Speaking In Tongues

I was never very good at foreign languages. I took French in high school, and at the time, I could speak it pretty well, but writing it out was not a strength of mine. Alot of the endings sounded the same, even though when spelled out meant different things. So if you say "Vous Allez" it means one thing, but if you say "Vous Alle", it sounds the same but means something different. I never quite got it.

But one thing I've been able to pick up, is play calling. Strong Right, Stack Right, Fake 34, 366, X dig. That makes sense. Double Tight Right, Fox 70 Base. Ram H Gun, 34 oh2. No problem. I can speak it, I can write it, and I can even tell you where everyone goes. Piece of cake for me.

Now, I can understand why the playcalls make sense, and French does not. While French is a language, and playcalling is 'sortof' a language, that's the extent of the similarities there. But there's another language that I don't get. Programming. I have several issues with this. Here's an example of some programming code that we're going to use in class ( I've been working ahead ):

//set the _y property of the image instance
on (release) {
setProperty(image, _y, getProperty(image, _y)-27.5);
//declare the values of the two dynamic text fields. Use the math.floor method to return a whole number in the text field.
xv = Math.floor (getProperty(image, _x)*0.9);
yv = Math.floor (get Property(image, _y)*0.9);
//use conditional (if) statement to define the collision parameters. If the image hits the bounding box instance, the second frame of the collision movie clip plays. This repeats through all six instances.
if (_root.image.hitTest(_root.bounding)) {
_root.bounding.gotoAndPlay(2);
}
if (_root.image.hitTest(_root.bounding2)) {
_root.bounding2.gotoAndPlay(2);
}

ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? That's a language? Here's what I understand so far. The double slashes indicate that you are entering in comments, so those lines are NOT interpreted by the processor. They're just there so that yourself or other people can see what you're trying to do with a block of code. I understand that they space it out funny like that, so you can identify separate commands of code.

But the processors don't look at it all formatted like that. It's just one continuous line of code to them. So how do the processors know where your "comments" end??? And what's with the squiggly boxes?? You have to press the shift key to get them on the screen, so that's kinda annoying, when the regular brackets are right there for you. And what's with the sometimes capital letters?? gotoAndPlay??? Why not just gotoandplay? And, why lay it out all funny like that, with one line just having a closing squiggly bracket? You don't put an opening squiggly bracket on its own line? Why are the closing ones so special???

I've taught myself how to use programs in the past, but how the hell would anyone ever sit down and figure this sh*t out by themselves?? It's not like watching Telemundo and seeing a girl walk into a room, and the guy says, "Hola, burrito suizo, casa mi gato, donde esta la barrio" - and then when she takes her dress off, you kinda figure out what he said. No, this is not like that. And what about the people that come up with this stuff?? How nerdy are they?

Although my professor, no joke, wears a pocket protector. So I'm guessing he's pretty good at knowing why they write the language like that. But so far, I've been more of a visual learner when it comes to programs. If I click on this, and that makes the whole screen blue.... okay got it. But just writing some code down as words, and that will turn into something? Yikes. My brain hurts thinking about it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to try to learn some spanish by watching Telemundo. Maybe that I can figure out. Or at least some chick might take her dress off.