> It is a strong claim and I stand by it. In your mind you feel as if you identified a counter example. I plainly already told you that it is NOT the case.

Strong claims require strong proof, and can be summarily dismissed if said proof isn't provided after a discussion spanning thousands of words. Sorry, but I don't think there's much more to say here until you've familiarized yourself with the literature. You've only just heard of Logo from me, which is decades old and is exactly the kind of programming language that touches on what you're trying to say here. The Logo team backs up their work with a system they implemented to explore how children learn to program, and then studied this system extensively with actual children. Their findings don't support what you're trying to say here. Your entire argument is based on "it just makes sense to me", which is fine if it makes sense to you logically, but that's not what the literature shows. Sometimes reality is counterintuitive. As proof of your assertion, you state that literally any single human being would give you an answer that comports with your point of view. I find this unconvincing when held up against the body of literature I've referenced here, which studies exactly the kind of person you're looking for to prove your point: people without any preconceived notions about programming. The literature emphatically shows that they are not innately and biologically predisposed to prefer c-styles syntax. It's just flat not true according to the literature.

I'm surprised you're so sure of yourself seeing as that you haven't read anything from this body of work. Maybe I'm not the one going off my own preconceived notions? Because I'm here citing sources, and all you can say is "it just makes sense to me, you're wrong because you're biased". This argument is unconvincing in any context, but especially when there's actual research contradicting you.

> First off lisp like languages are by default geared toward an FP style.

Let me stop you right there. Logo is not a functional language; it support programming in multiple paradigms including imperative. You just learned about it yesterday, so I don't know how you can keep asserting this. The syntax is lisp-like, but it's a multiparadigm language. Earlier I claimed that I thought perhaps you knew the different between syntax and semantics, but now I'm not so sure, as you keep insisting that `lisp syntax == fuctional language`.

> links? From what you described though, the "research" doesn't confirm or deny anything.

It shows young children can write very sophisticated programs when handed Logo, but are at a complete loss when given C. It's pretty hard to square that research against your assertion that humans are biologically predisposed to c-style syntax. If you were right, they would take to C just as naturally as they take to Logo. Research has found that's not the case.

I've given you all the information you need to find the sources I referenced. You can find "Mindstorms" at your local bookstore or library. The author is Seymour Papert. You can find out about Etoys from Alan Kay's body of work. You can find the Logo language online and code in it yourself to see it's multiparadigm and not strictly functional. It's an example of imperative programming used by kids that is devoid of the c-style syntax. Logo is taught to kids because they take to it better than C. C existed at the time Logo was created, and the designers of the language specifically made it to be optimally applicable to the learning style of children. The key insight of Logo (particularly the turtle graphics module) is to frame the program as kinematic actions from the point of view of the child. In this sense you are right that children can understand imperative programming as early as 1st grade. But it severely cuts against your argument that c-style syntax is what is innately familiar to humans at a biological level. It's this notion against which I push in these comments.

> Like I said it only shows that children can learn functional. Doesn't show that functional is more natural then imperative.

That you still call Logo "functional" tells me you haven't read any of the literature, nor used the language, so therefore you don't actually know what it shows. Insofar as Logo offers functional capabilities, they aren't presented to children in the highly imperative turtle graphics module.

And again, I'm not arguing functional is more natural than imperative.

> Do you mean functional?

No, the code I wrote is completely imperative. In C it would look like this:

  pd();
  for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++) {
   forward(100);
   right(90);
  }
  pu();

Children have been shown to regularly take to the Logo program, while the equivalent C program is inscrutable to them. Again, see the body of work produced by Seymour Papert and the Logo team.

Anyway, that's all from me for this thread. Feel free to reply but I'm done here. Cheers!