Toolkits for the Mind | MIT Technology Review
technologyreview.com · 2,652 words · saved by 1 readers
Programming languages shape the way their users think—which helps explain how tech startups work and why they are able to reinvent themselves.
Toolkits for the Mind | MIT Technology Review Skip to Content When the Japanese computer scientist Yukihiro Matsumoto decided to create Ruby, a programming language that has helped build Twitter, Hulu, and much of the modern Web, he was chasing an idea from a 1966 science fiction novel called Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany. At the book’s heart is an invented language of the same name that upgrades the minds of all those who speak it. “Babel-17 is such an exact analytical language, it almost assures you technical mastery of any situation you look at,” the protagonist says at one point. With Ruby,
related reading
- how I think when I think about programming - alice mazalicemaz.com
- My path to OpenAIblog.gregbrockman.com
- Things unlearnedscattered-thoughts.net
- Beautiful Racket: Make a language in one hour: stackerbeautifulracket.com
- Think in Math. Write in Code.jmeiners.com
- Why engineers can't be rational about programming languages | spf13spf13.com
- One Div Zero: A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languagesjames-iry.blogspot.com
- Learn X in Y Minutes: Scenic Programming Language Tourslearnxinyminutes.com
- Learnable Programmingworrydream.com
- You Can Choose Tools That Make You Happyborretti.me
- How AI is Changing Programmingyoutube.com
- How an MIT research project became a global programming languagenews.mit.edu