Olga, >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....
While it is a seductive idea linguists have to find any evidence in favor of the Worf-Sapir hypothesis. However, progress does seem to be being made on a weaker form of this hypothesis. >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? Your questions beg the questions of what is mastership and how is progress measured. I would argue (around page 99 of www.knosof.co.uk/cbook/sent1.pdf) that software engineering is not a field in which it is possible to become an expert (whether the conditions will ever exist for it to be possible is another question). Progress might be measured by the extent to which your bosses are willing to entrust you with resources to carry out/lead some software development task. Success in performing these tasks is often claimed as a measure of expertise. Of course all it really proves is that you: o have sufficient expertise to perform the job (which might not have required very much), o you have very competent minions and your incompetence was insufficient to cause the project to fail, o in a competitive situation you were the least incompetent, o worked for a company that was willing to continue throwing money at the project until it worked. >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... Being a native speaker of Russian with contacts in that country puts you in an ideal position to carry out such work. I have heard various stories about how Russian programmers do things differently. I don't know whether they did things differently because they were native Russian speakers, or whether being Russian was a convenient label. 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List ([email protected]) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/
