Monday, September 29, 2008

Mind Your Language..!!!

We use some or the other language day in and day out but the other day i was thinking about its importance and it struck me that it is much more than just a medium to express onself.. For example here with me there are loads of guys who have come from vernacular background and in general do quite bad in class, but its not that they cant grasp concepts (though some really cant!!), its just that they dont understand english that well. So obviously knowing a language will decide how good or bad u understand and assimilate something rather than just raw brain processing power..
Conversely some people pick up new languages amazingly fast and others take lot of time... why is that??
I read in a book titled "Chance and Necessity" written by Jacques Monod that according to him it was the need of phonetics coupled with a way to communicate (Language?) that drove the phenomenal development of Brain.
Might be true, i dunno...
And now that i am having my first brush with a Programming Language, i realise that Programming is nothing but translating something that our brain does on paper into a set of instructions so that it can be done in computer... Infact i sometimes wonder whats the hue and cry about "logic development" in Programming since essentially (at least C ) programming is translation, so u gotta know the syntax and structure of a few basic prgrams after which if u are good in the language u'll be able to exdtend that....
Another aspect of alnguage is that u dont need to know a lot of it to understand the subtelties of Human Interactions, for eg i dont know telugu but when i watched some part of Happy Days, i understood it, however i know a little bit of Marathi now and when i watched a Marathi play titled "Ga ma bha na" i was surprised by my own understanding of the undercurrents of the play...
So much for Language...

4 comments:

Nikhil said...

Logic development is not just translation. Logic development involves various algorithms, and then develop further those that make best use of time, and processor. depending on the need, logic must be developed to perform a task.
for example: to sort a list of names, there are many ways to "translate" to the computer...finding the best way is the key to good programming.

Siddharth a.k.a. Plasmabhai said...

yeah what u say is true....but doesnt that come under optimisation... as in what u say abt sorting of lists...there can be many ways of doing that work....many algorithms....each is a logical way in itself....u cant develop that... u can only optimise it so that each algorithm makes best use of available resources in terms of volatile memory and processor capacity... also the best algorithm would then turn out to be the best logic!!! but where does developing logic come in here....thing is i havent read anything good on algorithms and logic and pseudocodes, so i am kinda amateur s yet....gotta read more!!!

Nikhil said...

i understand your point...but u see you dont choose from an already present logic and then optimize it. very often...you have to come up with a way. you can modify an already present one to make it better.

Siddharth a.k.a. Plasmabhai said...

hmmm.....ok,,..actually i havent yet come up across any such problem but as i said i am an amateur here....so gotta explore more i guess......

u know, if u have a good problem for beggners in C send it to me.... i guess u guys wud have completed these programing languages long back..... infact i remember u saying u had developed a code which resembled the raindrop virus where the charachters fell to the bottom of the screen or something.... i am wondering of trying that.....hehehe
neways...cheers...