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قلب: a non-ASCII programming language written in Arabic

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

#491

Post by this_is_ace »

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 appreciate that this is a joke but I agree with the first paragraph. We should be above this kind of language. It's completely incomprehensible for the vast majority of those that can interpret code. Regardless of where you were educated, or if you were self-educated, why would you want this?

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

#492

Post by egdod »

gkfasdfasdf wrote: post #460
coldtea wrote: post #152

> 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…

This language has the potential to attract native Arabic speakers to programming who may not otherwise take any interest. And who knows what insights or new paradigms they could bring. Lowering the barrier to entry to programming is a good thing.

Many of them might well have wound up programming anyway. And so this language has the potential to shunt them off into a likely dead-end language.

Although, yes, it might be a “gateway drug” kind of thing where they wind up learning more mainstream languages as well. I’m just saying it’s not an obvious and unalloyed win.

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

#493

Post by yorwba »

missosoup wrote: post #464
danpalmer wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about lowering standards, I'm talking about lowering barriers. The difference is that barriers are things that aren't necessary. It is not necessary to be male, white, or English speaking, to be an excellent engineer, and yet those groups are significantly over represented.

> I'm not talking about lowering standards, I'm talking about lowering barriers. One and the same. Making it easier to join a group necessarily lowers the barrier for joining said group which necessarily lowers the standard of said group. There are entire books written about this problem which leads to it being impossible to build large above-average skilled teams. No need to bring identity politics into engineering…

Sure, you can require someone to be fluent in English before you're willing to hire them for your team of programmers (a standard). That doesn't mean people who don't want to work for you should be required to learn English before they can start to learn programming (a barrier).

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

#495

Post by wheres_beef »

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 don't get why this is so controversial. Programming languages should absolutely be in a language that the majority of programmers can understand. Everyone is bringing up the fact that programmers can't understand each others' code; do we really think introducing more languages, whatever they may be, will help that?

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

#496

Post by [deleted] »

johnisgood wrote: post #466
anonymfus wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something about non-English comments in source code is really off-putting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_cringe

I am sorry, what? I do not dismiss my own culture as inferior to the cultures of other countries. Not at all.

[deleted]

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

#497

Post by egypturnash »

jiofih wrote: post #251
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…

While it’s a good joke, in reality it does not compute. “Learning a new language” as in programming language, sits in the days-to-months range, while “learning a new language” as in Arabic takes months-to-years, so you’re building a much, much deeper chasm for others to cross and contribute, even though the source code remains English-based. You can already see this happening with some open source libraries coming fr…

How large is the chasm for a new programmer whose native language is Arabic?

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

#498

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#499

Post by didibus »

I think PLs should have localization features for comments, doc-strings, variable names and function names, etc.

Nothing should link in the actual computer from human readable text. I always wanted a language like that.

You'd create a new function or variable and it'll get assigned a unique ID. And the name is a doc-name same as the doc-string, only for human documentation.

If you had that, you could localize the language pretty easily.

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

#500

Post by gkfasdfasdf »

The negative reactions here claiming that everyone should use English are really disappointing, on hacker news of all places. Nobody is saying we need to rewrite the Linux kernel in Arabic. But a language such as this could be a great tool to introduce programming to people who would otherwise be turned away by the language barrier. What is important is not the keywords for, if else, etc but the concepts of logic and computing. The more humans that can grasp these concepts, the better for all of us. Also who knows what genius lies untapped. Perhaps the next Linus or Knuth will come the streets of Baghdad, as a result of having been introduced into programming by an effort such as this one.
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