On the language metaphor

Abstract

There are many more similarities than distinctions between natural languages and the languages used in computer science. The term "language" has been used liberally as a metaphor in the discipline in terms of language creation, evolution and concept of elegance. Examples are presented to show that the language metaphor serves the discipline well. Branching off, resulting in the development of new languages, is an inevitable progression in the evolution of natural languages. The implications of this aspect of the language metaphor are considered in the form of domain-specific fields which share a common base of computing.