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Is coding a lenguage like english or portuguese?

Jana on October 23, 2020

Hello, my name is Jana and I am new here. I have never wrote a code in my life and I'm doing a very very very basic course to see if that is somet...

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Jean-Michel 🕵🏻‍♂️ Fayard • Oct 23 '20 • Edited

Hello, I'm a polyglot and a programmer and I find that there are lots of common points:

both have a grammar - for a programming language that's the syntax
both have a vocabulary - name of functions, APIs, ...
once you know one foreign language / programming language, learning one more is way easier
both are used to express yourself
both only makes sense if you can write in a way that is clear and understandable for others
both are shaped by how the community use it - you have design pattern, "idiomatic" way of writing things, ...
both are best "learned by doing" - sitting at school is way less efficient than opening your mouth and speaking in the street, just like if you don't build a project, you will forget soon what you have "learned"

One big difference is that programming languages are much easier to learn than human languages. Programming languages were designed to be easy to learn, consistent. They don't have tons of irregularities.

With the possible exception of JavaScript among programming languages and Esperanto among human languages :P

Nathan Kallman • Oct 26 '20

Computer languages also come in "families" like human language. Just like Spanish, Italian, and French are all "Romance" languages and have similar grammar, because they all originated from the same Latin root; languages like Java, C#, PHP all read similarly, because they all were majorly inspired by the earlier C language.

And like those romance languages are totally different from oriental languages; those three languages appear totally different from languages like Haskell and Lisp.

Jana • Oct 27 '20

Thanks! This link between the origin of lenguages helps a lot my understanding of it :)

Jana • Oct 23 '20

Thank you so much for this complete analysis!
It's awesome to know that makes sense to relate one to another because i was always told and therefore told myself that science is hard and lenguages are easy. Now I can see the other way around and it makes me feel more confident :)
Thanks

Offirmo • Nov 7 '20 • Edited

Hi Jana, I would rather compare a programming language to a recipe:

add 700g of flour
add 2 eggs
mix until smooth
etc.

Since this recipe will be read by a robot, it must be "flawless". For example, if you make a typo "700g of flor" the robot won't get it and stop.

Similarly, if you make an obvious mistake like "700 kg of flour", the robot won't catch it and attempt to do it anyway.

Jana • Nov 8 '20

You won my heart with this!
And i was thinking about it when I was translating some recipes and i thought how precise you need to be in both ;) thanks

Offirmo • Nov 8 '20

Glad it helped! Programming is really great!

Anja • Oct 23 '20

Hey I can recommend the app Sololearn to get an impression about different programming languages.

Khang • Oct 23 '20 • Edited

Agree, SoloLearn is a great platform :)

Jana • Oct 23 '20

Thanks Khang :)
If it teaches me to do a cool personal site like yours I'll be happy ;)

Khang • Oct 23 '20

You will do it cooler, not just like mine 😉

Jana • Oct 23 '20

Thank you! I'll try it :)

Siddharth • Sep 14 '21

They are similar, as in programming is like a chat to the computer. Here's a sample:

You: Declare the variable x to be 10;
Computer: OK
You: Now, add a random number to x, and put it in the variable y
Computer: OK

The computer is very strict about your language, ie. If you make a typo, the computer will throw an error:

You: Dclre the variable x to be 10;
Computer: Error!

There is also more to code, like functions (similar to functions in math):

You: Declare a function called add, which takes two numbers, adds them, and returns them back.
Computer: OK
You: Declare x to be the value of calling the add function with 1 and 2
Computer: OK (x will be three)

So you can consider programming a superset of languages? Maybe, I'm not sure.

There is much more to know, but this should give you a basic idea about this.

Dial J For Jorge • Oct 24 '20

I would say that the comparison between what you called "street style" and "formal" would go better whith the concepts of "clean" and "dirty" code.

Jana • Oct 24 '20

Pode crer! Mas me diz uma coisa, a linguagem de backend é mt diferente do front?
Que vc acha?

Dial J For Jorge • Oct 24 '20

Então, como eu ainda sou um estudante, eu não posso falar com 100% de certeza. Eu diria que depende. Javascript, por exemplo, serve para os dois. Mas uma coisa pra se ter em mente é que linguagens de programação são muito parecidas, o que você vai ver são pequenas diferenças na sintaxe.

Jana • Oct 24 '20

Hummmm massa! Obrigada :)

Jana • Oct 23 '20

It helped a lot!
Now I can see the difference of both uses of code more clearly. And now I really want to learn java :)
Thank you!

Diego Eiras • Oct 23 '20

Incrível ver mais brasileiros por aqui! Sucesso, Jana!

Jana • Oct 23 '20

Valeu Diego!
Tô muito no comecinho de tudo, espero que a jornada seja tão legal quanto usar essa rede ;)

John Peters • Oct 23 '20 • Edited

Yes coding is exactly like learning a language. I written about this here.. dev.to/jwp/why-do-some-believe-typ...

Jana • Oct 23 '20

Your article is amazing John, thank you!
It gave me a lot to research for, like the history of programming languages.
And I don't trust or like Microsoft either lol
Thank you!

G.V.S Akhil • Oct 23 '20

U want to learn the frontend or backend?

Jana • Oct 23 '20

Front-end at first and then backend.
If I don't use backend on daily basis at least I want to know how it works...

Jana • Oct 23 '20

Thank you! This community is so open and warm to newbies that I certainly will not feel embarrassed to ask for help :)

Jana • Oct 23 '20

The video really connected the dots in my head, very helpful! I already know khan academy, I'll try something there :)