Python + Java knowledge

[Josiah Carlson]

Maurice LING <mauriceling at acm.org> wrote:

> I am amazed about people like Eric Raymond that can pick up and use a 
> dozen language, how did they do it? It is equally amazing that 
> programming jobs these days require half a dozen programming languages 
> known. I came with a background in Pascal and bits of C, and some xBase 
> languages, then picked up Java and Python. Considering that my 1st 
> bachelors degree is in biochemistry, I may be proud already...


(I'm not a linguist, nor a neuroscientist, but...)

One could ask the same thing about people who pick up natural languages
that easily; there was a linguistics professor at my undergrad who would
pick up a few new languages each year.  A few /whole/ languages (grammar,
vocabulary, spoken, etc.). There is a particularly entertaining anecdote
about how he brought his early-teen daughter to an N*Sync "concert", and
while waiting near the back, a local news station interviewed him,
asking why he was there, and how he came to have a book in his hand
(paraphrased), "I brought my daughter to see this group, though I am
learning Sanskrit*."  *(may have been some other language, it has been
nearly 5 years since I heard the anecdote)

It turns out that the professor's natural language ability is a birth
defect; a birth defect that we could likely all handle having.  In
normal people, the natural language processors in one's brain become
harder and harder to train in new languages once someone ages beyond the
early teens.  In this professor, he finds learning languages easier now
than when he was a child (he has meta-language knowledge that helps
integrate new languages faster and easier).

One can conceptually separate natural languages into having two basic
pieces; grammar and vocabulary.  Vocabulary requires memorization, and
grammar requires a procedural understanding of what goes on (what goes
where when and why). Rarely are people able to learn both, and if you
can learn both, congratulations.


Most programming languages require in a natural language sense, a
grammatical knowledge of the programming language in order to understand
it.  Ergo, those that do well with grammar, generally would do well with
learning new programming languages (API notwithstanding); as programming
languages are a basic grammar with a handful of vocabulary words and
punctuation thrown into the mix.

I'm not sure this helped any, but there you go.
 - Josiah