Irrational Exuberance

You are writing a comment about Spoken Languages, Blub, and Convenience, here is a quick summary:

A brief essay considering the link between spoken languages and programming languages and Paul Graham's theory of Blub.

You are responding to this comment written by Marcos Toledo on May 26th 2008, 15:28.

I wouldn't want to delve too much into the details of the power of specific natural languages, but I do recognize a parallel with programming languages about the way we think.

I was born in Brazil and speak native portuguese. I learned English in my teens and have an understanding of English which is now similar to that of my portuguese. And I've also learned some japanese along the way.

I can't think in japanese yet. But I DO think in both english and portuguese. And I think in both languages togheter, not as 2 different entities. Just as if you would think "ototoi" instead of "the day before yesterday", there are many places where english words apply that portuguese words don't, and vice-versa.

And those changes DO CHANGE the way I think. I don't think I'd have the same thought process had I not known one of those languages.

This is similar to the change that you have writing algorithms once you become versed in a functional programming language, after you've programmed imperative languages (as happened to me, learning Common Lisp after years working with C++ and Java). I know program a lot of javascript (which has some functional heritage) and my thought process feels different, and I think it's mostly because of what I know about Common Lisp, and I believe it would be even more different if I had a larger understanding of Common Lisp, or if I knew a different paradigm language, like Erlang or Prolog.

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def a (b, c):
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end
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