

Ask HN: Do different programming languages make you think in different ways? - l33tbro

At the terminal, do the different languages you code in make you think in certain ways?
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mlanza
Without a doubt. It's all about values and priorities. Each language was
designed by a guiding philosophy, some set of values that shaped the way it
was designed and the way in which it should properly be used. As a result, one
language is going to promote some values over some values. This in turn will
start to constrain (in a positive way) how you think about a problem. You'll
think in terms of the language's paradigm (values) and this will cause you to
see what's good about one paradigm over another.

There's no silver bullet, just different priorities.

Trying new languages will help give you a well-rounded perspective and will
have you porting ideas from other languages into your current language often
with benefit.

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zachlatta
Absolutely! Programming in Haskell is a much different experience than
programming in, say, Go or Javascript. However, when I'm switching between
languages in the same paradigm (or close), my mindset tends to be the same.

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chewxy
Yup. That was Ken Iverson's point of view when he created APL.

Different languages make you think in different ways. When working with Go, C
and Python, I'm always keenly aware of the different and optimum data
structures to use. Not so when writing code in JavaScript. I spend more time
and effort looking out for the pitfalls in JS than anything.

When working in R and Matlab, my method of thinking is oriented towards
matrices and linear algebra. The same problem will most definitely be solved
in different manners in the different languages I am familiar with

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l33tbro
Interesting. I guess the question came from my waking thought this morning -
thinking of how languages can strongly influence perception (ie, Australian
Aborigines conception of time being drastically different to much of the rest
of the world due to language structure). So I was wondering if that dove-
tailed with programming languages. But I'm thinking maybe not, as you kind of
know your outcome before you set out on coding something. Ie, coding isn't
like spontaneous prose. You have a certain outcome in mind and the language is
really a means to realize that.

~~~
chewxy
My personal hypothesis is Whorf Sapir happens with programming languages as
well.

A lisp developer is going to think about a problem in a very different way
from a JS dev.

