Benefit and belief

[Chris Angelico]

On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 1:34 PM, rusi <rustompmody at gmail.com> wrote:
> The American programmer would profit more from learning Latin than
> from learning yet another programming language.
>
> Edsger Dijkstra in "On the fact that the Atlantic Ocean has two
> sides"
>

Expanding that quote:

---
A thorough study of one or more foreign languages makes one much more
conscious about one's own; because an excellent mastery of his native
tongue is one of the computing scientist's most vital assets, I often
feel that the American programmer would profit more from learning,
say, Latin than from learning yet another programming language.
---

The reason he recommends learning Latin is because it helps you master
English. One of the benefits (if you like, a blessing in a REALLY good
disguise) of being Australian is that we're forced to work
internationally in a way that Americans aren't. You can write a
program, even sell it and make your living off it, that never goes
outside the boundaries of the US of A. Here in Australia, that's not
really a viable option, which means our minds have to be able to 'skip
to Honolulu and back in two seconds' as a regular thing. Yes, we can
still restrict ourselves to English-speaking countries quite easily,
but there's the encouragement to support Europe, and extending from
there to the whole world.

Of course, not everyone takes advantage of the opportunity thus
afforded. There are still plenty of people who are ignorant of the
difference between a character and a byte, who assume or mandate one
date format, or who parse mailing addresses too strictly. But at least
we have a bit of impetus.

Which means it's more of a crime for an Aussie (or a European, for
that matter) to muck up like that than it is for an American. Blessing
or curse? Now I'm not even sure myself. :)

ChrisA