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To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language

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Re: To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language

#161

Post by olikas »

coldtea wrote: post #138
traceroute66 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> obsessing over grammar is almost detrimental to making progress with a new language If you skip over the hard parts, then you're not exactly learning a language. You might as well just learn from one of those "Hello, my name is Bob, where's the toilet ? " cartoon books. Its a bit like those people who learn programming informally. Most of them end up writing spaghetti code for the rest of their lives. Its the same…

> If you skip over the hard parts, then you're not exactly learning a language. That's not true. Most native speaks have little knowledge of the grammar and syntax beyond intuitive. They have forgotten most of what they've been taught at school, plus, they could speak quite well before going to school and being taught grammar in the first place. We acquire language by osmosis, not by studying, and even less so by stu…

> Most native speaks have little knowledge of the grammar and syntax beyond intuitive.

The fact that they don't know the scientific names of the grammar rules doesn't mean that they don't know grammar. As somebody how's native language is very dissimilar to English, my intuitive language rules are no help speaking English. The grammar you are taught at school is descriptive of English and not a prescription. The distinction s very similar to "laws in physics". Nature doesn't really care about the rules we impose on it.

Learning grammar alone is not enough. Learning vocabulary alone is not enough. Immersing yourself to a language without a guide (like your parents guided you into language) is completely ineffective.

Grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation are equally important if you want to get fluent in both spoken and written communication in a different language.

Re: To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language

#162

Post by fleischhauf »

nutanc wrote: post #156
jlmorton wrote: post #100

When I'm coding, I often listen to music, and when I listen to music, I often end up singing along. One thing I've noticed is that I can type out code at the same time I'm singing a song aloud. If I tried to do that while writing English, I'd start typing whatever I'm singing.

Actually when I write blogs I listen to music. So I dont think it matters a lot whether we are writing code or English. The songs and music just sort of goes in the background.

While that might be true, did you try to sing and write like the second paragraph suggests?

Re: To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language

#163

Post by ggambetta »

nutanc wrote: post #156
jlmorton wrote: post #100

When I'm coding, I often listen to music, and when I listen to music, I often end up singing along. One thing I've noticed is that I can type out code at the same time I'm singing a song aloud. If I tried to do that while writing English, I'd start typing whatever I'm singing.

Actually when I write blogs I listen to music. So I dont think it matters a lot whether we are writing code or English. The songs and music just sort of goes in the background.

Interesting, it's the opposite for me. I can write or code while listening to music without lyrics (especially electronic or classical), but whenever there are words in the music, it's like 100% of the language-processing part of my brain focuses on that, and I can't really focus on anything I try to read (or even worse, write).

Re: To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language

#164

Post by coldtea »

olikas wrote: post #161
coldtea wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you skip over the hard parts, then you're not exactly learning a language. That's not true. Most native speaks have little knowledge of the grammar and syntax beyond intuitive. They have forgotten most of what they've been taught at school, plus, they could speak quite well before going to school and being taught grammar in the first place. We acquire language by osmosis, not by studying, and even less so by stu…

> Most native speaks have little knowledge of the grammar and syntax beyond intuitive. The fact that they don't know the scientific names of the grammar rules doesn't mean that they don't know grammar. As somebody how's native language is very dissimilar to English, my intuitive language rules are no help speaking English. The grammar you are taught at school is descriptive of English and not a prescription. The dist…

>The fact that they don't know the scientific names of the grammar rules doesn't mean that they don't know grammar.

Similarly the fact that they don't study grammar and skip the "hard parts" doesn't mean that they don't pick up/know grammar, so the original argument is moot.

Re: To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language

#165

Post by MrFantastic »

vncecartersknee wrote: post #64
User23 wrote: post #28

As someone who is fluently bilingual and speaks a third language and is also proficient or better in a half dozen programming languages along with having written code in many more, this is completely obvious to me. Learning a programming language is much closer to learning a complex board game than it is a natural language.

I feel exactly the same, I've been learning a second language and it's nothing like learning programming, in fact arguably the opposite, I've found that obsessing over grammar is almost detrimental to making progress with a new language. The confident students who aren't concerned with getting all the specifics of grammar exactly perfect are the ones that are making the most progress toward being conversational, they…

3 years of HS spanish with a grammar nazi teacher. He's interupt mid-sentance to correct your verb tense.

His students were objectively less skilled than the other spanish teacher that focused on vocabulary and conversational skills.

Re: To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language

#166

Post by foolmeonce »

tremon wrote: post #140
oarsinsync wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your code has wrong syntax it doesn't compile. If wrong grammar you can get very wrong results. In both cases, when you get it that wrong that your meaning doesn’t come across correctly, it’ll usually get pointed out to you, either by the compiler or the person you’re talking to, so you can go back and try again. Eventually, you’ve potentially gotten it right when the compiler stops throwing errors or the person…

In my experience, when you're an adult, people are too polite/reserved/caring/uncaring to correct spoken language errors for you. They'll be much more likely to infer what you meant silently, and react as if you'd spoken the sentence perfectly. In that sense, people are much more like a web browser in how they process your language than a compiler.

They aren't just polite, it's exhausting to play the pedantic compiler and generally degenerates or requires an agreement with an equivalent exchange.

Perhaps having an automatic compiler changes our perception much as an auto-tickling device doesn't work, but surely early levels of math and languages have similar learning paths.

Re: To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language

#167

Post by touisteur »

Well code reading is executing or interpreting some sort of abstract machine, at least for me, and it's the way I push my interns to learn. You get context and specify system 1 global, unsound pattern matching set-up by familiarizing with the language, runtime, system&software design, and you use system 2 for no-false-positive-or-negative drilling. The more system 1 is 'trained' the more you're 'efficient' at code reading and I'm guessing that's one of the things that separate 'senior' from 'junior' programmers or software engineers. You look at some code on your colleague's computer screen in padding and it feels... Not right... Stopping in your tracks and sitting down to discuss.

Re: To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language

#168

Post by lawn »

jlmorton wrote: post #100

When I'm coding, I often listen to music, and when I listen to music, I often end up singing along. One thing I've noticed is that I can type out code at the same time I'm singing a song aloud. If I tried to do that while writing English, I'd start typing whatever I'm singing.

I do this too but when I'm struggling with something particularly difficult, where I don't feel I'm making any progress, I often have to turn off all sounds and contemplate in silence.

(Which is btw not really possible in the office, even with noise cancelling headphones. Thank God for remote work.)

Re: To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language

#169

Post by beowulfey »

vncecartersknee wrote: post #64
User23 wrote: post #28

As someone who is fluently bilingual and speaks a third language and is also proficient or better in a half dozen programming languages along with having written code in many more, this is completely obvious to me. Learning a programming language is much closer to learning a complex board game than it is a natural language.

I feel exactly the same, I've been learning a second language and it's nothing like learning programming, in fact arguably the opposite, I've found that obsessing over grammar is almost detrimental to making progress with a new language. The confident students who aren't concerned with getting all the specifics of grammar exactly perfect are the ones that are making the most progress toward being conversational, they…

That attitude is actually how I program—with scripted languages I write code and see what happens, if it didn’t work I write it again. I’m relearning C++ now and am doing it a similar way (albeit I have to be a little more careful because compilation makes it a lot slower).

At one point, I wondered if this same strategy would make for a good (human) language learning app. Kind of like you described... rather than something like Duolingo where you have to memorize answers, it might help to have a conversational app where you see the results of your attempts in real time.

Re: To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language

#170

Post by jooize »

beowulfey wrote: post #169
vncecartersknee wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel exactly the same, I've been learning a second language and it's nothing like learning programming, in fact arguably the opposite, I've found that obsessing over grammar is almost detrimental to making progress with a new language. The confident students who aren't concerned with getting all the specifics of grammar exactly perfect are the ones that are making the most progress toward being conversational, they…

That attitude is actually how I program—with scripted languages I write code and see what happens, if it didn’t work I write it again. I’m relearning C++ now and am doing it a similar way (albeit I have to be a little more careful because compilation makes it a lot slower). At one point, I wondered if this same strategy would make for a good (human) language learning app. Kind of like you described... rather than som…

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