> > It turns out that the syntax and semantics of all reasonable programming > languages are very similar, or fall into only a few classes (e.g. C-like, > S-expressions, etc.), so once you are "fluent" in one from a class, it's > easy to pick up the others. This can't be said of natural languages, which > are full of idioms and grammatical exceptions, even in closely related > dialects. >
This is more opinions than I can shake a stick at! Don't we all have other fish to fry (or for the French, other cats to whip? Other national equivalents?) Anyway, I was nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs to ask this question, and look at the Pandora's box that this has opened! Java anyone?! I've actually noticed a bit of a dearth of Java in the crystallography world, with some exceptions... Thanks everybody for your suggestions--I will mull them over, since you all make such good arguments (not meant in the programming sense, but probably that's true too!), Jacob > James > > > [1] > http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/08/computer-languages-arent-human-languages.html > [2] http://daringfireball.net/2005/09/englishlikeness_monster -- ******************************************* Jacob Pearson Keller Northwestern University Medical Scientist Training Program email: j-kell...@northwestern.edu *******************************************
