Re:Programming languages are not languages (2018)
by ModernMech on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @04:49PM
(#22871262)
I really like this talk from Splash 2016 by Amy Ko called "A human view of programming languages". It explores various metaphors on Programming Languages including PL as language. I think she makes a very good case for why it is important to analyze programming languages from different perspectives.
After watching Amy's piece, I have to disagree with the conclusion of the author at hand: "I’d say it’s better to use the tool metaphor, and see where that framing could take us."
I think the PL as tool metaphor has been almost as thoroughly been mined as the PL as math metaphor. Most PL conferences are filled with papers approaching PL from these angles -- we know where that framing takes us. The other metaphors are more interesting to me and I think are more ripe for interesting new research (good luck getting them into some PL conferences though).
https://medium.com/bits-and-behavior/my-splash-2016-keynote-...
After watching Amy's piece, I have to disagree with the conclusion of the author at hand: "I’d say it’s better to use the tool metaphor, and see where that framing could take us."
I think the PL as tool metaphor has been almost as thoroughly been mined as the PL as math metaphor. Most PL conferences are filled with papers approaching PL from these angles -- we know where that framing takes us. The other metaphors are more interesting to me and I think are more ripe for interesting new research (good luck getting them into some PL conferences though).