Mother Tongues and the Vietnam of Programming
June 29, 2006 – 7:54 amOvernight links:
- A New Scientist article reports: “…thenative language you speak may determine how your brain solves mathematical puzzles, according to a new study. Brain scans have revealed that Chinese speakers rely more on visual regions than English speakers when comparing numbers and doing sums.” I wonder if it applies to programming?
- Ted Neward on whether object/relational mapping is the Vietnam of computing. No, he doesn’t mean “proudly independent with a rich cultural history”. (Cmmentary from Ned Batchelder here.)
- There’s a workshop on the social side of large-scale software development in Banff in November. Oughta be interesting…
One Response to “Mother Tongues and the Vietnam of Programming”
Re: The New Scientist article
There’s strong evidence that our intelligence is bottlenecked by our
language and vocabulary. It’s almost impossible to learn new concepts
without learning new vocabulary. It’s kind of like dynamic programming –
we solve all these little sub-problems, we label them with terminology and
refer back to them with the assumption that they’re already solved.
Imagine explaining a complicated concept while only using the most basic vocabulary of a pre-teen… Very difficult (if not impossible).
So yes, I’d say that some languages are better-suited for “thinking
in programming-ese” than others.
More interesting readings on this topic:
“In what language do deaf people think?”
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/031226.html
“The Role of Language in Intelligence”
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/rolelang.htm
And if you want to sift through scholarsportal, look up a paper by Marc Marschark titled “Intellectual functioning of deaf adults and children: Answers and questions”
By Andrey on Jun 29, 2006