[stuki]

Even by the "standards" of Newsweek, this article is supremely stupid.

Current high level languages make so few concessions to the underlying execution engine, that all they really are, are convenient notation for clear and logical thought. The only reason they seem needlessly hard to your average Newsweek hack, is because of his/her own shortcomings in the clear and logical arena.

English, as well as other "human" languages, are (perhaps)good for making highly concrete grunts to ones hunting party, and for making jokes to impress chicks. They were never well suited for describing complex processes and procedures. And complex processes and procedures is what defines an advanced economy. Every area of advanced economy endeavor suffers from having too much of it's workings half assedly and imprecisely "described" in a "human" language. And honestly, for no other reason than that too many "stakeholders" are too bloody dense and lazy to learn anything better suited.

But I guess there are those who think mathematics would be better off without all that weird, difficult notation as well. With mathematicians instead hand waving and counting on fingers, in front of calculators "smart" enough to learn from humans......