When I was called to serve a mission in Canada for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I was called to English-speaking assignment. During my mission, I spent six months in a French-speaking assignment since I had taken three years of French in high school. After serving in that assignment for quite some time, I found that my thoughts had become detached from all language. This skill was useful (and probably resulted) because I spent all day switching between French and English. When I thought of something, I would mentally envision the object or idea rather than thinking of the English or French equivalent. This way I could mentally transition between languages without any loss of context.
I think language can limit our mental capacities. If we all view the world in the context of our native language, then we can only express ideas that already exist in that language. Language, however, is necessary so we can communicate our thoughts to others. Ironically, I must write this short article in a language, which makes it somewhat difficult to express such an abstract idea.
So, how does this relate to computer science? Programming languages are just as much languages as the natural languages, such as English or French. The difference is that programming languages can express different ideas from natural languages. Like natural languages, not all programming languages can express the same ideas. This may limit what you as a developer can mentally design and express. For example, if your language doesn’t support blocks, then you probably don’t know what continuations are. One reason that I like Objective-C so much is that it allows me to express many ideas freely, especially when playing with the dynamic runtime.
Likewise, if we only think in the context of our favorite programming language(s), then we can only develop ideas that already exist in that/those languages(s). By becoming detached from all languages (both natural and programmatic) we open ourselves to think of ideas that don’t exist yet. Once we create a new idea, we are then obligated to express that idea in a language or change our language to allow us to express that idea to other people. Again, the language we express our idea in can be natural or programmatic.
By the way, my ideas on language have a direct connection to The Five Orders of Ignorance by Philip Armour. Briefly, Armour argues that in order to ask questions and find answers about some idea, we must first develop a framework for thinking about that idea. I think that language is indirectly, and often directly, related to developing mental frameworks for thinking.
