Slashdot Mirror


Extinction Of Human Languages Affects Programming?

Tanmay Kudyadi writes "An article from NewScientist.com reports that half of all human languages will have disappeared by the end of the century, as smaller societies are assimilated into national and global cultures. This may be great news if one is looking at a common standard for communication, but it dosen't help those designing the next generation of programming languages. For example, there's an extremely strong link between Panini's Grammar and computer science (PDF link), and with every language lost, there is a possibility that we may have missed an opportunity at improving the underlying heuristics."

1 of 626 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Language and Computer Science by EvilTwinSkippy · · Score: 2, Troll

    Um, I look at C and assembler are more about moving data into and out of registers than anything else. The "rules" have more to do with 4th century algebra then 20th century linguistics. Granted, 19th century Boolean logic does contribute a bit.

    --
    "Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
    --Dr.W.Edwards Deming