A paper by Peter Naur (1975), entitled 'Programming Languages, Natural Languages, and Mathematics', makes some interesting comparisons based on the history of these three fields. Firstly, it points out that the split of mathematics into pure and applied is very similar to the difference in programming between the computer scientists and industry. However, more interesting is the comparison between programming languages and natural languages.
Firstly, natural languages are mostly used in a spoken form, and have evolved through speech, whereas programming is a writing activity. Programming languages are generally formal, and are intended to be interpreted in a well-defined way. In contrast, natural] languages are intended to be understood "only in a fuzzy way, conveying roughly the speaker's subjective reaction to some not very precisely defined circumstance of the world." Naur goes on to say that natural language has greater power because: "A natural language provides an extensible universe of discourse that allows new notations, such as programming languages, to be added at will."
This argument seems to make sense when you look at the area of pragmatics. In 'Meaning in Interaction', Jenny Thomas outlines the ways in which we try to make meaning of interaction in natural language. Many formal theories have been put forward, but none are able to explain the whole range of expressions that we encounter in everyday language.
The power of informality is of great interest. In a scientific world where much emphasis is placed on formal theories, it is easy to neglect the informalities that are taken for granted in life. However, it seems unlikely that we will ever fully understand the informal, as the very act might constitute a formalism!
Another comparison worth considering in Naur's paper is that of literature. This is obviously quite lacking in programming languages, mainly because people generally do not read program code. Perhaps they should; maybe in the future we will have great works by famous programmers that are an inspiration to the rest of the programming masses.
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