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LANGUAGES_OF_POWER

                                              August 09, 2006

  The myth of the super-weapon.

  Everyone wants to pilot
  the Skylark of Space.        Every programmer wants
                               to write code in the                    
                               computer-equivalent of   BABEL-17
  They want the technical      Babel-17.
  fix to end all technical
  fixes.
                               The language that
                               empowers thought,
                               transforming you
  The technology that          into a super-being.    ENGLEBARTS_BARD
  transcends mere          
  technology, the                   THE_SECRET_MASTERS_OF_DESTINY
  mystical all powerful    
  tool, the glistening     
  shiny silver bullet                   "All you engineers
  whose existence is                     are mystics."     
  always promised, and     
  then rhetorically        
  denied.                  
                           
      We're supposed to be as
      gods, so why do we keep
      getting tripped up on
      fence post counting errors
      and unit conversions?


Consider a pair of expressions using   
the phrase "medium of expression":
                                                                 (April 11, 2007)
 "Business types prefer the most
 popular languages because they
 view languages as standards.
 They don't want to bet the company                EXCEPTION
 on Betamax.  The thing about                                         
 languages, though, is that they're          "That language is an     
 not just standards.  ...                    instrument of human      
 But a programming language isn't            reason, and not merely a      
 just a format. A programming                medium for the expression     
 language is a medium of expression."        of thought, is a truth        
                                             generally admitted."          
 -- Paul Graham on "Great Hackers"                                         
 [ref]                                       -- George Boole, quoted in   
                                             Iverson's Turing Award Lecture,
                                             And again by Paul Graham,
                                             in his "Lisp Quotes".
                                             
                                             [ref]   
                                             

                                                 Got lost on that curve?
                                                 Graham and Boole-quoted-
                                                 by-Graham are using
                                                 "medium of expression"
Computer languages are                           to mean different things.
supposed to be tools                         
that mold your thinking                            WORDS_WORTH
into Holmseian                                     
supriority, beyond the                           But then, when Boole talks 
dreams of Korzybski and                          about language he means *language*
Sapir/Whorf.                                     not computer coding. 
                                                     
The notion that you can have                         Boole's use case: 
languages with funky,                                talking to humans.
irrational corners to them --                        
like, say the rules of                               Graham's use case: 
spelling in English -- and                           controling computers.
still have a useful language:                                                           
that's abhorrent, it's                                                                  
inconceivable.                    THE_PERL_AFFAIR
                                             
Steve Yegge:                                 
  Languages matter!               CSG        
                                             
  They *have* to matter!                     
                                             
And of course they matter --                 
but does he really grasp the                 
ways that they matter?                       
                                             
All of the ways?                             
                                             
                                             
                                             
   "When you decide what infrastructure to   
   use for a project, you're not just making 
   a technical decision. You're also making a
   social decision, and this may be the more 
   important of the two."                    
                                             
                 -- Paul Graham on "Great Hackers"
                    [ref]


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