And you are here why?

The way we solve problems, heck, the way we   think   about problems, is based upon the tools that we use. Phrased somewhat simply — “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. Mind you, this gets particularly egregious in the world of software development. Your run-of-the-mill #CowboyDeveloper learns Java (or C++, or whatever), and then spends the rest of their life writing Java in Ruby syntax, or golang syntax, or whatever. Mind you, the really bad part here is   not   that they haven’t figured out the semantics of the new language, it is that they genuinely believe that there is no difference, that programming languages are just different syntaxes, that   notation doesn’t matter . And that, my friends, is a problem. As   Kenneth Iverson pointed out in 1979 ,   Notation Matters . If you translate the words from English to Telugu, you might, maybe, make some sense, but only barely. Getting anything beyond the bare minimum of i...

Mahesh Paolini-Subramanya - Syntax Matters - What Programmers can learn from the World of Linguistics from Erlang Solutions on Vimeo . Syntax tends to get people remarkably upset in the programing world ( semicolons anyone? ), with virtually any introductory talk on Erlang (Haskell, Clojure, whatever) invariably containing a self-deprecatory quote about its Syntax.  The thing people tend to forget is that this isn't new!   Syntax has been upsetting hominids since the first australopithecus said " Urghk " instead of " Oook ", and got righteously thumped for it, and has continued to the present day (check out " French is better than " on Teh Googles ).   Whats worse, people tend to mistake Syntax for Semantics , resulting in both chaos (and torture. Seriously). I gave a rant talk on this topic at CodeMesh  a wee bit back. The video is above, and the slides below. Syntax - Why so CareMad? from Mahesh Paolini-Subramanya Remember...