قلب: a non-ASCII programming language written in Arabic • Hacker News Board

Re: قلب: a non-ASCII programming language written in Arabic

#151

Post by mattigames » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 10:27 AM UTC

pgcj_poster wrote: post #135

This is at best useless, and at worst harmful. If we start using languages other than English for code, then we'll end up balkanizing the software world. People in humanities departments can talk about things like "Chinese Poetry" and "Continental Philosophy," but in STEM, we should be above that nonsense. I should be able to read code written anywhere in the world and understand what it does. This is the same reason…

Very funny, but no, it's the reason we have one hundred languages instead of a thousand

Re: قلب: a non-ASCII programming language written in Arabic

#152

Post by coldtea » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 10:28 AM UTC

>Code is written entirely in Arabic, highlighting cultural biases of computer science and challenging the assumptions we make about programming.

There are lots of "cultural biases in computer science" -- in UI, neural network training, encodings, terms of service, etc.

Of all of them, this is the least helpful, and the least important.

It's like doing math in local notation, or translating latin/greek terms doctors all over the world are trained and understand, with regional varieties.

There's a reason why e.g. air traffic control speaks english no matter the ethnicity (as per the ICAO standard).

(And I don't mean programming language terminology / modifiers has to be english for any special reason. It could just as well have been French or whatever. But it has to be a single one, and english is already used for that purpose).

And I'm no native english speaker, so I don't say this as one.

Re: قلب: a non-ASCII programming language written in Arabic

#153

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 10:29 AM UTC

tanilama wrote: post #64

Animats wrote: post #3

Oh, it's just an art project. We haven't yet seen a serious non-English programming language. One would have expected one in Chinese or Japanese by now. There was COBOL in French, once, with French words and word order, but it never caught on, even in Francophone countries.

Never understand why non English programming language would exist except for identity politics reason, nowadays. It is not like using non English languages would change paradigm programming itself.

[deleted]

Re: قلب: a non-ASCII programming language written in Arabic

#154

Post by kuschku » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 10:30 AM UTC

eru wrote: post #117

Fordec wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Originally it was a Anglicization of "für" in German first used in a programming language called Superplan which was then picked up upon by FORTRAN and then it just stuck

Well, that doesn't really solve the mystery. The German "für" doesn't have any closer connection with loops than English "for".

e.g. in Sums or Products, with

$$ Σ_(i=0)^(20) x² $$

you'd actually pronounce that as "summe für i = 0 bis 20 von x²", which is a good argument for where it might be from.

Re: قلب: a non-ASCII programming language written in Arabic

#155

Post by coldtea » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 10:31 AM UTC

johnisgood wrote: post #137

pgcj_poster wrote: post #135

This is at best useless, and at worst harmful. If we start using languages other than English for code, then we'll end up balkanizing the software world. People in humanities departments can talk about things like "Chinese Poetry" and "Continental Philosophy," but in STEM, we should be above that nonsense. I should be able to read code written anywhere in the world and understand what it does. This is the same reason…

I think Lojban is the only language that could work (not just for computers but humans as well). I do not see it happening anytime soon though. For anyone who does not know what Lojban is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban#Applications would be a great starting point. :)

>I think Lojban is the only language that could work (not just for computers but humans as well)

What about humans who like to think in a language whose idioms, history, etc match their culture?

Heck, human languages even adapt to the climate (e.g. warmer areas having more vowel sounds, cold areas optimizing for shorter/less open mouth exposed to cold air, etc).

Plus there is some naivety in the idea that humans need or want a "logical and unambiguous structure". We need it for some things (math, STEM), but we seek more freedom to be ambiguous in other things -- and in fact it can be essential to the very civilization to be able to be so (for diplomatic reasons, civility, psychological, etc).

Re: قلب: a non-ASCII programming language written in Arabic

#156

Post by ComodoHacker » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 10:31 AM UTC

pgcj_poster wrote: post #135

This is at best useless, and at worst harmful. If we start using languages other than English for code, then we'll end up balkanizing the software world. People in humanities departments can talk about things like "Chinese Poetry" and "Continental Philosophy," but in STEM, we should be above that nonsense. I should be able to read code written anywhere in the world and understand what it does. This is the same reason…

There ARE successful (used in production) languages with non-English syntax.

You're just saying "Everyone should use Chrome, otherwise the web would be balkanized". Or, taking it to the extreme, "every book in the world should be written in English".

>I should be able to read code written anywhere in the world and understand what it does

You are, but no one promised "without any effort". Almost every developer of not English-speaking origin put that effort, why shouldn't you?

>You wouldn't be able to contribute to an open source project unless it happened to be written in a language that you knew

You've just described the status quo.

Re: قلب: a non-ASCII programming language written in Arabic

#157

Post by ErotemeObelus » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 10:32 AM UTC

throwaway_bad wrote: post #51

lifthrasiir wrote: post #6

Retrofitting an existing language with flexible syntax (in this case, LISP) to non-English languages is relatively easy. They are not necessarily bad and can be useful for learners and casual users, but deviating from ASCII alone doesn't remove a cultural bias as the OP states. Programming languages have to be developed from scratch to fit to other spoken languages and cultures in my opinion. I'm aware of multiple (n…

Now that I think about it, languages that aren't subject-verb-object probably find OOP insane. I tried to find an example of this and found a somewhat related article about how Japanese grammar maps nicely onto ruby: https://thoughtbot.com/blog/learning-japanese-the-rubyist-wa...

No. Object-oriented programming is not about syntax but rather is a generalization of functional programming. Functions are objects too: they have a domain and codomain as fields and implement the return ane call methods.

Re: قلب: a non-ASCII programming language written in Arabic

#158

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 10:33 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #155

johnisgood wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Lojban is the only language that could work (not just for computers but humans as well). I do not see it happening anytime soon though. For anyone who does not know what Lojban is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban#Applications would be a great starting point. :)

> I think Lojban is the only language that could work (not just for computers but humans as well) What about humans who like to think in a language whose idioms, history, etc match their culture? Heck, human languages even adapt to the climate (e.g. warmer areas having more vowel sounds, cold areas optimizing for shorter/less open mouth exposed to cold air, etc). Plus there is some naivety in the idea that humans nee…

[deleted]

Re: قلب: a non-ASCII programming language written in Arabic

#159

Post by skavi » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 10:33 AM UTC

ComodoHacker wrote: post #156

pgcj_poster wrote: post #135

This is at best useless, and at worst harmful. If we start using languages other than English for code, then we'll end up balkanizing the software world. People in humanities departments can talk about things like "Chinese Poetry" and "Continental Philosophy," but in STEM, we should be above that nonsense. I should be able to read code written anywhere in the world and understand what it does. This is the same reason…

There ARE successful (used in production) languages with non-English syntax. You're just saying "Everyone should use Chrome, otherwise the web would be balkanized". Or, taking it to the extreme, "every book in the world should be written in English". >I should be able to read code written anywhere in the world and understand what it does You are, but no one promised "without any effort". Almost every developer of not…

they are joking.

Re: قلب: a non-ASCII programming language written in Arabic

#160

Post by mattigames » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 10:35 AM UTC

We already have like 100 hundred programming languages, adding localization to the tokens of each one would grow that to say least 1000; the human race doesn't need more excuses to create divisions among us, it actually needs the opposite. I already hate with a passion the Stackoverflow version on my native language (Spanish), the answers are always subpar (or just missing) to their English counterpart due being such a small website.