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Do You Think in a Programming Language When Programming?
Do You Think in a Programming Language When Programming?
Do you think in a specific programming language, for example your first or favorite language, when programming?
If so, do you translate from that language to other programming languages when programming in another language from your mental programming language?
Some alternatives:
Do you think in a more abstract way, such as in English or pseudo-code or mental pictures, and then translate this to the specific programming language you are working in?
If you think in a programming language when programming, can you switch from one programming language to another, for example thinking in C++ when programming C++ and thinking in LISP when programming LISP (to give two fairly different languages)?
What do you feel are the advantages or drawbacks of the way you think when you are programming?
Finally, do you know or suspect that other programmers think differently than you do when they are programming?
- sidcool 13y agoI do that all the time. I can only think in either Java or Python.
- ibstudios 13y agoI do mental images when things are beyond my knowledge of a language. The image of the game Hungry-hungry hippo got me through concurrency and threads.
- mello151 13y agoI think that as I become more familiar with a language I get used to 'thinking' in the language I'm currently using. Up until a few years ago I was only really comfortable with Java and always tended to think back to how I would do it in Java and try to translate it. But as I get more comfortable with other languages it's gotten a lot easier. Especially with languages like Javascript and Python. I always laugh a little bit though when I go back to Java and wonder why a line with a String threw an error only to realize I'm using single ticks instead of double quotes.