Computer Languages
Spoken Languages
both easy
both hard
I have learned 4 different computer languages in the past 2 years(C, Win32 API, PERL, HTML and JS(conbining due to both their simplicity)). Yet I tried to learn German(native language in English) even took classes in school, self taught myself the comp languages, and I litterally flunked German (with a 37/100). So am I the only one who Computer languages come easy yet spoken ones are impossible? Heck, I can barely speak english correctly yet I know several comp languages.
"Christ died for our sins. Dare we make his martyrdom meaningless by not committing them?"
Computer languages are just mangled english instructions. You don't have to worry about tense, plural etc. That's why it's easier.
Brain- Good point! But it brings up two interesting questions...What do people from non-english speaking countries think about the poll? and are there languages written for say German or Russian instead of english?Would there be a market for such a thing?
"Christ died for our sins. Dare we make his martyrdom meaningless by not committing them?"
But of course programming languages are easier, All the keywords and what they do are miniscule compared to an actual sopken language (even if you include all the functions in the api).
I'm sure if you asked people who cannot program, you'd get different results.
("Programming? Don't rocket scientists do that?");
try describing a natural language(like german) in any computer language, then describe a computer language in german
c++ is a language which has variables, functions to alter variables, classes to group them all, and specialized functions(like adding, subtracting) to speed things up.
int main(void) {
char name[6]="german";
}
class word ......
class noun :: word ...
class verb : public word {
int tense;
int is_dative;
int is_reflexive; .... }
class adjective :: word ....
you get the idea.
dang, meant to type that in german. here goes:
* means i dont know the word
c++ ist ein spreche, mit variablen, funktionen zu variablen aendern, classes* zu alle zusammen machen, und spezialisiert funktionen(e.g. plus, minus), zu alle schneller machen.
Language is as complex as our brain. I guess if a computer could speak in any language like human .. that will be the mile stone.
Isometric raised a question already..
My first language is Bangla, I have already learned English..
My first Computer language is C, tried some perl
Now trying to learn and the goal is C++,
then Java
No doubt, computer language is much easier to learn then speaking language.
Last edited by zahid; 02-04-2002 at 09:31 PM.
[ Never code before desk work ]
-------------------------------------:-->
A man who fears Nothing is the man who Loves Nothing
If you Love Nothing, what joy is there in your life.
=------------------------------------------------------= - I may be wrong.
I don't think it would really be that hard for Germans and Russians to learn languages like C++ (if it really got bad, then i'm sure there'd be some sort of compiler that allows keywords to be in other languages)
Asians on the other hand would really struggle to learn it (unless they could already speak english).
I think that spoken languages are harder, but who knows what the future holds...........
There are some real morons in this world please do not become one of them, do not become a victim of moronitis. PROGRAMMING IS THE FUTURE...THE FUTURE IS NOW!!!!!!!!!
"...The only real game I thank in the world is baseball..." --Babe Ruth
"Life is beautiful"-Don Corleone right before he died.
"The expert on anything was once a beginner" -Baseball poster I own.
Left cprog on 1-3-2005. Don't know when I am coming back. Thanks to those who helped me over the years.
Both are quite easy...but here is an interesting article from CNN...
Psycholinguistics
Having chosen English as the preferred language in the EEC, the
European Parliament has commissioned a feasibility study in ways of improving efficiency in communications between Government departments.
"European officials have often pointed out that English spelling is
unnecessarily difficult, for example: cough, plough, rough, through
and thorough. What is clearly needed is a phased programme of
changes to iron out these anomalies. The programme would, of course, be administered by a committee staff at top level by participating nations.
In the first year, for example, the committee would suggest using 's' instead of the soft 'c'. Sertainly sivil servants in all sities would resieve this news with job. Then the hard 'c' could be replaced by 'k' sinse both letters are pronounsed alike. Not only would this klear up konfusion in the minds of klerikal workers, but typewriters kould be made with one less letter.
There would be growing enthusiasm when in the sekond year, it
was announsed that the troublesome 'ph' would henseforth be writtne 'f'. This would make words like fotograf' twenty persent shorter in print.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be
expekted to reash the stage where more komplikated shanges are possible. Governments would enkourage the removal of double leters whish have always been a deterent to akurate speling.
We would al agre that the horible mes of silent 'e's in the languag is disgrasful. Therefor we kould drop them and kontinu to read and writ as though nothing had hapend. By this tim it would be four years sins the skem began and peopl would be reseptive to steps sutsh as replasing 'th' by 'z'. Perhaps zen ze funktion of 'w' kould be taken on by 'v', vitsh is, after al, half a 'w'. Shortly after zis, ze unesesary 'o' kould be dropd from vords kontaining 'ou'. Similar arguments vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.
Kontinuing zis proses yer after yer, ve vud eventuli hav a reli sensibl riten styl. After tventi yers zer vud be no mor trubls, difikultis and evrivun vud find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drems of the Guvermnt vud finali hav kum tru."
For me, as a being a Dutchman, it's very easy to learn languages which are closely related to Dutch. Like English, German and Danish. Though I had problems at school learning French, it is so different that it took much more time to learn.
Programminging languages are very close related. I started programming in Pascal and Assembly. Then I started programming in C, since C and Pascal don't differ very much, it just took me little time to learn it. And then C++ and Java, which do look a lot like C. Only the way of programming is different, but that's apart from the language. At this moment I'm learning Perl and Haskell, Haskell is very different from C and it takes some more effort to learn.
But I think that the main reason why programmer's can learn other programming learn easily is that they understand languages. They understand how a language is constructed. Not every programmer probably understands the math behind languages, but in some way they understand the languages.
Mathematical concepts like functions and variables are piece of cake for programmer's. A programmer understands what they are and how to use them can therefore apply those concepts in several languages.
Programming languages are easier than spoken languages. It's easier for a french speaking person to write a good program than it is for an english speaking person to successfully tell a french person off. It's all about the nuances, programming languages just don't have as many and therefore are less difficult to learn.
-Prelude
My best code is written with the delete key.
Computer languages are easier after the first, because the concepts stay the same, just the vocabulary changes. With spoken languages, the grammar changes as well.
Sidenote:
After learning English, I'm not surprised anyone flunked german. In english you have a bunch of rules and one or two exceptions. In german, it seems to be a bunch of exceptions and one or two rules.
hth
-nv
She was so Blonde, she spent 20 minutes looking at the orange juice can because it said "Concentrate."
When in doubt, read the FAQ.
Then ask a smart question.
You also don't have to know that many words when you program. If you should be able to speak somewhat decent you need to know abunch of words and all there differnt forms.
~Barjor
