Number of languages known [was Re: Python is readable] - somewhat OT

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Tue, 03 Apr 2012 13:17:18 -0400, Nathan Rice wrote:

> I have never met a programmer that was not completely into computers.
> That leaves a lot unspecified though.

You haven't looked hard enough. There are *thousands* of VB, Java, etc. 
code monkeys who got into programming for the money only and who have 
zero inclination to expand their skills or knowledge beyond that 
necessary to keep their job.

Go to programming blogs, and you will find many examples of some 
allegedly professional programmer selecting an arbitrary blog post to ask 
"Pls sombody write me this code", where "this code" is either an utterly 
trivial question or a six month project.


> As part of my troll-outreach effort, I will indulge here.  I was
> specifically thinking about some earlier claims that programming
> languages as they currently exist are somehow inherently superior to a
> formalized natural language in expressive power.

I would argue that they are, but only for the very limited purpose for 
which they are written. With the possible exception of Inform 7, most 
programming languages are useless at describing (say) human interactions.

Human languages are optimised for many things, but careful, step-by-step 
algorithms are not one of them. This is why mathematicians use a 
specialist language for their problem domain, as do programmers. Human 
language is awfully imprecise and often ambiguous, it encourages implicit 
reasoning, and requires a lot of domain knowledge:

    Joe snatched the hammer from Fred. "Hey," he said, "what are
    you doing? Don't you know that he'll hit the roof if he catches
    you with that?"


> I think part of this comes from the misconception that terse is better

+1


> The crux of my view is that programming languages exist in part because
> computers in general are not smart enough to converse with humans on
> their own level, so we have to talk to them like autistic 5 year-olds. 
> That was fine when we didn't have any other options, but all the pieces
> exist now to let computers talk to us very close to our own level, and
> represent information at the same way we do.

I think you're dreaming. We (that is to say, human beings in general, not 
you and I specifically) cannot even talk to each other accurately, 
precisely and unambiguously all the time. Natural language simply isn't 
designed for that -- hence we have specialist languages like legal 
jargon, mathematics, and programming languages, for specialist purposes.



-- 
Steven