Kristian Kristensen’s Blog

I’ve had a couple of links lying around in my blog reader. I’d planned to blog about each of them, perhaps coupling them. Since they’ve been there for quite a few weeks and I still haven’t made a post, I guess I should just list and jot a few comments down for each.

Greenspun’s Tenth rule Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp.
Cite: wikipedia

I believe I’ve picked this up via Reg Braithwaite and his regular writings on programming languages and all things software dev. Dunning-Kruger effect The Dunning-Kruger effect is the phenomenon wherein people who have little knowledge (or skill) tend to think that they know more (or have more skill) than they do, while others who have much more knowledge tend to think that they know less.
Cite: wikipedia

Probably via Reg Braithwaite as well. It’s a pretty interesting hypothesis, and fits well with the sayings “The more you learn, the more you realize what you don’t know” and “Ignorance is bliss”. It also fits with a previous pots of mine The Mythical 5%, where I reference Bruce Eckel and Joel Spolsky. Sapir–Whorf hypothesis postulates a systematic relationship between the grammatical categories of the language a person speaks and how that person both understands the world and behaves in it.
Cite: wikipedia

I heard this a RubyFools where Matz referenced the theory during his key note. I’ve actually been thinking about this before, and wondered if there was any science behind it. My initial thoughts on this were also related to programming languages, but since PL’s and natural languages share many similarities it’s interesting to extend it. In speaking with my father about it he also noted whether or not it is a coincidence that so many philosophers are German. Does the German language with its strict strucutre and grammar promote a special way of thinking that tailors well to philosophy. An example of a German philospher could be Immanuel Kant.

Also I remember from my first year of university they wanted to teach us SML instead of a more mainstream language such as C and Pascal. One of their motivations was that by teaching students such a language first they would develop a different style of thinking compared to their peers who might have pre-university experience in C or another language. So does the first language you pick influence the way you think about programming for the rest of your life? And does self learning it impose a certain “dirty” way of doing things compared to being taught academically?

Either way, there you go a few thoughts to think about on a Sunday. Please feel free to comment below.

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