uman

Yes, but you haven't proven to me that you can "think in" a programming language. A programming language offers the ability to program, nothing else.

Since you haven't contested the fact that Mr. Graham's definition includes natural human languages, you apparently agree with that point. Which means that even if programming languages WERE "tools for thinking", which they aren't, your definition is still too broad.

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Wizard1988

Natural languages often leave ambiguities(sp) which is why no one programs in english.
When you are writing some sort of a program first you think of the logic. You do that in your natural language. Next you take out the ambiguities and translate it into a language that the compiler can understand and translate into machine code.

If you look at code that someone else wrote you should be able to figure out their logic. You might not understand their code but I really feel like it would be because you might have a different approach to the problem.

uman

What's your point?

Edit: By the way I'm aware that nobody programs in English, it's Yegg who implies that they do.

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Wizard1988

My point is that you can communicate ideas with others using a programming language.

Actually you could find people programming in English, but that depends on your definition of programming.

uman

1) You can sometimes, and with some ideas, but not always.
2) Even if you can, that's just a side effect of it being a programming language. It's not the intended purpose and it's certainly not the definition.
3) Even if it were, a tool for "communicating ideas with others" is not the same as a "tool for thinking".
4) Even if it were, at which point Mr. Graham's definition would include programming languages, the definition is still too broad as it includes things besides programming languages.

Some people on the internet don't know how to debate, and so they pick one (rather unimportant) part of my argument and refute that. To prevent this from happening, I have numbered my points 1-4. With this particular argument my four points are cumulative; you have to disprove all of them to win the debate. Good luck, you'll need it.

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DaWei

What I say is correct. See what I said, as proof thereof. Next life I'm gonna be a politician or televangelist. Send your cards and letters and I will help you from the goodness of my heart (refer to above for proof of that goodness). Don't forget the five bucks.

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uman

Huh?

DaWei sometimes I have no idea what you're talking about :-P

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Few people deserve to be compared to (Rush) Limbaugh, most of them were convicted at the Nuremburg trials.
--WilliamSChips on Slashdot

DaWei

That's what fallacies are for....

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Abstraction doesn't make it impossible to write bad code; it makes it possible to write superior code.
Contributor's Corner: Grumpy on C++ Exceptions DaWei on Pointers

JamesCEdmonds

http://www.nerdtests.com/ft_nq.php

Your Score Summary
Overall, you scored as follows:
98% scored higher (more nerdy), and
2% scored lower (less nerdy).
What does this mean? Your nerdiness is:
Definitely not nerdy, you are probably cool.

I'm not sure what to do to get the other 2 % gone. Perhaps I need to get the periodic table out and answer them wrong.

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Jimbo

Congratulations on dredging a nearly 3 month dead thread for a sidetracked post. :beard: