Programming languages and communication languages

Programming languages and communication languages

[Vincent Celier]

Dale Stanbrough today spoke about Esperanto.

I have always thought that some analogies could be made between 
programming languages and communication languages.

COMMUNICATION LANGUAGES

Two hundred years ago, French was the language of diplomacy, something
like the predominant international language.

Then, it has been replaced by British English, which was the
international language of commerce.

Nowadays, it is rather American English that is the international 
language of communication.

A little more than a century ago, Dr Zamenhof invented Esperanto, which
is the more successful artificial language, but the total world
speaking population is rather small compare to other languages
(estimations vary between 500,000 and 3 millions).

PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES

Thirty years ago, FORTRAN was the language for scientific software.

Ten years ago, C was the most used programming language.

In the last 10 years, the use of C++ has increased tremendously.

Some fifteen years ago, Ada has been created, but despite the hopes of 
its followers, it is not a proeminent language in many domains.


I believe that we can make a parallell between C and British English, 
C++ and American English, and Ada and Esperanto.

C and C++ are widely used, because C and C++ are widely used. 
It is the same reason why we are using the English language to 
communicate: because it is widely used, then we learn it and then
it is even more widely used.
(I believe also that we will still need COBOL programmers in 2010,
despite the year 2000 problem; as there is a lot of code written in
COBOL, we need programmers to maintain this code; these programmers
then use the language they best know, COBOL, to produce new COBOL
program, that will need to be maintained ...)

Ada and Esperanto share the same strength and weakness:
   - they are superior languages in their domains (programming
     and communication), but
   - they have been standardized before being used.

C(++) and English share the same weakness and strength:
   - they are apparently easy languages, but in fact hard to master, but
   - they have been created by users and have a lot of followers
     that use slightly different dialects.

I have always been surprised by the reluctance of people in relation
to Esperanto: of course, native English speakers do not understand why
EVERYBODY should not learn their language; but even speakers of other 
languages think it is crazy to learn Esperanto, because there is
not enough Esperantists in the world. This reaction is similar to the
reaction of students that want to be taught C++, because it is a widely
used language (in 2 years, they all will want to learn Java), but they
don't want to learn Ada, because it is not enough used.

It is well known (I think) that the first foreign language is the most
difficult to learn. IMO it is because you have to learn how to
"switch context", when changing languages. The third language is
easier to learn, etc ...  Experiences have proved that Esperanto is
much easier to learn than English, even by speakers of non European
languages.  So the right thing to do would be to teach Esperanto first,
then English or any other foreign language.

Like any analogy, this one should not be pushed too far. For example,
don't make me say that American English is a "better" English. Or that
Esperanto is a "military" language.

I welcome your comments.

-- Vincent Celier,
-- 9100 McCutcheon Place, RICHMOND, B.C.
-- CANADA, V7A 5A5
-- +1 (604) 241-9811

PS: For those you don't know me:
     - I am French (from France), English is not my first language,
     - I live near Vancouver, and I use English all the time,
     - I have learned Esperanto several years ago during one year
       and I could have a decent conversation in this language, but
       I stopped using it, because I had few opportunities of meeting
       other Esperantists,
     - I have been using Ada for ten years, and I am using it all the
       time in my work, because I have chosen jobs where I could do
       just that.