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> because that's how our mind operates It is by no mean specific to programmers. Ask to someone who learns French, for instance. Rules with too many arbitrary
by astrobe_ 1y ago
> because that's how our mind operates
It is by no mean specific to programmers. Ask to someone who learns French, for instance. Rules with too many arbitrary exceptions.
What is specific to programmers is that their tool performs at its best with simpler rules, so their job is to find the necessary and sufficient set of rules - and will dismiss most of the cases pointed by this article as unimportant exceptions the software won't handle.
- genocidicbunny 1y ago> Ask to someone who learns French, for instance. Rules with too many arbitrary exceptions. I took French in middle school, and it was always a running joke that the teacher spent the first 5 minutes on the rule, and the next 40 minutes on the exceptions.
- Jensson 1y agoThat is still a good rule if its just 40 minutes of exceptions if it covers much more than that.
- BrandoElFollito 1y agoI am French and my non-native-French wife often asks me "why do you say this and that". Either there is a simple rule and well known exceptions we learn at school (she would also know) or we get into the area of "this is what this is, just learn it by heart". And then suddenly, someday, I discover there is an obscure rule with complicated words that addresses the question.
- grishka 1y agoNatural languages are kinda weird about this because most people don't remember their rules as rules, they learn by example, by finding patterns and kinda extrapolating them. English is a foreign language to me. But I somehow managed to learn it without learning the rules. I can say things correctly-ish without being able to explain why I used this particular grammar.