Ask HN: Competency in natural language correlates to competency in programming?

Y	Hacker News new \| ask \| show \| jobs

2 points by RemoteIsHeaven 1463 days ago

Does competency in writing in a natural language correlate to competency in a programming language?

I am wondering if there's opportunity in training english/french, anthropology, history, art majors who have demonstrated competency in writing in a natural language that have overlap in vocabulary and structure with programming languages?

Or is competency in writing in a natural language orthogonal to competency in a programming language?

1 comments

h2odragon 1463 days ago

Problem solving, decomposition, and the ability to temporarily hold large amounts of information (documentation indexes / what functions are available? kinda things) are all more important than language ability, I think.

People like "elegant" code, but may prefer more expressive, florid language for actual communication with other humans.

link

RemoteIsHeaven 1462 days ago

> Problem solving, decomposition, and the ability to temporarily hold large amounts of information (documentation indexes / what functions are available? kinda things) are all more important than language ability, I think

Makes sense. I asked this question because I have been getting feedback from some managers (technical and non-technical) that good writers translate to good programmers, but I couldn't find any evidence/whitepaper/quality discussion on that

link