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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

#501

Post by knolax »

jcelerier wrote: post #270
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…

that's certainly funny up to the day where you have to debug a codebase where all the function names and comments are in japanese. Also, I lost so much time searching for issues in badly-localized error messages that I nowadays just set my computers in english even though it's not my main language. It's just more efficient.

In the current status quo your nightmare scenario (having to debug a codebase with comments in a diffeeent language) is precisely the everyday reality for non-English speaking devs. A Japanese dev could easily make the same comment as you, the difference being he actually has to deal with situation in question on a daily basis.

You could make the argument that English is the "lingua franca" but the phrase itself demonstrates just how ephemeral that is. I've lived in places before where a generation ago Russian was taught as a "lingua franca". Nowadays you would be hard-pressed to find anybody with a good understanding of Russian (good enough to understand technical documentation) there, even amongst ethnic Russians.

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

#502

Post by merlincorey »

mhd wrote: post #119
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.

As many other said, with the usual amount of keywords it's really not worth it. It's a bit like Italian words for musical theory. International communication beats the slight learning curve by far. Now, if the natural language has some influence on the semantics of the programming language, it might be useful enough. Doubt it, as most natural languages' grammar is way harder than either English or your average progra…

Speaking of Klingon and natural language influencing programming language semantics, I believe var'aq[0] is said to be structured the way it is to better follow the Klingon grammar. It also supports both English and Klingon keywords, which I think is an important compromise.

We already know that powerful programming languages can be built with non-ASCII characters in mind -- see APL, for example.

However, we also know that the difficulties of typing these languages without special keyboard support have led to a variety of more English in ASCII language successors such as J/K/L.

[0] https://esolangs.org/wiki/Var%27aq

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

#503

Post by make3 »

thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #344
fxj wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is valid python3, try it out. 數字 = 23 運行 = True 假 = False 整數=int 輸入=input 印出=print while 運行: 猜測 = 整數(輸入('輸入一個數字: ')) if 猜測 == 數字: 印出('恭喜, 你猜對了.') 運行 = 假 # 這會讓循環語句結束 elif 猜測 See: http://reganmian.net/blog/2008/11/21/chinese-python-translat...

You can write Perl in Latin or Klingon: Latin from https://metacpan.org/pod/release/DCONWAY/Lingua-Romana-Perli... : use Lingua::Romana::Perligata; adnota Illud Cribrum Eratothenis maximum tum val inquementum tum biguttam tum stadium egresso scribe. da meo maximo vestibulo perlegementum. maximum comementum tum novumversum egresso scribe. meis listis conscribementa II tum maximum da. dum damentum nexto listis decapita…

I love the Latin one, looks like a magical incantation :)

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

#504

Post by knolax »

rtkwe wrote: post #367
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…

All that said I think there are benefits to confining languages principally to Latin script or making some kind of direct transliteration utility to Latin script since it's the language for ~70% of the worlds population [0]. It's very hard to learn to read and even more importantly hard to type in a different script. [0] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-world-s-most-popular...

If you can't even figure out how to switch Input Methods I don't think you're going to have good luck programming either.

I also think you're conflating ASCII with the Latin Script. ASCII is easy to type and read, but anything outside of that range probably presents just as many burdens as say Tamil or Korean. The majority of Latin script languages however, are not limited to ASCII (for example é，ü, or €, which I ironically had to switch to a CJK Input method to type) making your "~70%" closer to whatever the population of native English speakers is.

The "let's make things marginally easy for the majority at the expense robustness in a way where the benefits don't even approach the drawbacks" attitude is how we get things like NodeJS where we have people writing desktop apps in JS b/c the webdevs are more familiar with it at the expense of everyone running massive, slow, and vulnerable apps with 900 different libraries all downloaded from shady sources.

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

#505

Post by sudosteph »

sildur wrote: post #436
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…

Sí, tienes razón. Deberíamos extender eso y expresarnos cada uno en nuestro idioma. La experiencia va a ser enriquecedora y seguramente no vamos a encontrar pegas.

Jes! Kaj se oni ne povas kompreni , tiam ni cxiuj povas lerni la lingvo universala, Esperanto. Nun ni povas skribi malbone en du o plus lingvoj! Tio estas plejbona de el plejbona.

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

#506

Post by knolax »

rtkwe wrote: post #397
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't really that hard to learn to read a different script, unless it's logographic. A solid week of study at the outside and then it is just a matter of practice to get faster.

Arabic is pretty rough because there's a lot of rules about how letters change based on the letters around them. Also it reverts me back to hunt and peck mode for a long time until I learn the new layout which will be a while if I'm just using it for programming.

> it reverts me back to hunt and peck mode for a long time

I don't see how that's a problem with Arabic specifically. The same would happen if you switched to typing English in Dvorak.

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

#507

Post by gkfasdfasdf »

egdod wrote: post #492
gkfasdfasdf wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is scratch a dead-end language? It's not used for anything production grade, and it can't be modified in vi because it requires a gui of all things!

Yet millions of children (and adults) learn about programming through scratch and create amazing things. It is not a dead-end language.

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

#508

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

schwartzworld wrote: post #389
johnisgood wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something about non-English comments in source code is really off-putting. That, and if you generally do want people to understand, then you should use English. If that does not matter to you, or someone else, then do not.

> That, and if you generally do want people to understand, then you should use English What if the people you want to understand aren't English speakers?

Surprisingly (at least to me) when I had this discussion online in the past the biggest pushback I got against using another language in code was from non-native speakers. They all were highly comfortable, and preferred, that their "work language" was English.

For better or for worse, the world has settled on English as the lingua franca for business.

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

#509

Post by bradhe »

saalweachter wrote: post #411
DeusExMachina wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Programming in a foreign language is a pretty significant barrier. Not really. I learned programming when I was 14, far before learning English. How many English constructs do you have in a programming language? Func, var, for, if, else, import, etc. You can memorize those in no time, especially if you do that as you learn programming. Documentation and textbooks are a different thing, of course. But I learned prog…

This language is slightly more interesting for being Arabic than (say) German or Greek. You're got three barriers between the learner and the language: unknown keywords, unfamiliar letters, and the wrong LTR/RTL order. It all adds up to where, boy, it would be intimidating for me to learn this language, as someone who already knows how to program. Doesn't that imply it would be equally intimidating for someone who on…

Perhaps we should try asking someone who actually speaks, reads, and writes Arabic how big of a barrier this is before we jump to conclusions...
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