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Ask HN: Competency in natural language correlates to competency in programming?

Posted by RemoteIsHeaven on Wednesday June 22, 2022 @12:48PM
from the ask-hn dept.
Does competency in writing in a natural language correlate to competency in a programming language?

I am wondering if there's opportunity in training english/french, anthropology, history, art majors who have demonstrated competency in writing in a natural language that have overlap in vocabulary and structure with programming languages?

Or is competency in writing in a natural language orthogonal to competency in a programming language?

( 2 comments | 2 points | on HN )
Re:Ask HN: Competency in natural language correlates to comp... by h2odragon on Wednesday June 22, 2022 @12:54PM (#31838574)
Problem solving, decomposition, and the ability to temporarily hold large amounts of information (documentation indexes / what functions are available? kinda things) are all more important than language ability, I think.

People like "elegant" code, but may prefer more expressive, florid language for actual communication with other humans.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: Competency in natural language correlates to comp... by RemoteIsHeaven on Thursday June 23, 2022 @10:30AM (#31849600)
> Problem solving, decomposition, and the ability to temporarily hold large amounts of information (documentation indexes / what functions are available? kinda things) are all more important than language ability, I think

Makes sense. I asked this question because I have been getting feedback from some managers (technical and non-technical) that good writers translate to good programmers, but I couldn't find any evidence/whitepaper/quality discussion on that

[ Parent | on HN ]