[~ot] why is programming so fun?

[Georg Wrede]

Simen Kjaeraas wrote:
> On Sat, 07 Jun 2008 23:40:15 +0200, BCS <ao at pathlink.com> wrote:
>> Reply to Yigal,
>>
>>> Thanks :) I learned here in Israel. English is taught as a required
>>> second language in Israel since we are a small country and that allows
>>> us to communicate with other nations.
>>> I doubt any foreigner that wants to do business here will learn
>>> Hebrew,
>>> therefore Knowing English is a required skill.
>>> the slight difference is probably due to different cultural thought
>>> patterns (I think in Hebrew...), maybe I'm yet another prove to the
>>> Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis <G>
>>
>> Cool. In one way that might give you an advantage over many people; 
>> when  you converse in English you are forced to construct a concept in 
>> both  languages. To do that I suspect that you will need to consider 
>> it more  carefully than many people do.
> 
> I'm from Norway, and I speak a lot of english with my friends, as most
> programming books, articles, and whatnot we read, are in english, and
> there's little reason (except to exercise my language muscles) to
> translate when we all speak english pretty well. This use of english,
> and the fact 90% of what I read is in english (books, articles on the
> web, text in games, etc), has lead to english being a language I can
> think in. No translation to/from norwegian, no need to construct
> concepts in both languages, it's just there. The same thing goes for
> programming languages, I think. "Real programmers write FORTRAN in
> any language" accurately describes what happens when you don't know
> how to program effectively in a new language.

My family belongs to the Swedish speaking minority in Finland, and that 
has given me sort-of two mother tongues. And today most of my reading 
and writing is in English, and I daily speak English with friends and 
others.

I think that a big part of learning another language well is to actually 
start thinking in it, instead of translating before you say or write. I 
knew classmates who didn't try to turn their entire brain into the other 
language, and today none of them speak other languages too well.

A D programmer whose "mother tongue" is, say, Java, and who thinks in 
Java and then translates that to D -- well, we can all imagine the 
results. The same goes for human languages.