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Why do we need to come up with metaphors? Isn't calling a programming _language_ a "language" already an ideal and evocative metaphor?

omouse 16y ago
It is by no means ideal. It brings up comparison to languages like English and Japanese. We should reall call them notations, just as in mathematics.
- mahmud 16y ago
  Yep. At the last D.C. meetup, a bunch of us HNers heard an environmental engineer express her fear of programming because she has always been "bad with languages", and couldn't master Spanish or German. I really wish I called them "notations", instead I said they were "formalisms, just like in mathematics" .. and somehow I don't think she thought that conveyed neither simplicity nor ease of learning.
- metamemetics 16y ago
  > comparison to languages like English and Japanese That was my point. Just like a speaking language, you can only learn them by practicing them. Just like a speaking language, the pedagogy has to be geared towards forcing yourself in awkward situations or problems to master the language rather than lecture. Just like a speaking language, they have different version dialects or syntax that change over time. This is a collaborative process. Just like different speaking languages, programming languages some differences in grammar rules as well as similarities. As learning Latin will help you learn other Romance languages, learning C helps you learn C++ and C#. Just like speaking languages, programming languages are developed to facilitate communication. Between programmer<->programmer and programmer<->computer. They are the vocabulary for defining situations. Just like speaking languages, programming languages influence how we think when using other languages and leave us with accents. Just like linguistics, there is an underlying core set of operations in computer science that languages are built over as an abstraction. The languages themselves are abitrary inventions and not derivable, mathematics seems a particularly bad analogy.
  - tjogin 16y ago
    Agreed, it's weird that we continue to preoccupy ourself with the carpenter analogy.

omouse 16y ago

It is by no means ideal. It brings up comparison to languages like English and Japanese. We should reall call them notations, just as in mathematics.

mahmud 16y ago
Yep. At the last D.C. meetup, a bunch of us HNers heard an environmental engineer express her fear of programming because she has always been "bad with languages", and couldn't master Spanish or German. I really wish I called them "notations", instead I said they were "formalisms, just like in mathematics" .. and somehow I don't think she thought that conveyed neither simplicity nor ease of learning.
metamemetics 16y ago
> comparison to languages like English and Japanese That was my point. Just like a speaking language, you can only learn them by practicing them. Just like a speaking language, the pedagogy has to be geared towards forcing yourself in awkward situations or problems to master the language rather than lecture. Just like a speaking language, they have different version dialects or syntax that change over time. This is a collaborative process. Just like different speaking languages, programming languages some differences in grammar rules as well as similarities. As learning Latin will help you learn other Romance languages, learning C helps you learn C++ and C#. Just like speaking languages, programming languages are developed to facilitate communication. Between programmer<->programmer and programmer<->computer. They are the vocabulary for defining situations. Just like speaking languages, programming languages influence how we think when using other languages and leave us with accents. Just like linguistics, there is an underlying core set of operations in computer science that languages are built over as an abstraction. The languages themselves are abitrary inventions and not derivable, mathematics seems a particularly bad analogy.
- tjogin 16y ago
  Agreed, it's weird that we continue to preoccupy ourself with the carpenter analogy.