4 ms·

Programming languages are nothing like natural languages

by kzrdude 5y ago

huachimingo 5y ago
If I had a penny for every esperanto speaker who also does software....
- overkalix 5y ago
  ... you'd have at most 2000 dollars?
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    The "if I had a penny" family of expressions dates back to a time when the monetary value of pennies was greater than the burden of carrying them around.
pcthrowaway 5y ago
You think? There's syntax, grammar, and idioms. Of course there are significant differences, but there's significant overlap too. As someone not linguistically inclined, I also notice myself looking for the name of the built-in method of a programming language I've used for 5 years. One might imagine a person with a better memory for vocabulary would be more capable of remembering the word/method name without needing to look it up.
- antattack 5y ago
  Once I learn how to write numbers - I'll be a mathematician? He might be making different sounds but the meaning is the same, with some culture specific exceptions. Programming is very little like communicating and it's a lot more like engineering.
  - layla5alive 5y ago
    Programming, done well, is almost all communicating...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- giraffe_lady 5y ago
  "Does having an aptitude for spoken languages mean you'll have an aptitude for programming languages" is a different question from "are programming languages languages" even if the answer to both questions is the same. But linguists have approached this question from time to time! The main stumbling block is highly literate people are inclined to think of writing as language but it's not, quite. You can have multiple writing systems for the same spoken language, or be fluent but illiterate. But you can't comprehend a writing system for a language you can't speak, barring disability. So programming languages do have grammar, but not the other components of a language. Idioms in programming are a metaphor referencing linguistic idioms but structurally they aren't the same. Programming languages are more similar to writing systems, and a lot of linguistics findings do apply to them when taken in that context. You can play around with this idea if you want. Try to convey meaning to someone using only a programming language and nothing else. This is tricky because they embed our other writing systems, so you need to be careful not to accidentally convey meaning with eg variable names. Might be best to use something like brainfuck or piet that prevents that entirely. If it's a language in the "human languages" sense, you'll be able to convey any arbitrary meaning to another person who knows that programming language, even if you don't share a spoken one. What ends up happening is you can only do this if you reference a shared spoken language. So you can warp a PL into a writing system, but you can't use it alone to communicate.
  - felipemnoa 5y ago
    >>But you can't comprehend a writing system for a language you can't speak, barring disability. I'm afraid I may sound stupid now. Why did you have to add the "barring disability" part?
  - pcthrowaway 5y ago
    But meaning (and even understanding of the world) is shaped by the language. Think of how one language has 40 words for different kinds of happiness, another doesn't have the word blue. My question was "would natural hyperpolyglot be better capable of learning/using programming languages", and I don't think any of what you said tells us one way or the other. Yes, the things being expressed with programming languages are different from the things being expressed with natural languages, but they are both designed for expression and communicating meaning. I'd love to see studies on whether there's any relationship between being able to easily pick up and retain human languages, and the same for programming languages. edit: note, that I'm not even asking if someone with an aptitude for human languages would be good at using programming languages. Obviously the logical components, required for doing a lot of things with them, are a completely separate skill. I'm only wondering if he'd have an aptitude for learning a language, in terms of syntax, grammar, standard library and associated methods, idioms.
ravi-delia 5y ago
That's exactly why I'd be interested to see if he could pick them up too. They're much more procedural, less meaning and more grammar. It might make it easier to see what's improved in his brain.
NineStarPoint 5y ago
The skills that make you good at picking up your third+ natural language should be similar to the skills that make you good at picking up your third+ programming language. (With extra programming languages being much easier to pick up than extra natural languages, in my experience) The guy might struggle with picking up programming to begin with though, it is indeed a completely different thing from human language.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > The skills that make you good at picking up your third+ natural language should be similar to the skills that make you good at picking up your third+ programming language. The skills involved in picking up a natural language are going out and schmoozing with people who speak that language. This is not actually a skill set that people who are good at picking up programming languages are known for.
- dx034 5y ago
  I'm really bad at languages and struggle to learn new languages. Picking up new programming languages is not problem for me though.
  - elemos 5y ago
    I also am like this. I have a co-disabilities that makes it near impossible for me to pick up a second language, yet I’m fairly talented at programming and have been paid to write in at least 8 programming languages.

Programming languages are nothing like natural languages

huachimingo 5y ago

If I had a penny for every esperanto speaker who also does software....

overkalix 5y ago
... you'd have at most 2000 dollars?
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  The "if I had a penny" family of expressions dates back to a time when the monetary value of pennies was greater than the burden of carrying them around.

pcthrowaway 5y ago

You think? There's syntax, grammar, and idioms. Of course there are significant differences, but there's significant overlap too. As someone not linguistically inclined, I also notice myself looking for the name of the built-in method of a programming language I've used for 5 years. One might imagine a person with a better memory for vocabulary would be more capable of remembering the word/method name without needing to look it up.

antattack 5y ago
Once I learn how to write numbers - I'll be a mathematician? He might be making different sounds but the meaning is the same, with some culture specific exceptions. Programming is very little like communicating and it's a lot more like engineering.
- layla5alive 5y ago
  Programming, done well, is almost all communicating...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
giraffe_lady 5y ago
"Does having an aptitude for spoken languages mean you'll have an aptitude for programming languages" is a different question from "are programming languages languages" even if the answer to both questions is the same. But linguists have approached this question from time to time! The main stumbling block is highly literate people are inclined to think of writing as language but it's not, quite. You can have multiple writing systems for the same spoken language, or be fluent but illiterate. But you can't comprehend a writing system for a language you can't speak, barring disability. So programming languages do have grammar, but not the other components of a language. Idioms in programming are a metaphor referencing linguistic idioms but structurally they aren't the same. Programming languages are more similar to writing systems, and a lot of linguistics findings do apply to them when taken in that context. You can play around with this idea if you want. Try to convey meaning to someone using only a programming language and nothing else. This is tricky because they embed our other writing systems, so you need to be careful not to accidentally convey meaning with eg variable names. Might be best to use something like brainfuck or piet that prevents that entirely. If it's a language in the "human languages" sense, you'll be able to convey any arbitrary meaning to another person who knows that programming language, even if you don't share a spoken one. What ends up happening is you can only do this if you reference a shared spoken language. So you can warp a PL into a writing system, but you can't use it alone to communicate.
- felipemnoa 5y ago
  >>But you can't comprehend a writing system for a language you can't speak, barring disability. I'm afraid I may sound stupid now. Why did you have to add the "barring disability" part?
- pcthrowaway 5y ago
  But meaning (and even understanding of the world) is shaped by the language. Think of how one language has 40 words for different kinds of happiness, another doesn't have the word blue. My question was "would natural hyperpolyglot be better capable of learning/using programming languages", and I don't think any of what you said tells us one way or the other. Yes, the things being expressed with programming languages are different from the things being expressed with natural languages, but they are both designed for expression and communicating meaning. I'd love to see studies on whether there's any relationship between being able to easily pick up and retain human languages, and the same for programming languages. edit: note, that I'm not even asking if someone with an aptitude for human languages would be good at using programming languages. Obviously the logical components, required for doing a lot of things with them, are a completely separate skill. I'm only wondering if he'd have an aptitude for learning a language, in terms of syntax, grammar, standard library and associated methods, idioms.

ravi-delia 5y ago

That's exactly why I'd be interested to see if he could pick them up too. They're much more procedural, less meaning and more grammar. It might make it easier to see what's improved in his brain.

NineStarPoint 5y ago

The skills that make you good at picking up your third+ natural language should be similar to the skills that make you good at picking up your third+ programming language. (With extra programming languages being much easier to pick up than extra natural languages, in my experience) The guy might struggle with picking up programming to begin with though, it is indeed a completely different thing from human language.

thaumasiotes 5y ago
> The skills that make you good at picking up your third+ natural language should be similar to the skills that make you good at picking up your third+ programming language. The skills involved in picking up a natural language are going out and schmoozing with people who speak that language. This is not actually a skill set that people who are good at picking up programming languages are known for.
dx034 5y ago
I'm really bad at languages and struggle to learn new languages. Picking up new programming languages is not problem for me though.
- elemos 5y ago
  I also am like this. I have a co-disabilities that makes it near impossible for me to pick up a second language, yet I’m fairly talented at programming and have been paid to write in at least 8 programming languages.