4 ms·

I believe this applies to programming as well. One programming language is about equivalent in terms of mental effort to learn as a new language - actually they

by pluc 8y ago

I believe this applies to programming as well. One programming language is about equivalent in terms of mental effort to learn as a new language - actually they're called languages too. There are polyglots in our world today, who know C, C++, Java and C# as well as French, English and whatever else, who I think deserve as much accolades as those linguistic hyperpolyglots.

emodendroket 8y ago
Learning a new programming language is nowhere near as hard as learning a new human language. That's true even if it's a different paradigm but especially when you're talking about languages which have similar paradigms. The real slayer in picking up a new language is that the list of vocabulary you need to learn is endless. You can be writing a program in a new language that may not be totally idiomatic but works in a few days. You can't carry on a conversation in a new language that fast.
funkaster 8y ago
Not at all. Learning a new programming language (let's say being able to "converse" in a new programming language) is not even close to the difficulty of being able to converse in a new human language. I know (I've coded professionally) C, C++, C#, JavaScript, typescript, Ruby, python, scheme. I can read and understand Rust, any c-like language, Scala, brainfuck and many others. I could confidently say that I could understand pretty much any programming language. On the other hand I can speak Spanish, English. I can "converse" in French (formally studied), Portuguese and some Italian. I'm learning Mandarin right now. I studied Latin for several years. Human languages are so much harder because (among many other factors) their grammars are so much complicated, also languages evolve in time. Computer languages they are all very similar and their grammars and orders of magnitude more simple (they have to be in order to fulfill their goal of being mapped to instructions on a Turing Machine). I could confidently say that no matter how much I try, I probably would not understand any human language unless I dedicated a non-trivial amount of time and effort to learn it. And that just for getting to a colloquial level of dialogue. If I ever wanted to be productive professionally reading/writing it would be way more hard.
- astrodust 8y ago
  That's probably because in computer languages we invent our own dialects as the core is pretty feeble: "Jane get ball, ball is red. Red ball goes down hill." So that becomes "getBall()", "dropBall()" and so on where with a heavy helping of English, or whatever human language you prefer, you can slather on top a lot of semantic meaning that isn't there otherwise. If you only had to learn basic grammar and fifty words you could be fluent in a hundred languages in a month.
wallflower 8y ago
Human languages are harder because you are speaking and listening to humans. Do you get embarrassed typing in a line of code into your editor? Also, for these polyglot programmers, are they truly writing code in, say Python, in the Pythonic way?
irrational 8y ago
I don't know. I can't just pick up and start reading text in Chinese, French, Arabic, Russian, German, etc. But I've rarely had any trouble looking at code in a programming language I've never been exposed to and being able to understand it quite readily.
poulsbohemian 8y ago
Agree with the basic gist that languages follow patterns, and once you learn these patterns it gets easier to learn new languages. The challenge is that programming languages are really not that different from each other; they are mostly syntactic differences to express the same logic concepts. Human languages express far greater variability because they are also embodying history, culture, politics, as well as creating symbolism for human thought.
newsbinator 8y ago
Human languages are harder because there's no compiler to test variations against for hours, days and weeks. The best language learning program would be one which listens to you speak (or write), points out critical errors, and doesn't let you progress until you find ways around them (or choose an easier/different thing to express). If we had one of those, language learning would be much, much easier.
- wallflower 8y ago
  I don't mean this sarcastically but your description of the best language learning program is almost how all parents teach their kids their native language(s).
misiti3780 8y ago
Learning human languages is harder, because of grammar. Think about it this way, the US government says you can learn speak Spanish/Italian/French in 600 hours of practice. I'd argue you could be effective in Golang in < 40 hours of practice. Harder languages like Haskell would be a lot more hours but much less than 600.

by pluc 8y ago

emodendroket 8y ago

Learning a new programming language is nowhere near as hard as learning a new human language. That's true even if it's a different paradigm but especially when you're talking about languages which have similar paradigms. The real slayer in picking up a new language is that the list of vocabulary you need to learn is endless. You can be writing a program in a new language that may not be totally idiomatic but works in a few days. You can't carry on a conversation in a new language that fast.

funkaster 8y ago

Not at all. Learning a new programming language (let's say being able to "converse" in a new programming language) is not even close to the difficulty of being able to converse in a new human language. I know (I've coded professionally) C, C++, C#, JavaScript, typescript, Ruby, python, scheme. I can read and understand Rust, any c-like language, Scala, brainfuck and many others. I could confidently say that I could understand pretty much any programming language. On the other hand I can speak Spanish, English. I can "converse" in French (formally studied), Portuguese and some Italian. I'm learning Mandarin right now. I studied Latin for several years. Human languages are so much harder because (among many other factors) their grammars are so much complicated, also languages evolve in time. Computer languages they are all very similar and their grammars and orders of magnitude more simple (they have to be in order to fulfill their goal of being mapped to instructions on a Turing Machine). I could confidently say that no matter how much I try, I probably would not understand any human language unless I dedicated a non-trivial amount of time and effort to learn it. And that just for getting to a colloquial level of dialogue. If I ever wanted to be productive professionally reading/writing it would be way more hard.

astrodust 8y ago
That's probably because in computer languages we invent our own dialects as the core is pretty feeble: "Jane get ball, ball is red. Red ball goes down hill." So that becomes "getBall()", "dropBall()" and so on where with a heavy helping of English, or whatever human language you prefer, you can slather on top a lot of semantic meaning that isn't there otherwise. If you only had to learn basic grammar and fifty words you could be fluent in a hundred languages in a month.

wallflower 8y ago

Human languages are harder because you are speaking and listening to humans. Do you get embarrassed typing in a line of code into your editor? Also, for these polyglot programmers, are they truly writing code in, say Python, in the Pythonic way?

irrational 8y ago

I don't know. I can't just pick up and start reading text in Chinese, French, Arabic, Russian, German, etc. But I've rarely had any trouble looking at code in a programming language I've never been exposed to and being able to understand it quite readily.

poulsbohemian 8y ago

Agree with the basic gist that languages follow patterns, and once you learn these patterns it gets easier to learn new languages. The challenge is that programming languages are really not that different from each other; they are mostly syntactic differences to express the same logic concepts. Human languages express far greater variability because they are also embodying history, culture, politics, as well as creating symbolism for human thought.

newsbinator 8y ago

Human languages are harder because there's no compiler to test variations against for hours, days and weeks. The best language learning program would be one which listens to you speak (or write), points out critical errors, and doesn't let you progress until you find ways around them (or choose an easier/different thing to express). If we had one of those, language learning would be much, much easier.

wallflower 8y ago
I don't mean this sarcastically but your description of the best language learning program is almost how all parents teach their kids their native language(s).

misiti3780 8y ago

Learning human languages is harder, because of grammar. Think about it this way, the US government says you can learn speak Spanish/Italian/French in 600 hours of practice. I'd argue you could be effective in Golang in < 40 hours of practice. Harder languages like Haskell would be a lot more hours but much less than 600.