3 ms·

What I think is interesting is that a lot can be done to make typing easier and more human when you can type like you speak (and think). For example: we say/th

by ohwp 13y ago

What I think is interesting is that a lot can be done to make typing easier and more human when you can type like you speak (and think). For example: we say/think for each item in list but in a lot of languages you need to type something like foreach(item in list) { A step further: we say/think let a be the substring of b from 1 to the end we need to type a = b.substring(1) Ofcourse the last example is much shorter and even more readable (to the machine for sure) but maybe code could be a little more human.

gd1 13y ago
I disagree. You could argue that a musician probably thinks "I have to play a D# for one and a half beats" as well. Or they can draw a dotted quarter on the sheet. We have symbolic languages for a reason - they are, once learnt, superior. If anything code needs to move further away from spoken language, more in the direction of APL and its descendants. A skilled musician likely doesn't engage the speech centres of their brain, they see a note on the sheet and translate it to motion. You should be able to take in the symbol for "apply a function to each item in a vector" at a glance without any clumsy English getting in the way. APL had it right, but coding has been crippled by catering to the lowest common denominator.
- sp332 13y ago
  It isn't about English, but getting closer to the way programmers think. Most people don't think b.substring(1) natively any more than a musician would think "Da Capo al Coda". There are good parts of course; b[1:] is about as natural as ♩. for notation.
- ohwp 13y ago
  "they see a note on the sheet and translate it to motion" Indeed. I think notes are more 'human' than most programming languages. If the music goes up, the notes go up. If the notes are short they look short (and more dense). But I agree that typing "let a be the subtring of b from 1 to the end" is no fun. So I'm glad we have symbolic languages. But I think they could be made more 'human'.

by ohwp 13y ago

gd1 13y ago

I disagree. You could argue that a musician probably thinks "I have to play a D# for one and a half beats" as well. Or they can draw a dotted quarter on the sheet. We have symbolic languages for a reason - they are, once learnt, superior. If anything code needs to move further away from spoken language, more in the direction of APL and its descendants. A skilled musician likely doesn't engage the speech centres of their brain, they see a note on the sheet and translate it to motion. You should be able to take in the symbol for "apply a function to each item in a vector" at a glance without any clumsy English getting in the way. APL had it right, but coding has been crippled by catering to the lowest common denominator.

sp332 13y ago
It isn't about English, but getting closer to the way programmers think. Most people don't think b.substring(1) natively any more than a musician would think "Da Capo al Coda". There are good parts of course; b[1:] is about as natural as ♩. for notation.
ohwp 13y ago
"they see a note on the sheet and translate it to motion" Indeed. I think notes are more 'human' than most programming languages. If the music goes up, the notes go up. If the notes are short they look short (and more dense). But I agree that typing "let a be the subtring of b from 1 to the end" is no fun. So I'm glad we have symbolic languages. But I think they could be made more 'human'.