The strong form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has fallen out of favor, but research and results like this seem to make it clear that language has an effect on thought and thinking.
Linguistic relativity is a dirty word (well, dirty term) but there's clearly something going on.
Perhaps it's time to move beyond the original statement(s) by Sapir and Whorf, beyond the limited interpretation of Linguistic relativity, and to start talking about the bi-directional effects of thought and language.
Those of us who routinely program in significantly different languages know that some languages better suit some tasks. Pure imperative as fundamentally different from pure OO or pure functional. "Thinking in" one langauge colors the way one views/creates solutions and algorithms.
Time to view Chomsky as one, rather limited, point of view, at odds with some of the more recent research.
Those of us who routinely program in significantly different languages know that some languages better suit some tasks. Pure imperative as fundamentally different from pure OO or pure functional. "Thinking in" one langauge colors the way one views/creates solutions and algorithms.
I was wondering how programming languages shape the way programmers think about the world.
For sure. Functional programming helps to separate a problem in small elements and to think of all kinds of creative ways to combine those elements.
I basically came from imperative to functional straight away, so I cannot tell a lot about OO programming, but I definitely see the consequences of OO thinking in a lot of code.
Clojure was a great way for me to simplify programming in my mind. Although it's a very capable programming language, the concepts are so simple that it puts your mind into creative thinking :).
I think perhaps the most pervasive element to the phenomenon of linguistic relativity is the existent literary material of a person's respective language.
Perhaps it's time to move beyond the original statement(s) by Sapir and Whorf, beyond the limited interpretation of Linguistic relativity, and to start talking about the bi-directional effects of thought and language.
Those of us who routinely program in significantly different languages know that some languages better suit some tasks. Pure imperative as fundamentally different from pure OO or pure functional. "Thinking in" one langauge colors the way one views/creates solutions and algorithms.
Time to view Chomsky as one, rather limited, point of view, at odds with some of the more recent research.
Some reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
http://www.google.co.uk/#q=sapir+whorf+hypothesis
http://www.enformy.com/dma-chm0.htm