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From: EGNILGES@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.psychology,comp.cog-eng,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Computer Languages and the Sapir/Whorf hypothesis
Message-ID: <11606@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 22 Aug 90 17:23:46 GMT
References: <5137@munnari.oz.au>
Reply-To: EGNILGES@pucc.Princeton.EDU
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
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Disclaimer: Author bears full responsibility for contents of this article

In article <5137@munnari.oz.au>, jfl@munnari.oz.au (John Lenarcic) writes:

>
>Does anyone know of any research that has been undertaken on the
>application of the Sapir/Whorf hypothesis to computer programming
>languages ?
>
>( Briefly stated, the hypothesis is :
>         " Language shapes the way we think,
>           and determines what we can think about. " )

John, my mailer refused to send mail to the Antipodes, so I am replying
by post.  Discussion here is followed by a bibliography.  I hope this
helps.

One of the earliest applications of this hypothesis in computer
programming is Gerald Weinberg's THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMMING
(WEIN72).  Weinberg applies Whorfian notions to come up with the idea
that the programming language in some way influences the programmer.
Although this notion was radical at the time it was also in the air
beginning in 1968 with Dijkstra's letter (DIJK68) and subsequently
Whorfian ideas forgetful of their origin have had a lot of influence
in programming.  Edsger Dijkstra never to my knowledge read Whorf,
but Whorfian notions are evident in such ill-tempered remarks of
Dijkstra's as the following (DIJK82):

     "The use of Cobol cripples the mind: its teaching, therefore,
     should be regarded as a criminal offense."

and:

      "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to
       students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as
       potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond
       hope of regeneration."

The Sapir/Whorf hypothesis seems to have a strong and a weak form.
Its strong form renders thought outside a specific language impossible.
Its weak form admits that language shapes thought but also allows
other factors to shape thought as well as indeterminancy/free play.
Phillip Kraft (KRAF77) shows how the use of an unstated yet strong
Sapir/Whorf hypothesis (that programmers and their thoughts are
fully determined by their language background) was used in the 70s to
deskill business applications programming.

I don't claim that Kraft, or the managers he describes, read Whorf.
However, typical managerial statements like "X is a Good Technician
but he can't see the Big Picture" or "Y is an excellent Cobol pro-
grammer but cannot learn C because of her Cobol background" reveal
a strong Whorfian assumption that the people in question are
determined, rather than just shaped, by the language they have used
to write programs.  It is not mentioned that this may be a form of
blaming the victim.  In many cases, the languages assumed to distort
programmer perception were imposed from On High.

Of course, I am prepared to admit that the managers in question
may just be making a practical assessment of the relative costs
of retraining programmers versus hiring fresh warm bodies out of
school, rather than clinging to a strong Whorfian hypothesis.  But
the large amount of age discrimination in the programming field
would indicate otherwise: some managers will hire untrained grads
in preference to experienced programmers because they believe that
the old hand will never unlearn her old habits.  My own experience in
adult education in general and retraining Cobol and Assembler
programmers in C in particular indicates that the older people are
hungry and willing to learn.  This deliberate evasion of a reality
by hiring managers indicates an unstated philosophical bias.

It's also problematic to transfer a notion developed in the study of
real human languages to artificial languages.  While the universe of
discourse of a Hopi speaker studied by Whorf may coincide with
his language, every programmer on earth has some form of non-
computer language in addition to his computer language in which to
express programming thoughts.  The lesson of pseudocode (the use
of a structured form of natural language in system specification)
is that skill at expressing algorithms may not be tied to knowledge
of ANY programming language whatsoever.  This is a theme harped on
by Dijkstra: in a recent note (DIJK89) he laments the failure of
schools to teach the noncomputer language of mathematics, which
would provide an excellent pseudocode, he feels, even for business
problems.

Another person who I am currently reading and who appears to at least be
in this tradition, but outside programming, is Michael Heim.  His
ELECTRIC LANGUAGE: A Philosophical Study of Word Processing (HEIM87)


BIBLIOGRAPHY

DIJK68     "GOTO Considered Harmful", letter to the editor, COMMUNICA-
           TIONS of the ACM, March 1968.

DIJK82     SELECTED WRITINGS ON COMPUTING: A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE.
           Springer-Verlag, 1982.

DIJK89     "A Debate on Teaching Computing Science", Edsger Dijkstra
           et al., COMMUNICATIONS of the ACM, December 1989.

HEIM87     ELECTRIC LANGUAGE: A PHILOSOPHICAL STUDY OF WORD PROCESSING.
           Yale University Press, 1987.

KRAF77     PROGRAMMERS AND MANAGERS: THE ROUTINIZATION OF COMPUTER
           PROGRAMMING IN THE UNITED STATES.  Springer-Verlag, 1977.

WEIN72     THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING.  Addison-Wesley,
           1972.