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Code is not a foreign language, and high schools shouldn't treat it that way

nytimes.com

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Re: Code is not a foreign language, and high schools shouldn't treat it that way

#61

Post by ozzyman700 »

entee wrote: post #40
kylec wrote: post #29

I don't think anyone seriously thinks that learning a computer language is in any way equivalent to learning a foreign language. But it is useful to pretend that it does, so that we don't have to ask the real question: Should everyone be required to study a foreign language in school? My answer is no. I took a year of Latin in high school and hated it, and have never thought about it since. It was a huge waste of tim…

As someone who grew up bilingual, I think knowing another language has been invaluable to how I approach and understand the world. I disagree (fully acknowledging my bias) that learning another language is a waste of time. However, I think high school is too late. Most people I knew in HS that started learning another language weren't super invested and didn't learn it. Not to mention that it's really hard to do at 1…

Could you provide examples on how being bilingual has been invaluable to you?

I am only fluent in english, I live in a neighborhood where all restaurants answer the phone in spanish but there is usually a worker who speaks english to cover for me.

How do you feel being multilingual effects the way you think?

Re: Code is not a foreign language, and high schools shouldn't treat it that way

#62

Post by jessemillar »

tombert wrote: post #21

I remember in high school I tried to get them to count my Intro to Java class as a foreign language, to no avail. In hindsight, I kind of agree with their decision. Obviously I love programming (hence why I'm always on HN), but I don't think about C/Haskell/Lisp/etc. in the same way that I think about English. While I understand that there are semantics that are superficially similar, I feel programming is closer to…

Came here to say exactly this. Additionally, although someone who doesn't speak the same language as you (e.g. English) can potentially read your code and understand what it's supposed to do, I've never seen code used as purely a communication medium making me think that spoken/written languages are more complex and varied than programming languages.

Re: Code is not a foreign language, and high schools shouldn't treat it that way

#64

Post by philipov »

wallflower wrote: post #52
philipov wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned my first programming language, Basic, when I was 8 years old, and reading code feels like a natural language to me. I think the complication is that programming involves both a language and a logic system. While language may be created naturally before puberty, having the requisite logical reasoning requires something extra. I had very early access to formal logic training, and this combined with self-motiv…

> I had very early access to formal logic training Can you please expand on this? Montessori School?

No. I am simply lucky to have been born into a family of Russian Intelligentsia who could provide me with a real education.

In 1st grade, I enjoyed learning math too much, and the teacher found this disruptive, so the school found an excuse to get me classified as learning disabled and put me in special education where I spent all day isolated in a detached cottage with 2 teachers and no other students.

The teachers had no lesson plan or anything for me to do, so my mother bought logic puzzle books for me to play with to relieve the boredom. I had already gotten a strong foundation in reading from my family, so I enjoyed filling them out on my own. I also had plenty of educational video games to play at home that I greatly enjoyed. Learning to program was just another toy to play with.

Oklahoma education system at its finest!

Re: Code is not a foreign language, and high schools shouldn't treat it that way

#65

Post by gringoDan »

SilasX wrote: post #57
ken wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My understanding is that the younger you are the easier it is to pick up a foreign language. The latest research I've seen indicates that this is false. When you look at vocabulary in "words learned per hour of study", adults actually do much better than children. (I'm sure I've seen a study of this involving the U.S. State Department or some such, but I can't find it right now.) This isn't surprising to me: adults…

>The reason children seem to learn quicker is because they're exposed to the language every hour of the day. They have no choice. They also have an environment of understanding adults willing to explain their mistakes and teach how to say what they want. If you’re already an adult, this is hard to find. People will either switch to your language, ignore you, or find some common language (even ad hoc hand signs) to co…

This is sometimes the case. But in my experience, a lot of people (strangers even) are more than willing to help you out. They are excited that you are learning their native language and want to see you succeed.

A good portion of the time, what you're describing stems from the language learner defaulting to an easier version of communication or trying to avoid embarrassment.

Re: Code is not a foreign language, and high schools shouldn't treat it that way

#66

Post by mywittyname »

Upvoter33 wrote: post #3

No, not any more than math or statistics are. Replacing a foreign language with a programming course is like replacing a music class with a math course; you may think it's a good idea, but it's not because it's replacing the same type of thing.

But how do we get law makers (or, more importantly, their constituents) to understand this? There's a huge push towards vocational education and parents thinks that "coding" is something their 10 year old can learn then apply to make buckets of money. Plus, you know, it's called a programming "language."

If I personally had to chose between a foreign language course, or programming one as a learn-but-never-really-apply course for my child, I'd push them towards the foreign language.

Re: Code is not a foreign language, and high schools shouldn't treat it that way

#67

Post by Jtsummers »

evv wrote: post #24
featherrust wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely not natural language.

What makes computer languages not "natural"? Like every other language, it was invented by animals(humans).

Computer languages are synthetic, like the human languages of Esperanto and Loglan.

The distinction is how they're formed and developed. Someone didn't sit down 1500 or so years ago and say, "I'm going to make English." It just grew. Specifically Old English grew from a combination of languages used by Germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons, and Jutes in particular). It also borrowed a fair amount of Latin, Old Norse, and perhaps some Celtic. Followed by the development of Middle English with the Norman conquest which brought in French and Latin influence. And then later developed into what we call English today via more borrowing or coinage of words and, later, standardizing spellings and some pronunciatoins.

It's perhaps a little fuzzy if your language has an academy that tries to preserve its essence and creates official dictionaries and bars certain types of word creation. But for most "natural" languages, what makes them natural is the organic growth and evolution that occurs over time. Compared to the artificial selection of elements that happens with synthetic languages.

Re: Code is not a foreign language, and high schools shouldn't treat it that way

#68

Post by TomMckenny »

No more than a jelly fish is a fish. Code is a mixture of logic, math, statistics and abstracted electronics diagrams.

The typical programing language is a natural language only to the degree those others are. Which is to say it's not. At least in any normal definition of the term.

Re: Code is not a foreign language, and high schools shouldn't treat it that way

#69

Post by ergothus »

TomMckenny wrote: post #68

No more than a jelly fish is a fish. Code is a mixture of logic, math, statistics and abstracted electronics diagrams. The typical programing language is a natural language only to the degree those others are. Which is to say it's not. At least in any normal definition of the term.

And yet, a vast component of code is communicating to developers.

Some patterns (e.g. Java) try to minimize the expressiveness in favor of consistency, others (e.g. Perl, etc) focus on expressiveness (which makes the subsequent result highly dependent on the skill of the _expression_ of the original programmer). But either way, there's distinctly language going on. It just conveys in a different manner than the common human languages I know of.

Re: Code is not a foreign language, and high schools shouldn't treat it that way

#70

Post by mfoy_ »

kylec wrote: post #51
jjtheblunt wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

took 4 years of Latin in high school, and it was very useful: I guess its value varies depending on what else you do later, and if it's therefore helpful there?

What sort of uses have you had for it?

English is riddled with latin phrases, and many words have latin roots. That and many original sources are in latin.
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