Re: which language for programming

[Mike Blackstock]

Joseph Wakeling wrote:

> I think the earlier poster who suggested going straight for Scheme may
> have a point.  Not only is it the core language for working with
> Lilypond, but it's a Lisp dialect, and Lisp is both the grandaddy of
> programming and the most flexible language there is.  See for example,
> http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html
>
>
>
>  
You know, I was going to suggest that if one were to take up 
programming, one
might benefit from looking into some of the principles of generative 
grammar that
came out of MIT in the late 1950's  (Chomsky et al). I'm thinking of 
recursion;
recursion is now considered by some (Chomsky, Fitch and Hauser, in a  
2002 paper
in Science) to be the only truly unique feature of the human  language 
faculty. At any rate,
I see from the excellent link  above [thanks for that!] that Lisp was 
developed around
the same time. Concidence? I wonder.

I digress. What I meant to suggest was that since recursion is central 
to programming, it
might be worth the effort to have a look at how it is used in human 
languages in general,
since every would-be programmer is already a master of recursion in his 
own native
tongue; a grasp of the recursion in human language might make it a 
little easier to transter
the knpwledge over to programming lanuages.

I'm writing in haste - does any of the above make sense?

Cheers,
Mike