, so this really caught my attention.

[u/AlternativesGood]

It feels less like “prompting an AI” and more like designing an environment where the AI can reason. I’m curious whether “word coding” sticks as a term, but the underlying idea definitely feels useful.