Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
How a language reflects its people (Brighton Ruby)
Search
Alex Coles
July 07, 2017
Technology
0
110
How a language reflects its people (Brighton Ruby)
> The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
– Wittgenstein
Alex Coles
July 07, 2017
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Alex Coles
See All by Alex Coles
How a language reflects its people
myabc
0
84
Taking Rails beyond the asset pipeline (Workshop at RubyDay Italia)
myabc
0
71
Rails: beyond the asset pipeline (RubyC)
myabc
0
130
Frontend Choices (Tropical Ruby)
myabc
1
780
Frontend Choices (RubyConf Portugal)
myabc
1
460
Frontend Choices
myabc
0
59
Frontend Choices
myabc
0
290
Putting the Hype back in Hypermedia
myabc
1
230
DataMapper
myabc
2
220
Other Decks in Technology
See All in Technology
会社紹介資料 / Sansan Company Profile
sansan33
PRO
15
400k
MCPでつなぐElasticsearchとLLM - 深夜の障害対応を楽にしたい / Bridging Elasticsearch and LLMs with MCP
sashimimochi
0
140
CDKで始めるTypeScript開発のススメ
tsukuboshi
1
310
Introduction to Sansan for Engineers / エンジニア向け会社紹介
sansan33
PRO
6
67k
Context Engineeringの取り組み
nutslove
0
270
ブロックテーマでサイトをリニューアルした話 / 2026-01-31 Kansai WordPress Meetup
torounit
0
430
クレジットカード決済基盤を支えるSRE - 厳格な監査とSRE運用の両立 (SRE Kaigi 2026)
capytan
6
2.5k
10Xにおける品質保証活動の全体像と改善 #no_more_wait_for_test
nihonbuson
PRO
1
180
モダンUIでフルサーバーレスなAIエージェントをAmplifyとCDKでサクッとデプロイしよう
minorun365
2
120
外部キー制約の知っておいて欲しいこと - RDBMSを正しく使うために必要なこと / FOREIGN KEY Night
soudai
PRO
11
4.5k
セキュリティについて学ぶ会 / 2026 01 25 Takamatsu WordPress Meetup
rocketmartue
1
280
GitHub Issue Templates + Coding Agentで簡単みんなでIaC/Easy IaC for Everyone with GitHub Issue Templates + Coding Agent
aeonpeople
1
170
Featured
See All Featured
Balancing Empowerment & Direction
lara
5
880
Agile Leadership in an Agile Organization
kimpetersen
PRO
0
78
世界の人気アプリ100個を分析して見えたペイウォール設計の心得
akihiro_kokubo
PRO
66
36k
Agile that works and the tools we love
rasmusluckow
331
21k
How Fast Is Fast Enough? [PerfNow 2025]
tammyeverts
3
450
How to build a perfect <img>
jonoalderson
1
4.9k
What the history of the web can teach us about the future of AI
inesmontani
PRO
1
420
Highjacked: Video Game Concept Design
rkendrick25
PRO
1
280
Why You Should Never Use an ORM
jnunemaker
PRO
61
9.7k
Navigating Team Friction
lara
192
16k
Into the Great Unknown - MozCon
thekraken
40
2.2k
Context Engineering - Making Every Token Count
addyosmani
9
650
Transcript
“ Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt.
– Wittgenstein
“ The limits of my language mean the limits of
my world. – Wittgenstein
HOW A LANGUAGE REFLECTS ITS PEOPLE Alex Coles | Brighton
Ruby July 2017
WHY RUBY?
WE LIKE RUBY
WE ❤ RUBY
HUMAN
Language People World
None
Language People World Computing
PEOPLE TO LANGUAGE LANGUAGE TO PEOPLE LANGUAGE TO LANGUAGE PEOPLE
TO COMPUTING COMPUTING TO PEOPLE PEOPLE TO COMPUTING TO PEOPLE
HELLO BRIGHTON
ABOUT ME
@MYABC Alex Coles Oxford, England
EURUCAMP.ORG JRUBYCONF.EU
TRAILBLAZER.IO
None
PEOPLE TO LANGUAGE
LANGUAGES ➤ Natural - e.g. English, Spanish ➤ Constructed -
e.g. Esperanto ➤ Formal - e.g. Algebra, JavaScript
NATURAL
HISTORY
None
None
POLITICS AND COMMERCE
POST-TRUTH BREXIT FLAT WHITE
REFORM AND PLANNING
תירבע
None
KAURNA
None
None
INDIVIDUALS
THE BARD Creator of many words
HAPAX LEGOMENON
MATZ Creator of Ruby
COMMUNITY
LANGUAGE TO PEOPLE
SHADES OF GREY
None
None
WELTANSCHAUUNG
Edward Sapir | Benjamin Lee Whorf
LANGUAGE AFFECTS WORLD VIEW
LANGUAGE DETERMINES WORLD VIEW
Wilhelm von Humboldt
RUBY SYNTAX
None
RSpec.describe 'my Ruby code' do it_behaves_like 'the English language' end
RSpec.describe Boomerang do subject(:boomerang) { Boomerang.new } it_behaves_like 'a hunting tool' it_behaves_like 'a percussion instrument' it 'is designed to be thrown' do expect(boomerang).to be_throwable end end
PUNCTUATION
WHAT THERE IS ➤ ? question mark ➤ ! bang
(exclamation mark)
WHAT THERE ISN’T ➤ ; semi-colons ➤ () parentheses (sometimes)
➤ {} braces (sometimes)
UNICODE
None
None
LTR VS RTL
None
WORD ORDER
SUBJECT VERB OBJECT
➤ The man eats fish ➤ L'homme mange le poisson
➤ a = 2 ➤ a = 2 + 2 SUBJECT VERB ORDER
VERB SUBJECT OBJECT
LOGIC AND ARITHMETIC NOTATION prefix + 2 2 “Polish” infix
2 + 2 postfix 2 2 + “Reverse Polish”
➤ (def x 5) ➤ (+ 2 4)
OPERATORS
Logical Operators ➤ and ➤ or ➤ not Special Operators
➤ defined?
LANGUAGE TO LANGUAGE
LANGUAGES IN THE FIFTIES ➤ Short Code ➤ Autocode ➤
FORTRAN ➤ FLOW-MATIC
LANGUAGES IN THE SIXTIES ➤ ALGOL ➤ LISP ➤ C
RUBY PRIOR ART ➤ Perl ➤ Smalltalk ➤ Eiffel ➤
Ada ➤ LISP
PEOPLE TO COMPUTING
LOW-LEVEL LANGUAGES ➤ Machine Code ➤ Assembly
None
NO CONCEPTS
SIGNALS AND NEURONS
HIGHER
COMPUTING TO PEOPLE
TECHNOLOGY
PERSIST
AI
HUMAN EFFECT
…
PEOPLE TO COMPUTING TO PEOPLE
SOFTWARE = CODE + DOCUMENTATION
SELF-DOCUMENTING CODE
CONCLUSION
WHY RUBY?
MINSWAN
THANK YOU
@MYABC