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How a language reflects its people
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Alex Coles
February 10, 2017
Technology
0
77
How a language reflects its people
> The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
– Wittgenstein
Alex Coles
February 10, 2017
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Transcript
“ Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt.
– Wittgenstein
“ The limits of my language mean the limits of
my world. – Wittgenstein
HOW A LANGUAGE REFLECTS ITS PEOPLE Alex Coles | RubyConf
Australia 2017
WHY RUBY?
WE LIKE RUBY
WE ❤ RUBY
HUMAN
Language People World
None
Language People World Computing
PEOPLE TO LANGUAGE LANGUAGE TO PEOPLE LANGUAGE TO LANGUAGE PEOPLE
TO COMPUTING COMPUTING TO PEOPLE PEOPLE TO COMPUTING TO PEOPLE
G’DAY MELBOURNE
ABOUT ME
@MYABC Alex Coles Oxford, England
EURUCAMP.ORG JRUBYCONF.EU
TRAILBLAZER.IO
HIRE ME
PEOPLE TO LANGUAGE
LANGUAGES ➤ Natural - e.g. English, Spanish ➤ Constructed -
e.g. Esperanto ➤ Formal - e.g. Algebra, JavaScript
NATURAL
HISTORY
None
None
POLITICS AND COMMERCE
POST-TRUTH BREXIT FLAT WHITE
REFORM AND PLANNING
תירבע
None
KAURNA
None
None
INDIVIDUALS
THE BARD Creator of many words
MATZ Creator of Ruby
COMMUNITY
LANGUAGE TO PEOPLE
SHADES OF GREY
None
None
WELTANSCHAUUNG
Edward Sapir | Benjamin Lee Whorf
LANGUAGE AFFECTS WORLD VIEW
LANGUAGE DETERMINES WORLD VIEW
Wilhelm von Humboldt
RUBY SYNTAX
RSpec.describe 'my Ruby code' do it_behaves_like 'the English language' end
RSpec.describe Boomerang do subject(:boomerang) { Boomerang.new } it_behaves_like 'a hunting tool' it_behaves_like 'a percussion instrument' it 'is designed to be thrown' do expect(boomerang).to be_throwable end end
PUNCTUATION
WHAT THERE IS ➤ ? question mark ➤ ! bang
(exclamation mark)
WHAT THERE ISN’T ➤ ; semi-colons ➤ () parentheses (sometimes)
➤ {} braces (sometimes)
UNICODE
None
None
LTR VS RTL
None
WORD ORDER
SUBJECT VERB OBJECT
➤ The man eats fish ➤ L'homme mange le poisson
➤ a = 2 ➤ a = 2 + 2 SUBJECT VERB ORDER
VERB SUBJECT OBJECT
LOGIC AND ARITHMETIC NOTATION prefix + 2 2 “Polish” infix
2 + 2 postfix 2 2 + “Reverse Polish”
➤ (def x 5) ➤ (+ 2 4)
OPERATORS
Logical Operators ➤ and ➤ or ➤ not Special Operators
➤ defined?
LANGUAGE TO LANGUAGE
LANGUAGES IN THE FIFTIES ➤ Short Code ➤ Autocode ➤
FORTRAN ➤ FLOW-MATIC
LANGUAGES IN THE SIXTIES ➤ ALGOL ➤ LISP ➤ C
RUBY PRIOR ART ➤ Perl ➤ Smalltalk ➤ Eiffel ➤
Ada ➤ LISP
PEOPLE TO COMPUTING
LOW-LEVEL LANGUAGES ➤ Machine Code ➤ Assembly
None
NO CONCEPTS
SIGNALS AND NEURONS
HIGHER
COMPUTING TO PEOPLE
TECHNOLOGY
PERSIST
AI
HUMAN EFFECT
…
PEOPLE TO COMPUTING TO PEOPLE
SOFTWARE = CODE + DOCUMENTATION
SELF-DOCUMENTING CODE
CONCLUSION
WHY RUBY?
MINSWAN
THANK YOU
@MYABC