Re: Ping Nick: Why Language Doesn't Really Matter

From: Reinier Sterkenburg (sterkenburg_no_spam__at_please_pml.tno.nl)
Date: 02/14/05 

Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 14:32:34 +0100

Captain Jake wrote:
>
> http://blogs.slcdug.org/jjacobson/archive/2005/02/12/1117.aspx
>

About the comparison, at the beginning, between the paragraphs in
English and Spanish:
With the green paragraph written in Greek or Russion (different
alphabet), it would be a better illustration of the difference in
readability between Pascal and C.
(Now, to me, it is more like Pascal vs Basic).

I am convinced that the fact that languages like C (C++, Java etcetera)
use more symbols in stead of words, make those languages less readable.
There is more to 'curly brackets vs begin-end pairs' than what is
written in the blog article. I think that indentation is the main visual
cue for 'seeing' code in blocks. This makes the point of 'curly brackets
vs begin-end pairs' less important.

More important imho is the difference between, for example, "and",
"not", "or" vs. "&&", "!" and "||". These are only three of many more
cases, and they are used frequently in code.
If I read code (and I assume this applies to all programmers who are not
deaf), there is some kind of mental pronunciation taking place. These
weird symbols slow this process down.
I am convinced that, even when you are used to those symbols, the
'translation' from "&&" (written) to "and" (pronounced) is slower (costs
more mental power) than from "and" to "and".

I dont't think your position that "all modern programming languages are
pretty much the same when it comes to readability and productivity" is
argued very well.
Readability is just one factor in productivity, among others like
availability of libraries, compiler speed, availability of an
'efficient' IDE, number of people who are used to it, etcetera.
On all these aspects of productivity there are differences between the
'modern languages', but for the aspect of 'readability', (Object) Pascal
is the clear 'winner'.

Reinier Sterkenburg.

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