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To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language (2020)

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Re: To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language (2020)

#31

Post by nico »

ants_everywhere wrote: post #21

I run a YouTube channel that's mostly devoted to reading code: https://www.youtube.com/@ants_are_everywhere I (try to) read code from popular open source projects. It's a bit like sight reading in music because the idea is that I go in blind and try to make sense of it. This rings true to me: > The researchers saw little to no response to code in the language regions of the brain. Instead, they found that the coding…

And this is why getting interrupted is so annoying

It takes a while to “load up” all of those things in our minds, and it’s a bit like a balancing act, you need to keep balancing them to prevent the whole thing from crashing down

Then if you get interrupted, it is like loosing balance and things falling into a mess. Afterwards you need to sort of pick everything up again, which takes time and effort

More than a couple of those in a row are incredibly frustrating

Pg talks about this in his essay of the maker schedule vs the manager schedule: (2009) https://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

Re: To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language (2020)

#32

Post by codesnik »

blueflow wrote: post #17

You can tell because code has no narrator voice in your head when you read it.

well, people are different. I feel like I have narrator voice for the code, not exactly the same way books do, but still something similar.

Also when I'm trying to read code I feel distracted and annoyed by any background noise where I can recognize words, like speech or music in a familiar language. And I can't talk while coding, it messes up what I'm typing. Also I really prefer english-like languages, like ruby, to more sigil or symbol loaded, like rust, or full of abbreviations and operators, like Haskell. But I'm sure other developers have other brain pathways activated.

Re: To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language (2020)

#33

Post by nkozyra »

inciampati wrote: post #26
ants_everywhere wrote: post #21

I run a YouTube channel that's mostly devoted to reading code: https://www.youtube.com/@ants_are_everywhere I (try to) read code from popular open source projects. It's a bit like sight reading in music because the idea is that I go in blind and try to make sense of it. This rings true to me: > The researchers saw little to no response to code in the language regions of the brain. Instead, they found that the coding…

To me reading code is reading math. It feels exactly the same. Same pattern about holding lots of things in mind at once.

Most code is interpreted as declarative regardless of how it's written. I've always interpreted a chunk of functionality as a block of logic. Which is why syntax structures like if/else feel do natural. But we don't really follow natural language the same way.

Re: To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language (2020)

#34

Post by rPlayer6554 »

blueflow wrote: post #17

You can tell because code has no narrator voice in your head when you read it.

I do have a narrator in my head although it's usually a summary or description of Whats going on. Not a literal word for word read. I also have visualizations.

Re: To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language (2020)

#35

Post by jack_riminton »

inciampati wrote: post #26
ants_everywhere wrote: post #21

I run a YouTube channel that's mostly devoted to reading code: https://www.youtube.com/@ants_are_everywhere I (try to) read code from popular open source projects. It's a bit like sight reading in music because the idea is that I go in blind and try to make sense of it. This rings true to me: > The researchers saw little to no response to code in the language regions of the brain. Instead, they found that the coding…

To me reading code is reading math. It feels exactly the same. Same pattern about holding lots of things in mind at once.

What coding language/s do you normally use and what things are you most often coding?

Re: To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language (2020)

#36

Post by nkozyra »

blueflow wrote: post #17

You can tell because code has no narrator voice in your head when you read it.

Agree with sibling comments I'm almost always hearing a voice describing what I'm looking at, trying to pull the whole thing together.

Re: To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language (2020)

#37

Post by Kim_Bruning »

theodric wrote: post #22

At the risk of just being flippant, duh . Language is a means for expressing thoughts, feelings, emotions, and data. Code is a means for instructing a machine how to behave. One encapsulates as much of the experience of being a human as we've been able to cram into it, and the other is a shopping list. They are not the same.

There's quite some things that seem to only/best be expressed as code or mathematical formulas, rather than as natural language. (things like cellular automata come to mind)

Re: To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language (2020)

#38

Post by [deleted] »

danybittel wrote: post #18
jraph wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who are you "communicating" with? I wrote this: "with the machines, and with fellow developers" > A programmer does not communicate with a computer, through a PL I disagree with this. The programmer describes the steps that the computer needs to perform, to the computer. Or the programmer describes the state which the computer should reach. The communication is one way (except, arguably, during debugging sessions),…

Even if you consider it communication, that doesn't make it a language. Plenty if communication happens through other means. If we look at the debug session or bash scripting, the closest thing of a two way communication. It doesn't "answer" in code. I see code closer to something like a Floor Plan an architect may use or a CAD drawing from an engineer. Both of them also communicate, but they are not considered langu…

[deleted]

Re: To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language (2020)

#39

Post by jack_riminton »

I wonder if some coding languages are more akin to 'normal' languages than others. I found it interesting that the scratchJS activated more of the brain associated with spatial tasks which makes sense as I believe scratch is most often used for computer game-type apps?

Re: To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language (2020)

#40

Post by tetris11 »

nico wrote: post #31
ants_everywhere wrote: post #21

I run a YouTube channel that's mostly devoted to reading code: https://www.youtube.com/@ants_are_everywhere I (try to) read code from popular open source projects. It's a bit like sight reading in music because the idea is that I go in blind and try to make sense of it. This rings true to me: > The researchers saw little to no response to code in the language regions of the brain. Instead, they found that the coding…

And this is why getting interrupted is so annoying It takes a while to “load up” all of those things in our minds, and it’s a bit like a balancing act, you need to keep balancing them to prevent the whole thing from crashing down Then if you get interrupted, it is like loosing balance and things falling into a mess. Afterwards you need to sort of pick everything up again, which takes time and effort More than a coupl…

I had this a lot in my 20s, but I notice in my 30s that an interrupt won't derail me as much.

It's not that my brain is better at caching states, I think it's to do with being a better coder: meaningful comments, better proficiency in using the IDE, knowing when to not implement something from scratch,

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