After class, write at least 250 words summarizing your reading of David Nofre, Mark Priestley, and Gerald Alberts’ ”When Technology Became Language.” Consider the question: Why are programming languages referred to as languages? Are they languages in the sense that we have discussed in class this semester? Why do we use natural language in modern programming languages? What influence has programming languages had on natural language (e.g., rise of coding camps, political pressure to teach programming at scale, popularity of tools such as IFTTT)?
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David Nofre, Mark Priestley, and Gerald Alberts’ ”When Technology Became Language”
In the article, When Technology Became Language, David Nofre, Mark Priestley and Gerard Alberts explore how language became connected to language. The authors analyze the history of anthropomorphism and history of computer language. The article outline crucial facets of the genealogy of the term programming language. Language is one of the central metaphors around which the discipline of computer science has been built. In class, Professor Ellis analogize the argument for language as technology with that of Salikoko S. Mufwene’s “Language as technology.” Mufwene focuses on how languages can be construed as a budding technology. Further, he defended his position that language is a technology, emerged out of necessity, as communities expanded, communicated facilitate the management of relationships and communities, even though N.Katherine Hayles might disagree with Nofre, Priestley and Alberts. Hayles would argue that consciousness and language are intrinsically human traits. Language is one of the central metaphors around which the discipline of computer science has been built. The language metaphor entered modern computing as part of a cybernetic discourse, but during the second half of the 1950s acquired a more abstract meaning, closely related to the formal languages of logic and linguistics. The article argues that this transformation was related to the appearance of the commercial computer in the mid-1950s. Managers of computing installations and specialists on computer programming, in academic computer centers, faced an expanding variety of machines, called for the creation of “common” or “universal languages” to facilitate the movement of computer code from machine to machine. Finally, the article shows how the idea of a universal language was a decisive step in the development of programming languages, in the recognition of computer programming as a proper field of knowledge, and eventually in the way we think of the computer.
In the article, When Technology Became Language by David Nofre, Mark Priestley and Gerard Alberts, Nofre, Priestley and Alberts discuss “how it came to seem natural to think of programming highly complex electronic devices as a linguistic activity, and we give an account of the processes that led up to this conceptual transformation”. In the article the authors touch up on machine language and human language. The language metaphor entered the computer world at the end of World War II. It entered describing modern computers as almost human like agents. Language is one of the central metaphors around which the discipline of computer science was built on. The language that the machine can understand came to be pseudo code and machine language. These were created by programmers so that they can understand computer code. This type of language was created to make it easier to read code from one machine to another. Like human language computer language is also continuously evolving. As we go from new words and phrases computers go from new forms of code to be read. The need for a universal language was needed in the computer world, so that it would be easier to transfer information from one computer to another. Like Bauhaus software creators wanted to make a universal language but unlike Bauhaus they were successful. When it comes to making a universal language for machine it is more possible than it is for humans. It’s not easy to make a universal language for humans because we all think differently and see things differently, while computers are built to be the same. Scientists are constantly pushing metaphors to the limit, exploring their potential growth in the means of thinking and explanatory tools.
In the article, “When Technology Became Language” by David Nofre, Mark Priestley and Gerard Alberts, the authors focus on the impact of language in technology. Towards the end of the 1950s programmers were able to write their own program codes that includes well-known mathematical formulas. Systems such as IT and FORTRAN allowed the same program to run on different machines. A recurring question throughout the article is, “how it came to seem natural to think of programming highly complex electronic devices as a linguistic activity?” In the 1950s there was a shift with the use of the word ‘language’ in connection with computers. The language metaphor entered modern computing vocabulary at the end of World War II as part of a “cybernetic discourse that described modern computers as if they were semiautonomous, almost human-like agents.” Programming was described as a form of communication, that involves translating human language into the language the machine can understand. The first group to use the term ‘programming language’ are the computer-user groups and the computer-installation managers. They were trying to show the compatibility of programs, and have a suitable vehicle for teaching programming in universities. Because of this educators and managers thought that we shouldn’t think of programming notations as individual machines, but rather focus on the disciplines of symbolic logic and linguistics and strive towards the development of free-standing notation. The development of ALGOL (for scientific computation) and COBOL (for data processing) during 1958-1960 helped pushed this idea forward.
In the article “When Technology Became Language,” by David Nofre, Mark Priestley and Gerard Albert tells us about the development of language. The authors explains a history of computer programming and how language itself has been so developed that it gave a breed to a new life which was computer science. Computer science itself has a foundation of language. From human language to computer science language this has been developing for years. In WW2 where computers started to first replicate humans on what we can do. Programmers who made these machines used language to interpret activities. The code itself is built on the foundation of language so that programmers themselves who write this can understand the code. The computer language itself was created to help users understand the code and the entire process. As we continually develop the field of language the language of computer science constantly evolves. We start to release new words and phrases and in the future they may start to be interpreted as a word. To make a computer science code effective we need to first think about how we can transfer this type of information to another computer. Developing a language that can be understood by everyone makes it more easier for humans to process. Although one real issue is that we struggle to develop a universal language because human beings have variables to consider which a computer cannot replicate in terms of human life. To develop something like this seems impossible, but for scientists they are trying their hardest to explore the infinite potential of growth and language.
In the article “When Technology Became Language” by David Nofre, Mark Priestley, and Gerald Alberts’ talks about computer language. Salikoko Mufwene says that language is a tool used to accomplish something. Computer language used to program computers also a way communication because you have to input something in order to receive a response. Although Katherine Hayles might disagree because she believes language is something that is supposed to be used mainly by people. Machine language is a language that isn’t easily understood by people. It’s a specific language used for computers to do some sort of function. Grace Hopper was a woman that developed a computer translation program that was able to take computer language and convert it to something the can easily be understood by people that was called a compiler. In this article, it talks about how computer programming became a form of language. For example, programming language is a way for us to tell a computer to do certain functions using words that people can understand. Margaret Hamilton was in charge of a team that lead Apollo 11 and her team and herself got Apollo 11 to space and back with computer language. Computer language is also used to store data, form data, and use your web browser. A universal language was created for computers because they’re all alike you program them to do something and it responds to the request however the same can’t be done to humans because we’re different we have opinions and think differently then one another.