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0 pointsyumaikas5y ago0 comments

So, this is for a few reasons.

Syntax is a skill floor, but it's not anywhere close to a skill ceiling.

If you want rapid-fire example of the various forms a given language commonly uses, I recommend X in Y minute guides. Those show off the various bits of syntax for a given programming language, though without rigorously defining them as such.

Part of the reason that programming syntax is usually taught by example, rather than by formalism is that the formalisms for programming syntax, well, look like this: (cribbing from wikipedia).

  program = 'PROGRAM', white_space, identifier, white_space, 
            'BEGIN', white_space, 
            { assignment, ";", white_space }, 
            'END.' ;
  identifier = alphabetic_character, { alphabetic_character | digit } ;
  number = [ "-" ], digit, { digit } ;
  string = '"' , { all_characters - '"' }, '"' ;
  assignment = identifier , ":=" , ( number | identifier | string ) ;
  alphabetic_character = "A" | "B" | "C" | "D" | "E" | "F" | "G"
                       | "H" | "I" | "J" | "K" | "L" | "M" | "N"
                       | "O" | "P" | "Q" | "R" | "S" | "T" | "U"
                       | "V" | "W" | "X" | "Y" | "Z" ;
  digit = "0" | "1" | "2" | "3" | "4" | "5" | "6" | "7" | "8" | "9" ;
  white_space = ? white_space characters ? ;
  all_characters = ? all visible characters ? ;

Can you take that grammar and write 10 examples of valid statements from it, with no other context?

vs, if I give you

  PROGRAM ASSIGNMENTS
  BEGIN
    MYSTRING := "A STRING";
  MYNUMBER := 123;
  END

That gives you a much better flavor from looking at things.

Ultimately, most programming languages should have defined grammars in their docs somewhere, but most devs use them by intuition, rather than formally.

The other thing, as well, is that it's one you get past grammar as a primary concern that you gain true fluency. And there are a lot of things that are higher level than grammar that can aid/hurt a program much more than the grammar constructs (like various patterns, know algorithms, schemes of organization for different types of projects, and so on). A mostly human-usable grammar is table-stakes these days.

If you have a specific language you want examples or a grammar on, let me know, and I'll see if I can find it.

(edited for formatting)

0 comments

fao_5y ago

> Part of the reason that programming syntax is usually taught by example, rather than by formalism is that the formalisms for programming syntax, well, look like this: (cribbing from wikipedia).

Here's the thing though -- a "what is this syntax" guide does not imply that you need a formalism of the syntax. What the person is asking for, in my opinion, is a linkage between the symbols and the concepts.

For example, when reading mathematics, often the problem was not my conceptual understanding of the material, but merely that I was not sure how to parse the symbols and map them to what it was doing. I could read a formula, but the mapping of each component piece as a shorthand was not there. At the time I did not internalize that "square root" is literally just getting the side of a square (A somewhat silly, obvious-in-retrospect idea! But it gives you a perfect example of the kind of mapping I'm talking about) -- because of this I wasn't able to get an idea of what it was doing!

In such a case, your formalism would not have worked, because it's simply a grammar. I did not need the grammar -- examples can show that, wikipedia can show that, what I needed was enough information about the link between the symbolic, and the conceptual, that I could find reference material. What I found instead was either as you put down, literal grammars, or vast tomes of knowledge that required more vast tomes of knowledge to read and figure out what each one in turn was saying. So I would get lost down this rabbit hole.

What the solution to this is, again IMHO, is a listing of syntax, yes, but with a conceptual mapping on the right.

So not saying things that we already know -- like "this is a number", but having a construction of an IF statement, and then a conceptual mapping on the right in the form of written description of how it works, or a visual description like a flow chart.

The point of writing was to convey knowledge, it is possible to convey intuition, and yet in scientific fields we seem adverse to doing so! It's treated almost like an unspoken thing, it is covered in passing, but almost never explicitly. It's why much of "intermediate programming" is difficult to break into, in my opinion -- and the same for mathematics (3blue1brown is breaking this up, however)

abakker5y ago

This is the answer that actually explains my problem! I went to the Learn X in Y site that another comment recommended and scrolled to the python guide[1]. It is a list of syntax, but it is (in my mind) insane! It goes right through all the math that is there and then jumps into lists. The first thing it does is show this!

# Add stuff to the end of a list with append li.append(1) # li is now [1]

And this is exactly the kind of stuff that keeps me from getting deeper into programming. I look at that, and wonder, "what the hell is that . doing?" Now, I know enough python to know that it is calling some function on an object called 'li', and that li is a list. or something that can take a .append() command. I also know that append() is some kind of function. But, these guides never give me enough detail on what the . means. Worse, it seems difficult to find answers to this kind of stuff in aggregate. If I google everything I can find stack exchange pages on each piece of syntax and can get to the point, but for fluency and retention I really need that conceptual piece.

I don't write software, but I use python/pandas for basic work with restructuring data. The hurdle to understanding how to slice data frames was incredible for me. I couldn't understand from the examples why the behavior works the way it does. I often feel like I can get working code without any real connection or understanding of why the code works.

You're answer is great, I wish there was a solution for this disconnect since I can't imagine I'm the only one who feels this way.

[1] https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/python/

fao_5y ago

I'm just glad there's someone else with the same problem!

I think the best way might be to make something like Albertini's charts for file encodings, but for programming.

An example is here: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/corkami/pics/master/binary...

Of course even within that graph there could be more expansion that it would be nice to see

yumaikasOP5y ago

Also, to add a further point: Because much programming is done by intuition rather than formalism is why there can be so much unintended use of a given program.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

fao_5y ago

> Part of the reason that programming syntax is usually taught by example, rather than by formalism is that the formalisms for programming syntax, well, look like this: (cribbing from wikipedia).

What the solution to this is, again IMHO, is a listing of syntax, yes, but with a conceptual mapping on the right.

abakker5y ago

# Add stuff to the end of a list with append li.append(1) # li is now [1]

You're answer is great, I wish there was a solution for this disconnect since I can't imagine I'm the only one who feels this way.

[1] https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/python/

fao_5y ago

I'm just glad there's someone else with the same problem!

I think the best way might be to make something like Albertini's charts for file encodings, but for programming.

An example is here: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/corkami/pics/master/binary...

Of course even within that graph there could be more expansion that it would be nice to see

yumaikasOP5y ago

Also, to add a further point: Because much programming is done by intuition rather than formalism is why there can be so much unintended use of a given program.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse