I don't want to turn this into a philosophical debate, but if what you are saying is true (I hope not), the community is wrong IMHO.
Human languages defines what concepts we are able to think and reason about. I believe that George Orwell showed this perfectly in 1984. By taking away a lot of vocabulary, you are taking away a lot of ways of to express yourself. I think that the term "expression" in regards to programming languages explains why this is important.
I only know Dutch, English and Latin (plus just enough German and French to get around when I´m buying a bread or asking for directions) so in no way I've experienced how a language like Mandarin changes the way in which your thoughts take shape. However, I did have the experience of playing around with Haskell and Lisp (not saying I'm experienced or whatever, I've just toyed around with them in my free time) and they did change some things of how I percieve and think about code. I can´t write code in these languages where I work, but just learning them (and learning their different, but just as valid, viewpont on programming) has changed the way I think about some problems and how I should solve some problems.
Language (whether it's human or programming) is all about expressing ideas in the broadest sense of the word. Knowing more just let's you express more...
Human languages defines what concepts we are able to think and reason about. I believe that George Orwell showed this perfectly in 1984. By taking away a lot of vocabulary, you are taking away a lot of ways of to express yourself. I think that the term "expression" in regards to programming languages explains why this is important.
I only know Dutch, English and Latin (plus just enough German and French to get around when I´m buying a bread or asking for directions) so in no way I've experienced how a language like Mandarin changes the way in which your thoughts take shape. However, I did have the experience of playing around with Haskell and Lisp (not saying I'm experienced or whatever, I've just toyed around with them in my free time) and they did change some things of how I percieve and think about code. I can´t write code in these languages where I work, but just learning them (and learning their different, but just as valid, viewpont on programming) has changed the way I think about some problems and how I should solve some problems.
Language (whether it's human or programming) is all about expressing ideas in the broadest sense of the word. Knowing more just let's you express more...