Thanks, Derek and others, who responded with their suggestions! I will follow 
up, when  I try different environments on my own :). 

Yes, this study is supposed to deal with  Worf-Sapir hypothesis. But I'd love 
to prove not the straight relationship between certain language and thinking, 
but some underlying things like "priming" the level of abstraction.... 

So, do you think that it takes long time to acquire a certain level of 
mastership? 
Do you know any research how software developers learn and progress in 
programming? 

Yes, I've been discussing the opportunity of the study you've described - the 
crosscultural differences in programming. That would be very interesting and 
helpful for commercial software companies. Hopefully, I'll try to work on that 
kind of study later...

With all the best, 

Olga.

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Derek M Jones
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2005 5:58 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: PPIG discuss: Object-oriented vs. procedural programming: material 
for a study.



Olga,

>I am planning a study of  programming languages influence on thinking. For 
>that purpose I need to simulate a learning process of Object-oriented 
>programming, Functional programming, and  Procedural Programming, so novices 
>could learn a few concepts from one of the programming languages or 
>environments, and then be tested (or asked to solve a task). 

Sounds like you are a believer in the linguistic relativity hypothesis
http://www.ling.udel.edu/colin/courses/ling101_f98/lecture17.html

For a set of interesting papers see (particularly Does language
shape thought? English and Mandarin speakers' conceptions of time)
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~lera/papers/

I think you will have great difficulty proving anything.  It takes several
years of working in a commercial environment before software developers
start to really get an understanding of how to structure a program.

A more interesting question is the impact of peoples native language
on how they write software.  People have  had many years of
experience in using their native language before they start to
program.  It seems to me that this experience will have some impact
on their initial solutions to programming problems (at least until they
figure out how things 'should' be done).


derek

--
Derek M Jones                                     tel: +44 (0) 1252 520 667
Knowledge Software Ltd                         mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Applications Standards Conformance Testing   http://www.knosof.co.uk


 
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