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Italian Ruby

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Re: Italian Ruby

#41

Post by [deleted] »

Kreotiko wrote: post #35
seek3r wrote: post #32

The thing is most Italian schools don’t do a great job at teaching English [1]. Students either pay for courses, self-study, or forget. I’m Italian and I don’t agree with the author’s premise that non-native speakers have an additional translation layer (e.g. Italian -> English -> Ruby). It depends on your knowledge of the English language. As you master the language your brain becomes better at context switching; yo…

You simply can’t be effective in programming without knowing English. Having few words translated in your language wouldn’t help much. Moreover it is much easier to learn English than learning how to code.

[deleted]

Re: Italian Ruby

#42

Post by TulliusCicero »

browsergap wrote: post #16

Only ~5% of Earth speaks English natively. Another 15% speak it as an nth language. I think English based programming is an anomaly that came out of the post-WWII US/UK cultural world order, and from that sustained economic boom came modern computers, languages and the internet to a mass market. 20% of the world speaks Mandarin Chinese (not all as a first language tho). And, about the same % as speak English natively…

Programming and English a natural match, no. Programming and a global language, or the global language as a natural match, maybe.

There's nothing super special within English itself that makes it particularly well suited for programming, but the fact that it's the global language of business, tourism, air travel, diplomacy, etc. makes a good case for it. English has far, far more non-native speakers than any other language.

Re: Italian Ruby

#43

Post by StavrosK »

Kreotiko wrote: post #35
seek3r wrote: post #32

The thing is most Italian schools don’t do a great job at teaching English [1]. Students either pay for courses, self-study, or forget. I’m Italian and I don’t agree with the author’s premise that non-native speakers have an additional translation layer (e.g. Italian -> English -> Ruby). It depends on your knowledge of the English language. As you master the language your brain becomes better at context switching; yo…

You simply can’t be effective in programming without knowing English. Having few words translated in your language wouldn’t help much. Moreover it is much easier to learn English than learning how to code.

> Moreover it is much easier to learn English than learning how to code.

I know many, many people who would disagree.

Re: Italian Ruby

#45

Post by seek3r »

jaclaz wrote: post #23

Also, sometimes, translations have a different (perceived) meaning. A pet peeve of mine is "by default". In Italian it is translated (correctly) "per difetto", and it is "fine" when other people already know the term, but otherways "difetto" is also the translation of "defect", and you will have a tough time explaining to a layman that it is not a "defect" in that other sense. Another "queer" word (I found it in the…

A fun one is: “throwing an error”, which can be translated in “lanciare (launch) un errore” or “tornare (return) un errore” or “causare (cause) un errore”.

Re: Italian Ruby

#46

Post by n0rbwah »

cptwunderlich wrote: post #4

There have been some attempts for localized programming languages. In fact, e.g., MS Excel Macros are localized (e.g., "SUMME()" in german instead of "SUM()"). There is even a Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-English-based_programming_... I'm a bit conflicted. On the one hand, I am all for language diversity and empowering local languages. It may also help novices and very young learners. On the othe…

In France, we have a tool called WinDev which isn't used very much outside of France. It is a proprietary abomination used to create graphical applications (and with sisters tools WebDev and WinDev mobile for web development and mobile development). It completely locks the programmers into their shitty very closed wall garden (for example, you're completely locked into using their own proprietary version control tool and absolutely cannot use an alternative).

Anyway, the coding in their applications is done with their very own proprietary shitty programming language: WLangage (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/WLangage). This language has the particularity of being available in three localizations: English, French and Chinese. And you can mix all three in the same codebase for some extra fun!

It's not very well known outside of France so it's not very surprising that this language isn't cited on the wikipedia page you linked.

Re: Italian Ruby

#47

Post by microcolonel »

remix2000 wrote: post #33

Related stuff: * Claim that word order in Japanese suits ST-style message-passing OOP better than English: https://thoughtbot.com/blog/learning-japanese-the-rubyist-wa... * APL, a language that uses symbols instead of keywords: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language) * Non-English-based PLs on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-English-based_programming_... * How does English proficiency co…

Despite the apparent intrigue, non-English programming languages fail to build on the canon except through bilinguals, and this alone is a good reason not to bother.

Also, correlation between English test proficiency and academic success in programming school is not a clean metric, and does not necessarily measure a correlation between “English proficiency” and “programming mastery”.

Re: Italian Ruby

#48

Post by kapakos »

pizza234 wrote: post #37
seek3r wrote: post #32

The thing is most Italian schools don’t do a great job at teaching English [1]. Students either pay for courses, self-study, or forget. I’m Italian and I don’t agree with the author’s premise that non-native speakers have an additional translation layer (e.g. Italian -> English -> Ruby). It depends on your knowledge of the English language. As you master the language your brain becomes better at context switching; yo…

> We should fix our schools, A large part of the english language problem in the southern Europe (it's not just an italian problem) is cultural. The english language is considerably more embedded in the culture of the northern European countries; for example, there's considerably less dubbing. If Italy stopped dubbing (which will never happen, because it's a tradition), italians would speak a considerably better Engl…

The Germans are dubbing and they usually speak English quite well. My experience with Italian as well as French don’t like to learn or speak English.

Re: Italian Ruby

#49

Post by dividedbyzero »

seek3r wrote: post #32

The thing is most Italian schools don’t do a great job at teaching English [1]. Students either pay for courses, self-study, or forget. I’m Italian and I don’t agree with the author’s premise that non-native speakers have an additional translation layer (e.g. Italian -> English -> Ruby). It depends on your knowledge of the English language. As you master the language your brain becomes better at context switching; yo…

While I agree that decent English skills are a great thing to have in today's world, you can still escape English quite well, at least in Germany, as long as you don't go into IT, scientific research and simliar niches that do require English; it's taught reasonably well in schools, so most people speak at least some English, but I guess most hardly ever need it.

> The technology sector speaks English. You can’t escape this language.

Writing the occasional Excel formula is probably the most advanced thing most people do on their computers, and those are translated. All mainstream smartphone apps and websites are available in German, all mainstream productivity software is available in German, Movies are in German by default, everyday life is conducted in German, work communication is done in German even in large parts of the tech sector. You can live a long, fruitful life and hardly need any English after graduation, I guess. I imagine it's similar in Italy.

Re: Italian Ruby

#50

Post by TulliusCicero »

viraptor wrote: post #34
TulliusCicero wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're definitely being sarcastic.

Well, here's the thing: I heard the same thing from some people I studied with and they were 100% serious.

It's not just what they're saying that gives it away, but how they're saying it. The way they used ALL CAPS in particular is a tell.
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