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Who here studied Latin? Well I did Latin for 6 years in High School (Sydney Boys fyi). I find this title "Coding - the new Latin" as a bizarre way of inducing

by tezza 15y ago

Who here studied Latin? Well I did Latin for 6 years in High School (Sydney Boys fyi). I find this title "Coding - the new Latin" as a bizarre way of inducing people to learn to code. Latin is dead. Very dead. Back in my day Latin was billed as "The Fastest Growing Language", but that never transpired. Now if you want to read Caesar, Virgil, Catulus et al, then fine learn Latin. But Latin is no longer the ticket to an elite private members club that it once was. Latin - is also a language that you exclusively read. There is so little creative element to it. One furthers oneself in Latin by re/interpreting existing works. Coding - is a creative craft where you take instructions and make something that never existed before. It would be better to strap coding onto something intensely creative: Technical Drawing Metal Work Fine Art, Sculpture

derleth 15y ago
> Coding - is a creative craft where you take instructions and make something that never existed before. Mathematics - is a creative craft where you take a formal system (a structure purely of the mind) and create something (a new theorem, an addition to the structure) that never existed before. That is what mathematics is. That is why there are math majors. If it were all rote nonsense, computers would be doing all of it by now; computers are cheaper than people for rote nonsense, after all. So, to tie this back to the topic, teaching programming correctly would be much easier if we taught mathematics correctly.
- delinka 15y ago
  Making advances in math indeed requires creativity. But actually creating something new and expanding mathematics is a Very Hard Problem. It doesn't lend itself to "instant creation" like programming does. Sure, you can apply formulas in many areas of business and life, and you can create simple formulas for these things-- doesn't take a math major. As to your last sentence, I completely agree.
cletus 15y ago
I believe you're missing the point. Here are some historical uses of Latin: - Obviously it was the language of the Roman Empire; - It is the basis for many European languages; - It was the language of Christianity, the Papacy for thousands of years (tying in somewhat historically with the conversion of Constantine). This went so far as Roman Catholic services being held in Latin until IIRC the 1960s; - Prior to the printing press, books were the province of monks and the like so being educated (in Western Europe) involved speaking Latin; - In England, Latin was the language of court and the law for centuries. There are many Latin terms--even in American law--for a reason; - Latin was the language of science. Element names in chemistry, species names in biology and so on have Latin roots; - For centuries, Latin was the lingua franca of the ruling class of Europe. The short of it is that being able to speak, read and write Latin in medieval and Renaissance Europe was power. More to the point, if you didn't know Latin, you were essentially excluded from many things (as many people were). Knowing Latin had as much power and influence as literacy in general. So what the author is saying is the ability "speak" the language of computers, the ability to communicate with them and make them do things, is the 21st century version of the thrall once held by Latin. Many have spoken about how expensive it was to launch a dot-com company in the 90s and how that cost has essentially decreased by two orders of magnitude in a decade. One might have thought this would make engineers less valuable as our skills would've been commoditized to some degree. The converse has happened. While other costs have largely vanished, more businesses became possible that never were before. There seems to be an insatiable demand for engineering talent, at least for the short to medium term. Last century the dream was the 21st century would be about space exploration and an otherwise "Star Trek" like future. Instead I believe the story about the 21st century will be what incredible things we do with computers. Genetic engineering, curing diseases, artificial intelligence, you name it. This may go so far as to essentially stratify society. It's hard to overstate just how importance computers will be in the next century (IMHO).
- tezza 15y ago
  It is a little harsh on me to say that I "missed the point". I was not short of understanding of the historical significance of Latin. I led with the fact that I studied Latin for 6 years. During this time all your reasons were expounded ad nauseam. I want to avoid getting into any flamewar with someone whose StackOverflow karma is measured in exponents. (I made no point on the importance of training people to program computers, the second theme of your comment.) What I was saying is that I believe Latin for one hundred years has involved nearly ZERO speaking. There are some very scholarly latin speakers with an English/Vatican pronunciation divide. But they are the exceptions. Yes there is Vatican City, but I think we can both agree that it would be best if there are more people who can program computers than the population of the Vatican (832).
  - learc83 15y ago
    I don't think the OP is comparing programming to Latin today, but to Latin during the Renaissance. Yes Latin isn't spoken, and nothing is created in it today, but that wasn't true hundreds of years ago. Programming is like Latin 400 years ago.
  - FreakLegion 15y ago
    There are actually a fair few people who practice spoken Latin for pleasure. As for the pronunciation divide, that's a quirk we inherited from German.
- delinka 15y ago
  "I believe you're missing the point." "Coding - the new Latin" is a marketing slogan. And if it breeds misunderstanding, or has to be explained, then it's not a good marketing slogan. I design software and write code. My initial reaction to the phrase was "so you're telling people it's hard and they should give up before they get started?" After that, I decided I had to read the article to get the meaning. Perhaps it's a dead ringer of a slogan in the UK. But it won't get kids a-codin' in my corner of the globe.
  - chc 15y ago
Jun8 15y ago
I also think you're missing the point, but not in the sense that cletus talks about. Learning Latin rewires your brain, i.e. it opens your eye to certain modes of communication and expression that you didn't know existed. I don't know Latin but learned Ancient Greek during my Linguistics MA, and was by how some Linguistics concepts are "implemented" in that language. My English monolingual classmates minds were blown by things like noun cases and the vocative. That is why you learn those languages (arguably Sanskrit, Chinese, Arabic, or any other language with a rich history also fits the bill). In this sense, learning Latin or Greek is similar to learning Lisp: sure you'll not use it in your daily life (I know, many will differ on that), but, boy, does it open your mind up. Unfortunately, these languages are taught by people who are generally English majors, not Linguistics or CS majors and so focus on the literature as opposed to cool grammar. The goal of my two semesters of Greek was just as a prelude to read Plato, so everything was jammed down your throat. I was surprised to learn that our TA, who was writing his PhD dissertation on Ancient Greek drama didn't know how to say "it's raining" or the name of the color green. Think of learning English just to read Shakespeare!

by tezza 15y ago

derleth 15y ago

> Coding - is a creative craft where you take instructions and make something that never existed before. Mathematics - is a creative craft where you take a formal system (a structure purely of the mind) and create something (a new theorem, an addition to the structure) that never existed before. That is what mathematics is. That is why there are math majors. If it were all rote nonsense, computers would be doing all of it by now; computers are cheaper than people for rote nonsense, after all. So, to tie this back to the topic, teaching programming correctly would be much easier if we taught mathematics correctly.

delinka 15y ago
Making advances in math indeed requires creativity. But actually creating something new and expanding mathematics is a Very Hard Problem. It doesn't lend itself to "instant creation" like programming does. Sure, you can apply formulas in many areas of business and life, and you can create simple formulas for these things-- doesn't take a math major. As to your last sentence, I completely agree.

cletus 15y ago

I believe you're missing the point. Here are some historical uses of Latin: - Obviously it was the language of the Roman Empire; - It is the basis for many European languages; - It was the language of Christianity, the Papacy for thousands of years (tying in somewhat historically with the conversion of Constantine). This went so far as Roman Catholic services being held in Latin until IIRC the 1960s; - Prior to the printing press, books were the province of monks and the like so being educated (in Western Europe) involved speaking Latin; - In England, Latin was the language of court and the law for centuries. There are many Latin terms--even in American law--for a reason; - Latin was the language of science. Element names in chemistry, species names in biology and so on have Latin roots; - For centuries, Latin was the lingua franca of the ruling class of Europe. The short of it is that being able to speak, read and write Latin in medieval and Renaissance Europe was power. More to the point, if you didn't know Latin, you were essentially excluded from many things (as many people were). Knowing Latin had as much power and influence as literacy in general. So what the author is saying is the ability "speak" the language of computers, the ability to communicate with them and make them do things, is the 21st century version of the thrall once held by Latin. Many have spoken about how expensive it was to launch a dot-com company in the 90s and how that cost has essentially decreased by two orders of magnitude in a decade. One might have thought this would make engineers less valuable as our skills would've been commoditized to some degree. The converse has happened. While other costs have largely vanished, more businesses became possible that never were before. There seems to be an insatiable demand for engineering talent, at least for the short to medium term. Last century the dream was the 21st century would be about space exploration and an otherwise "Star Trek" like future. Instead I believe the story about the 21st century will be what incredible things we do with computers. Genetic engineering, curing diseases, artificial intelligence, you name it. This may go so far as to essentially stratify society. It's hard to overstate just how importance computers will be in the next century (IMHO).

tezza 15y ago
It is a little harsh on me to say that I "missed the point". I was not short of understanding of the historical significance of Latin. I led with the fact that I studied Latin for 6 years. During this time all your reasons were expounded ad nauseam. I want to avoid getting into any flamewar with someone whose StackOverflow karma is measured in exponents. (I made no point on the importance of training people to program computers, the second theme of your comment.) What I was saying is that I believe Latin for one hundred years has involved nearly ZERO speaking. There are some very scholarly latin speakers with an English/Vatican pronunciation divide. But they are the exceptions. Yes there is Vatican City, but I think we can both agree that it would be best if there are more people who can program computers than the population of the Vatican (832).
- learc83 15y ago
  I don't think the OP is comparing programming to Latin today, but to Latin during the Renaissance. Yes Latin isn't spoken, and nothing is created in it today, but that wasn't true hundreds of years ago. Programming is like Latin 400 years ago.
- FreakLegion 15y ago
  There are actually a fair few people who practice spoken Latin for pleasure. As for the pronunciation divide, that's a quirk we inherited from German.
delinka 15y ago
"I believe you're missing the point." "Coding - the new Latin" is a marketing slogan. And if it breeds misunderstanding, or has to be explained, then it's not a good marketing slogan. I design software and write code. My initial reaction to the phrase was "so you're telling people it's hard and they should give up before they get started?" After that, I decided I had to read the article to get the meaning. Perhaps it's a dead ringer of a slogan in the UK. But it won't get kids a-codin' in my corner of the globe.
- chc 15y ago

Jun8 15y ago

I also think you're missing the point, but not in the sense that cletus talks about. Learning Latin rewires your brain, i.e. it opens your eye to certain modes of communication and expression that you didn't know existed. I don't know Latin but learned Ancient Greek during my Linguistics MA, and was by how some Linguistics concepts are "implemented" in that language. My English monolingual classmates minds were blown by things like noun cases and the vocative. That is why you learn those languages (arguably Sanskrit, Chinese, Arabic, or any other language with a rich history also fits the bill). In this sense, learning Latin or Greek is similar to learning Lisp: sure you'll not use it in your daily life (I know, many will differ on that), but, boy, does it open your mind up. Unfortunately, these languages are taught by people who are generally English majors, not Linguistics or CS majors and so focus on the literature as opposed to cool grammar. The goal of my two semesters of Greek was just as a prelude to read Plato, so everything was jammed down your throat. I was surprised to learn that our TA, who was writing his PhD dissertation on Ancient Greek drama didn't know how to say "it's raining" or the name of the color green. Think of learning English just to read Shakespeare!