March 12, 2026
Speak now, code later
Kotlin creator's new language: a formal way to talk to LLMs instead of English
English is out? ‘CodeSpeak’ wants you to talk to AI in specs — devs are divided
TLDR: Kotlin’s creator unveiled CodeSpeak, a language for writing short specs that AI turns into code, promising smaller, easier projects. The comments erupted: some call it “just Markdown” or ironic English replacement, others prefer visual tools and better demos—spotlighting a bigger fight over how we’ll tell AI what to build next.
The creator of Kotlin just dropped “CodeSpeak,” a new way to tell AI what to build using short written “specs” instead of traditional code. The pitch is bold: mix human-written bits with AI-generated parts, convert old code into specs that are 5–10x smaller, and make maintenance human-friendly. There’s even a demo pulled from a real project. Sounds futuristic… until the comments set it on fire.
The top vibe is skeptical side-eye. One user deadpanned, “So is it basically Markdown?” while another waved it off, saying tools like Langflow and n8n will win. A third pushed the fantasy further: forget code entirely—just write Englishscripts and be done with it, linking to this spicy blog. The meme of the day came from a deadpan takedown: we built AI so you can speak English, but English is too messy, so… here’s a new language. Someone even joked about a startup that takes your English and spits out CodeSpeak.
Then came the nitpicks: the demo UI uses tabs instead of side-by-side comparisons, and examples feel “forced,” like reinventing an email decoder instead of using a library. The crowd is split between dreamers who want fewer layers between people and machines, and pragmatists who see yet another language between them and the work. Hype vs. eye-rolls: fight!
Key Points
- •CodeSpeak is described as a next-generation programming language powered by LLMs.
- •The approach emphasizes maintaining human-readable specifications instead of traditional code.
- •CodeSpeak supports mixed projects combining manual code with code generated from specs, with an example via a forked MarkItDown repo.
- •A forthcoming feature aims to convert existing code into specifications (“Turning Code into Specs Coming Soon”).
- •The team reports real-world case studies where specs were generated from open-source code, with claims of specs being 5–10x smaller and easier to maintain.