Comments for thecodingbrain

Comment on Evidence suggesting that young computer programmers have “bilingual brains” by Fernando De Freitas

Fernando De Freitas — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:08:19 +0000

Totally Right, a programming language follows every rule a “normal” language follows, both can be perfectly represented in the form of trees, and have lexical, syntactic and semantic rules, very complex ones for both. And also, like on “human” languages are verbs, adjectives, etc. needed to correctly “speak” there are IDs, control words, actions, operations, types… in programming languages.

I agree with some comments below:
- it’s not that programming makes you able to learn other languages just like that, it’s more like, you already have something that makes it easier for you
- that something also makes you very attracted to programming (my personal theory is because of the logical structure and view of everything, from applying abstraction to the very different way programmers see the world as compared no non-programming people)
- after learning to program, it gets even easier to learn new languages (again i’d say it’s because of the logical structuring of everything that happens in your brain)

That’s the way i see it. I’m a Computer Science Bachelor from Venezuela, my mother tongue is Spanish, i also “mastered” English like at 12 years old, learned to program at 17, with imperative, functional and logical programming paradigms, also learned Portuguese a few years ago.

Comment on Evidence suggesting that young computer programmers have “bilingual brains” by Learn a new language to keep your mind young | Brimmings: up from the well

Learn a new language to keep your mind young | Brimmings: up from the well — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 17:48:19 +0000

[...] Evidence suggesting that young computer programmers have “bilingual brains” (thecodingbrain.wordpress.com) [...]

Comment on Evidence suggesting that young computer programmers have “bilingual brains” by DuskoKoscica

DuskoKoscica — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 15:47:38 +0000

for that measurement thing with older people in my opinion it would be ok to use cat scan or something like that…
For people that still didn’t finish the brain development, it would be different but not to much…
I thing that there are scientific methods to do that nowdays!

Comment on Evidence suggesting that young computer programmers have “bilingual brains” by Dan Sutton

Dan Sutton — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:48:38 +0000

That’s such a great point. I would argue (from experience) that learning to program slowly changes the way your brain works and instills the discipline that you required in order to learn to program… of course, there’s always that woolly bit in the first couple of years when you’re not quite there yet…!!

Comment on Evidence suggesting that young computer programmers have “bilingual brains” by E.Z.P

E.Z.P — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 04:57:33 +0000

I would agree with you very much that learning a programming language engages the same brain areas as learning a new human language.

However, and perhaps more importantly, learning a PROGRAMMING language is a DISCIPLINE.
To write a decent program, you have to discipline your brain *far* more than you would need with any language (because, let’s face it, other people are forgiving but compilers or computers are not).

Do you have a measure for learning DISCIPLINE ?

Comment on Evidence suggesting that young computer programmers have “bilingual brains” by robertoviera1

robertoviera1 — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 23:10:41 +0000

Very nice project. This remember me a phrase of Alan Turing about mathmatical theorems. He tells that solution is thinked and in general it is true, after the problem is to show this solution. It´s possible that in programming also occurs the same. Congratulations.

Comment on Evidence suggesting that young computer programmers have “bilingual brains” by patbob

patbob — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 01:00:54 +0000

The activity of debugging closely resembles the description of “executive control” tasks in that the developer is potentially awash in irrelevant data (the value of every variable on every line of the program is available) that needs to be heavily filtered to find the relevant nuggets of information (which variable has the wrong value, and why). Debugging could be throwing the results off by training their brains to be more effective at filtering. More experienced developers generally having the better debugging (filtering) skills. If you go forward with this like of research, it might be interesting to determine if that is indeed the case so its effects can be filtered from the results.

Comment on Evidence suggesting that young computer programmers have “bilingual brains” by spiderblogger

spiderblogger — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 19:09:09 +0000

Very interesting topic. Although I started programming about 7 or 8 years ago, if it helps you I was fluent before in 3 languages

Comment on Evidence suggesting that young computer programmers have “bilingual brains” by Dan Sutton

Dan Sutton — Tue, 25 Dec 2012 21:53:56 +0000

I concur. I’ve long been a proponent of non-linear thinking – or “lateral thinking” as I’ve always thought of it: tests I give to programmers in interviews require it to find the simple solutions I’m looking for. To me, it’s part of the art form that programming is: you have to be able to do something more than a methodical plodding away: from lateral thinking comes inspiration and insight, and to be a great programmer (or anything else) you require that ability. You may be very interested in the works of Edward DeBono, who coined the term “lateral thinking” and who has spent most of his life promoting the concept and writing books about it.

Comment on Evidence suggesting that young computer programmers have “bilingual brains” by Miki Mouse

Miki Mouse — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 12:51:28 +0000

Well that is noting new, it is all the same way.
It is about the brain, it has many parts that are used to solve certain things, and that’s it. No magic and other things… It is just the way the brain works, it will take more time before humans understand how the brain works.
Some things like brain development are very imoportant when it commes to education of jung people, children and adults, even the seniors.
We are all unique and that disstinguish us from each other, but in the way we all are limited by our genes, education, klimatic conditions and so on….
One day we will reach our maximum point and the only solution in that situatino is very hard to know.
There are some other things but it is very important and hard to undestand, sometimes I even ask my self is it Ok to even there to solve some problems like that. It is not like ax+b=0, it is vay more difficul to even understand what it could be….