QUESTION: Why are computer languages/computing so damn complex and unintuitive? ANSWER: Because COMPUTING is completely ALIEN in origin

They've got amazingly simple.

I started in the assembler era and it was horrible. The things you can do in stuff like VS C# is amazing.

Let's put it this way... When you bought a PC, PC jr., Commodore 64... It came with instructions on how to write your own programs. Hell, you needed a boot disk to even get to an OS prompt. You don't see that with Windows machines or Apples. Today's user is more likely to purchase software (especially gaming) than to write it himself and share with his buddies.

Oh, so you're saying there was a much simpler language?

Free software is still created and shared today so your point doesn't really make sense...

Modern day computer languages (like c#) are complex because the technology they manage is complex. Semantics are expressed as simply as is reasonable but the library required is encyclopedic.

Years of training can make one fluent. I can read/write code as well as english - and both benefit from the other.

The complexity is something you come to understand - just like in chemistry or physics. Thats why they call it computer science.

Great thread. As we all know, all computer & laser technology was reverse engineered from equipment discovered along with Megatron at his crash site.

I've seen the computer technology the aliens have. The computer stuff here on earth is clay tablets by comparison.

i dont find them complex or unintuitive at all?

Compilers are simpler translators. Computer languages cannot be as broad as human languages as to limit compiler complexity and to maximize its efficiency. Thus computer languages have limited expression power and seem difficult to master.

Because humans think is base 10 and computers think in base 2.


Not really alien at all. Anyone that took pre-calc in high school understands it.

wrong. 4gl and 5gl are as expressive as english within their domain. that is why compilers are used - to break down lexographical verboseness into machine tokenization.

Still, it's possible to take down alien computer systems with a virus written on Windows computer, as in the movie Independence Day.

Why is it that a computer can only understands 1s and 0s and different complex programming languages MUCH harder than spoken human languages?

I mean, why the HELL would the creators want to make such a difficult language for a computer in the first place???? It seems completely counter-intuitive and lack of Occums Razor applied!

The only explanation is that the origin of computing is completley alien. You must ask yourself, who brought us the commercial computer to our homes in the first place? Thats right. THE MILTARY.

And whos most likely in contact with alien knowledge FIRST? THE MILITARY!! (Well, those who are given clearance anyway!)

Hence the logical deduction is that, all our complex computing is knowledge from aliens!

DISCUSS!