Earlier quoted context omitted.
Until languages with a different view completely left it in the dust.
There are multiple reasons why that may have happened.
and a lot of them begin with 'perl is a mess...so...'
Programming language notation is a barrier to entry
141–150 of 191 posts
Re: Programming language notation is a barrier to entry
#142A lot comments are misunderstanding this article. This person is not complaining about differences in programming syntax across languages at all. He is making a very specific complaint about how PL Notation (i.e metasyntax not syntax) in academic literature isn't standardized. This has nothing to do with the vagaries of Perl vs Lisp and everything to do with how PL white papers are written.
Re: Programming language notation is a barrier to entry
#143Is this saying that a new language is the barrier to learning a new language?
No, this is about academic notation.
Re: Programming language notation is a barrier to entry
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue is that no one in CS seems to care that "Notation in any field is a barrier to entry". Almost all CS Ed research presently focuses on the problem-solving skill of CS rather than the technical literacy. There is almost no interest from educators to train this literacy despite work from myself [1] and others [2] saying that explicitly training these skills improves student performance. The issue, in my opinio…
Is part of this due to an academic vs. professional dichotomy? i.e. most CS undergrads are CS undergrads to become professional developers, while most CS undergrad courses are taught with an eye towards further graduate/academic work?
I wouldn't say so; I've taught for a community college, teaching college, and R1 and while there are differences, it seems to be a consistent issue across the board. While there are clearly individuals more interested in graduate work, there are groups with a primary goal of preparing students for industry.
Re: Programming language notation is a barrier to entry
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Music notation is actually terrible, even musicians agree to that. It clearly developed as a way to reason about music that already existed in the west at that point, rather than be a principled way to go about understanding the underpinnings of music.
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But it's not keeping people from being musicans. Im 57, and have been playing the piano for 50 years. (I still practice 2 hours/day). The problem with piano isn't reading the music, it's getting your hands in the right place, at the right time, with the least amount of effort, to be able to control the keys the way you want to. Most of my practicing is getting from one place to another on…
> The problem with piano isn't reading the music
Generally, but not always. I find the deep chromaticism of Messiaen or even Vierne (organ, not piano) very badly served by traditional musical notation - I have to stare at it for ages before it becomes apparent what I should be playing, whereas I can sight-read a typical SATB hymn.
Re: Programming language notation is a barrier to entry
#146Meh Notation in any field is a barrier to entry. See programmers takes on both math and music notation that are often posted here. The thing about notation that people sometimes don't think about is that it's used by many different types of people. Some things that would be convenient when notated implicitly make thinking about other things difficult.
The issue is that no one in CS seems to care that "Notation in any field is a barrier to entry". Almost all CS Ed research presently focuses on the problem-solving skill of CS rather than the technical literacy. There is almost no interest from educators to train this literacy despite work from myself [1] and others [2] saying that explicitly training these skills improves student performance. The issue, in my opinio…
That's really interesting - I enjoyed the section on transfer learning. Are there any screenshots of Phanon without having to sign-up to the Utah website?
Do you think that reducing the amount of syntax-errors via a powerful structured-editor would help reduce the syntax burden?
Re: Programming language notation is a barrier to entry
#147> But at its worst, PL notation obfuscates: a page of symbols is an opaque barrier to entry. The assumption here is that this is a bad thing. But there's a reason we have doors, gates, locks and so on -- other "barriers to entry".
Besides being beginner unfriendly, barriers to entry end up making things worse off for everyone by reducing productivity and efficiency.
There's no reason to consider barriers a good thing, unless one has a motive to restrict use of programming languages. Why would one want that?
Re: Programming language notation is a barrier to entry
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But there's a reason we have doors, gates, locks and so on -- other "barriers to entry" Yes, because we don't want people to get into our house. Are you seriously suggesting a world where we want to make it harder for people to understand programming language literature?
> Are you seriously suggesting a world where we want to make it harder for people to understand programming language literature? I'd like the barrier for entry to be a bit higher if I'm honest. Maybe then I wouldn't have to work with code created by so many idiots.
The solution to that isn't to make programming harder, but to make writing poor quality code harder. That's also in part, indirectly, a notation problem.
Re: Programming language notation is a barrier to entry
#149Lowering barriers of entry to programming considered harmful to career programmers. If you support it without being manager level or above, you are harming yourself.
That's a very simplistic view. Programmers who work on SDKs and developer tools benefit tremendously from lower barriers to entry to programming.
Re: Programming language notation is a barrier to entry
#150People are being dismissive of the premise here. But I remember when someone gave me a link to a Haskell repository. I had no idea what was going on, or what those alien symbols meant. I can only imagine that the barrier to entry for Haskell is much, much, much higher than that of an Algol descended language.
I have an easier time understanding Haskell than Go codebases, and I have equal and large experience with both.
When I first learned Haskell, I only knew C. Haskell codebases were immediately so fun to dive into and learn from. I wouldn't hesitate to hit the "Source" button on Hackage. The fact that all code could be reasoned about locally with just simple symbolic substitution was a breath of fresh air.
To a person with 0 experience at all, Haskell or Algol-descended languages are going to be equally alien. Your experience is because you had asymmetric familiarity.
So I'm not surprised by your experience. But it says more about you than Haskell.