Emerging Languages Conference next week!

[awishformore]

On 24/07/2010 01:21, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Friday 23 July 2010 11:46:47 Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> It's always bugged me when people use the term "invent" in relaton to a
>> programming language. It's like saying that a musician "invented" a song,
>> or that Mark Twain "invented" a book. Wrong word.
>
> Actully, I believe that invent _is_ the right word here. You write a book or a
> song. With a book or a song, you're actually physically writing something (well,
> in the past anyway - now it may be typing or involve a mouse, but people used
> pen and paper before). With a computer program, you are again writing it (again
> likely typing it, but for pretty much the same reasons, the word write applies).
> However, a programming _language_ is a tool, not something that you write with
> pen and paper. Tools aren't written. They're invented. So, a programming
> language is invented, not written. The compiler itself - being a program - is
> written, but the language itself is invented.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

As both a programmer and an artist, I completely disagree.

When you craft/create a song/painting/statue, you use techniques that 
you learned over time and the experience that comes with using them 
again and again. These techniques have been discovered/invented by 
someone at some point, however the the piece of art hasn't.

The same holds true for a programming language.

To go with your analogy: the compiler is the tool that allows you to 
apply the art, not the other way around. The language then is the piece 
of art and the skill of creating a language is the art itself.

/Max