Shawn Hartsock

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Lingua

By Shawn Hartsock (author)

Originally published .

Republished from Thoughts and Ideas. The original writing is preserved; topic and concept suggestions are generated metadata, not part of the original article.

If the language you speak in part constrains your thoughts, then isn’t the same true for languages you code? If the language you speak can facilitate certain modes of thought, then isn’t the same true for programming languages? Are there thoughts impossible to think in English that you can think in a programming language?

The computer is the first technology to act upon thought outside of a human mind. These thoughts are not the same as what the “analog” thinker thinks. The act of learning to program is transformational and forever alters the way that the student thinks about things. The thinker becomes a digital thinker.

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