I'm currently studying Latin at school, and what I've learned is that it's a very logical language. I feel this has contributed to my programming ability, as it makes it my code easier to understand.
Is there any relation between knowledge of a very logical language such as Latin and the comprehension of code?
I did study Latin at school, and I speak a few Latin-derived languages. I wouldn't say that Latin is "logical", not more than English. It is a natural (as opposed to constructed) language, and contains its irregularities and quirks as you would expect.
Having said that, linguistics is a fascinating subject with some connections to programming and software development. Formal grammars are connected to grammar in natural languages, and you will discover more and more links as you study.
If you are interested in "logical" human languages, have a look at "conlangs", or constructed languages. Some of them have been engineered to be "perfectly logical", so to speak. Look here.
I'm currently studying Latin at school, and what I've learned is that it's a very logical language, unlike, e.g. English. To me, I think this has contributed to my programming ability—it makes it easier for me to understand my code.
Don't overthink things.
Have any of you studied Latin (or another very logical language), and if so, do you also feel it helped you as a programmer?
Studied? Yes.
Helped me in my programming issues? No, not at all.
Perhaps the most important language skills that you need for programming are the ability to be precise and the ability to express what you mean in the language that you are using. (Not a direct answer, but maybe relevant.)
Latin is a more "regular" language than English, in the sense that the rules are much more strictly followed. Does that make it any more "logical" in the sense of mathematical or programming logic? Not sure.
But studying Latin definitely improved my understanding of English, my native language. And learning any other language inevitably improves your communication ability generally. I think that translates to writing computer programs as well.
If you start taking the linguistics side of computer programming too seriously you'll find yourself wanting to write a better language. Which will require you to write a parser. Which will then enable you to lay down language fundamentals. Which enables you to write higher programming constructs. Which will point out deficiencies in your language. Which will lead to you re-writing your parser. Which will eventually drive you insane in a quest to find a perfect expressive pattern to encapsulate an idea that would've just taken 15 min to write in VBA.
In other words, don't look that deeply into it.
If you want to take a class in high school to help with programming take Machine Shop or Automotive Tech ed. if you school offers it. The methods of methodically taking something apart diagnosing along the way to figure out what the problem is or how it works will be far more useful as a practical programmer than anything else you could take (non math/programming related)
I do not know Latin but, rather, have been learning Turkish sporadically for the past 10 years. This is a very logical language that generally follows a simple set of rules consistently. I have been programming for almost 20+ years now.
Based upon my experience, learning a logical language does not make any difference to coding but having a logical, computing background makes it easier to learn a logical language (like Turkish).
I have learnt Latin for five years and I do not think it is more logical than other natural languages. But this may help you to learn programming because some programming languages (which I do not want to mention here to avoid any kind of language war) are also somewhat illogical in their design, syntax and semantics.
Seriously, I do not think learning Latin has helped me to be a better programmer. Also, many teachers of Latin like to repeat that Latin is a particularly logical language (it was said to me as well), but I think this is only commonplace.
At one time students who were interested in science or engineering were encouraged to take Latin as opposed to French or Spanish. I know personally I struggled with it. I can't deny that it help my vocabulary, but I can't see where it help me be a better programmer.
Maybe; I also had a similar thought that maybe knowing how to program helped me learn a second language.
This came about when I took a French class several years ago just before I went on my first trip to Paris. French certainly has its quirks, but programming is largely nouns and verbs just like language. I swear that when I deconstructed the lessons along programming lines, the language got to be much easier to learn. It's more than likely just conjecture on my part, and it could be my enthusiasm for the class and trip had as much to do with my picking it up so easily as anything.
Learning another language is a great mental exercise so keep at it, but as others have said, don't look too deep into this.
I studied it and I think it kind of might have slightly helped me.
My native language is Italian which, despite being a neo-latin language, has little to nothing to do with Latin when it comes to grammar and syntax.
Organizing your thought in a language so different, in which you can't just start a sentence and improvise but you need to create a mental scheme of the full sentence structure before beginning to construct it, and keep it in mind when you want to add subordinates, might be a good logic/memory exercise.
Might help with pointers.
EDIT: correct German requires more or less the same efforts, and it's alive.
I think learning languages where tiny details make a huge difference in the meaning of everything, such as Polish or Chinese, can make you better programmer. Logic is easy; adhering to peculiarities is not.
