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When it comes to code, English speakers like to talk about how good, pure, or expressive a code language is. For example, ask people up in here to describe PHP
by conner_bw 9y ago
When it comes to code, English speakers like to talk about how good, pure, or expressive a code language is. For example, ask people up in here to describe PHP and you'll get bile. Ask them to talk about Closure and you'll get accolades. Usually summarized as "because the language is bad the result will be bad"
...the irony is that the discussion will be in English. One of the worlds most inconsistent, awkward, written languages. [1] Further more, most code is English. Example: it's usually "if/else" not "si/sinon" or "と/又は"
IMHO I don't think the analogy holds. However, I don't know of a better way to describe it.
PS: I'm bilingual (French/English)
[1] http://aclassen.faculty.arizona.edu/content/english-language-crazy-inconsistencies http://aclassen.faculty.arizona.edu/content/english-language...
- travisjungroth 9y agoWell, yeah. English is the JavaScript of natural languages.
- indubitably 9y agoCould you explain what you mean by this?
- pc86 9y agoI doubt it.
- jbob2000 9y agoI am not the original commenter, but - English is full of slang and borrowed concepts. And it has rules, but they aren't really enforced and there are many cases where the rules are explicitly broken. Every generation, we see new additions to the English language and removals of old/out of date phrasing. When you look at it like that, yeah, it's kinda like JavaScript - not really object oriented and not really functional but borrows concepts from both, loosely typed (rules aren't really enforced), and there's a new library every month that drastically changes the language (slang, evolving with the generations). I only speak English, so I'm not sure if other languages are like this.
- _proofs 9y agoThere are a number of polyglots who disagree with your sentiment. Nabokov immediately comes to mind. He preferred english because of its capacity for precision and expressive-ness.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]