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title: "On programming/languages"
layout: post
image: 
    feature: geek.png
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I asked on Twitter for [where to start on considering programming languages _as languages_](https://twitter.com/martin_eve/status/1429415082199502852). Here are some of the best recommendations:

* Binder, Jeffrey M., ‘Romantic Disciplinarity and the Rise of the Algorithm’, _Critical Inquiry_, 46.4 (2020), 813–34 <https://doi.org/10.1086/709225>

* Chartier, Roger, ‘Languages, Books, and Reading from the Printed Word to the Digital Text’, trans. by Teresa Lavender Fagan, _Critical Inquiry_, 31.1 (2004), 133–52 <https://doi.org/10.1086/427305>

* Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong, ‘On “Sourcery,” or Code as Fetish’, _Configurations_, 16.3 (2008), 299–324 <https://doi.org/10.1353/con.0.0064>

* Gobbo, Federico, and Helena Durnova, ‘From Universal to Programming Languages’ <https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/2104716/149299_main.pdf>

* Nofre, David, Mark Priestley, and Gerard Alberts, ‘When Technology Became Language: The Origins of the Linguistic Conception of Computer Programming, 1950-1960’, _Technology and Culture_, 55.1 (2014), 40–75 <https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2014.0031>

* Prat, Chantel S., Tara M. Madhyastha, Malayka J. Mottarella, and Chu-Hsuan Kuo, ‘Relating Natural Language Aptitude to Individual Differences in Learning Programming Languages’, _Scientific Reports_, 10.1 (2020), 3817 <https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-60661-8>

* Temkin, Daniel, ‘Interview with Jon Corbett’, Esoteric.Codes, 2021 <https://esoteric.codes/blog/jon-corbett> [accessed 23 August 2021]

* Wall, Larry, ‘Perl, the First Postmodern Computer Language’, 1999 <http://www.wall.org/~larry/pm.html> [accessed 23 August 2021]

The work of [Yorick Wilks](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NsHFYDcAAAAJ&hl=en) may also be of interest. The [Esoteric Codes project](https://esoteric.codes/) that I learned about from this thread is also excellent!

With many thanks to everyone who contributed.