The Language of Programming
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Humans use language to communicate with one another; humans use programming to communicate with machines (or do they?). In this talk we’ll look at the practice and culture of programming from the perspective of linguistics, the scientific study of the form, meaning, and function of language. We’ll explore what lessons we as programmers can learn from subfields as varied as grammar theory, language acquisition, psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. Code is language, language is collaboration, collaboration is power. We should consider code through the same cultural and cognitive lenses as (human) language.
Transcript
Humans use language to communicate with one another; humans use programming to communicate with machines (or do they?). In this talk we’ll look at the practice and culture of programming from the perspective of linguistics, the scientific study of the form, meaning, and function of language. We’ll explore what lessons we as programmers can learn from subfields as varied as grammar theory, language acquisition, psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics.
Code is language, language is collaboration, collaboration is power. We should consider code through the same cultural and cognitive lenses as (human) language.
About the speakers
Independent Developer Educator & Software Engineer