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Dave Laribee » The Most Productive Programming Language
The Most Productive Programming Language

The most productive and useful programming language you know, by a long shot, is English or Hindi or Portuguese or Spanish or French or whatever human language your team uses. Good communication skills are way more valuable to you and your customers than picking up a new language every year. That is, while there is value in the item on the right, I value the item on the left more. Sound familiar?

Developers that name things well and program with a respect for human languages create more maintainable and easier to follow code. Being able to communicate with a customer, analyst and/or product owner can save you hour upon hour of effort and keep your solution simple. No programming language no matter how syntactically minimal or internal DSL friendly can ever come close to this.

Posted Tue, Oct 27 2009 8:08 PM by Dave Laribee
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Comments

Dave D. wrote re: The Most Productive Programming Language
on Tue, Oct 27 2009 9:14 PM

So true man, so true.

Ken wrote re: The Most Productive Programming Language
on Tue, Oct 27 2009 11:45 PM

Hmmm... think you need to check out Eric Evans' book on Domain Driven Design.  Effective language skills are useful for developing accurate, shared domain language (ubiquitous language)

As for English being a *programming language* - that's not true as it's far too imprecise.  Check out any book on legislative interpretation to see what I mean!

Marty Williams wrote re: The Most Productive Programming Language
on Wed, Oct 28 2009 12:56 AM

Uh, he means "language used in the process of programming", and he's right.  

Even if you want to press it to actual "programming languages", I would assert that cultivating good in-code communication ability is probably more important in the long run than the specific programming language used.

Man, I never get tired of this captcha.

Dave Laribee wrote re: The Most Productive Programming Language
on Wed, Oct 28 2009 1:58 AM

@ken - you might say I've checked that book out and I very much agree with your summation and place a high value on ubiquitous language and bounded contexts and intention revealing interfaces and eric's editorial, examples and experience. that said, not sure what you're saying. can you send me a link to a good book on legislative interpretation please?

@marty - glad you agree. this is assertion (for me and you) is a no brainer, but it's amazing how many developers just don't get it. i think the zeitgeist of our industry distracts us from important stuff. i mean, there's pragmatic and then there's Pragmatic... i guess...

Awkward Coder wrote re: The Most Productive Programming Language
on Wed, Oct 28 2009 6:03 AM

+1

Patrick Smacchia wrote re: The Most Productive Programming Language
on Wed, Oct 28 2009 10:30 AM

>Developers that name things well and program with a respect for human languages create more maintainable and easier to follow code.

100% agree. Programmers with high verbal communication skills are doing a better job in general.

I would recommend practicing NLP for those who wish to increase their communication skills.

www.amazon.com/.../0688146198

PimpThisBlog.com wrote The Most Productive Programming Language
on Wed, Oct 28 2009 11:04 AM

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Troy Tuttle wrote re: The Most Productive Programming Language
on Wed, Oct 28 2009 12:48 PM

Amen Brother.  

Sometimes people have to take off the super geek cape long enough to realize software dev is not much different than almost any other business endeavor.  It's a people thing.

Slavi wrote re: The Most Productive Programming Language
on Mon, Nov 2 2009 4:55 PM

That's so true.

Catchy title I admit :)

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