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Italian Ruby

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Re: Italian Ruby

#151
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 la…

Taking aside the difficulty of learning the language, which language would be a good replacement? I don’t mean it to be provocative, I’m genuinely curious.

You're asking the wrong person. I don't know that much about languages, and from what I do know, there isn't really an obviously better language, other than maybe a constructed one like Esperanto (but then you get into the whole thing where it's hard to go off a language with so few native speakers).

Re: Italian Ruby

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> translations have a different (perceived) meaning I think the problem you're running into is that you just aren't used to these words. I imagine people having the exact same complaints about a computer "mouse" actually reminding them of the animal or "paste" reminding them of glue, but once you get used to them they just become the terms for things.

Or maybe the problem is that translations are wrong, but appear correct if seen by English speaking person through reverse translations, because literal English-Italian translation mapping for said expressions happen to be robust and consistent within itself, despite being inconsistent with actual Italian language in actual real world context.

> maybe the problem is that translations are wrong

La moda in statistica è il corretto termine classico.

Re: Italian Ruby

#153
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The only use of "per difetto" that existed before a translation of "by default" was ever needed is in the expression "approssimazione per difetto", No, as said it is used in legal matters, example: https://www.brocardi.it/massimario/59534.html And you go tell this Italian professor: http://www.diit.unict.it/users/alongheu/linguaggi/aa0910/lez... The point is that it is actually correct in Italian, if you think about…

OK you were right, it is correct. At first sight this (default = difetto) looked like so many careless anglicisms, where a faint similarity in sound and meaning induces someone into believing it is a translation. And this happens really more than needed in technical texts. My point was that you cannot trust technical people to make good translations, an it is outrageous that a translation is considered correct just b…

> ...like so many careless anglicisms

Actually, I believe the etymological root of "default" is exactly the same as "difetto."

"from Old French defaute (12c.) "fault, defect, failure, culpability, lack, privation," from Vulgar Latin *defallita "a deficiency or failure,"" [1]

The issue is that in English this was then used to mean "failure to pay a loan" (in 1850s) and then someone in the 1960s started using it in computing to mean the option chosen if the user fails chose."

So English just stretched the meaning way beyond the original, so it's no surprise that this new meaning doesn't really match in other languages' cognates for the word.

1. https://www.etymonline.com/word/default

Re: Italian Ruby

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have to be for a global scale, though. Learning programming as a kid, it could be easier when the standard library has functions in the native language. Learning if, while etc are easy as they are just tokens. But the hundreds of functions are hard to look up when one's new and cannot easily understand what a function does based on a foreign description.

I was a kid, what the words meant in English didn't matter much (e.g. i was learning Pascal and it took years until i learned what 'procedure' means), they were essentially symbols. They wouldn't really be helpful. I just had a book in my native language which explained things.

I'm not so sure. At that point, why have programming instructions be words at all? Why not make everything a 3-character symbol?

While you certainly can learn a programming language without any understanding of the keywords, I don't think you can really say that it doesn't help if you do know them. My kid is learning Scratch, and I didn't have to explain to her what the "REPEAT" block would do.

Re: Italian Ruby

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am really stoked for the future of programming languages, when localization is just a matter of translating some words. My experience with localised codebases (in my native language) have been horrifying - like it or not terminology is developed in EN, you either get unnatural sounding "borrow" words and the translation is pointless or worse you get people coining new terminology nobody but them understands. Not…

> I dread every time I see Chinese in a codebase (simply because they are a large enough market to split the dev community) They aren't going to split it, the rest of us will adapt. English was arbitrary, so was French and Latin and Greek before it. Probably in the form of some Romaji-like equivalent (ideograms are too high a bar) but we will start to adopt it. The largest economy dictates the lingua franca because t…

>Probably in the form of some Romaji-like equivalent (ideograms are too high a bar) but we will start to adopt it.

CCP will make you adopt it as-is, or GTFO.

I find it interesting their approach to language compared to Japanese. Modern Japanese borrows so heavily from English, especially if you're doing technical work.

Chinese, at the governments request, hasn't done that. Instead new words are coined as needed. They're keen on protecting the language.

Re: Italian Ruby

#156

No intention to be rude but the Readme page doesn’t seem written by somebody native. I understand that English is basically the only language for technical writing but writing that bad in Italian defies the purpose of this Gem altogether.

It seems fine to me, there is nothing in it that makes me think it was written by a non native speaker.

"l'idea, praticamente, è la stessa di Italian Ruby solo che in filippino."

This is just horrible Italian. It's a slang form and technically incorrect. I honestly don't know how people can write this sort of thing without fear of being seen as ignorant fools.

"la gemma RubyParser che parsa codice Ruby" [...] "patchando il Ruby parser"

"parsare" and "patchare" are anglicist slang terms (ab)used in programming circles. It's the sort of thing that (and I say that as an Italian living in England) just sounds grating. I understand language evolves, but there are Italian words already there for those concepts: to parse can be "analizzare", to patch can be "modificare", "aggiustare", "rimpiazzare".

Italian geeks used to poke fun at the '80s managerial classes and their pointless anglicisms....

"La velocità di processazione e traduzione del sorgente è aumentata di molto."

"processazione" is just not an Italian word - it's the first time I see or hear it, I cannot find it in any dictionary, I guess it's another recent depravation of an English word ("processing"?). In Italian one would use "elaborazione" or "procedimento".

"sappiate che verranno su un sacco di classi e di alias nuovi"

"venire su" (coming up) is, again, slang that you're not supposed to use in writing.

So yeah, the text is likely from a native speaker, but not one particularly well-versed in the language. Which makes the project even more bizarre.

Re: Italian Ruby

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I dread every time I see Chinese in a codebase (simply because they are a large enough market to split the dev community) They aren't going to split it, the rest of us will adapt. English was arbitrary, so was French and Latin and Greek before it. Probably in the form of some Romaji-like equivalent (ideograms are too high a bar) but we will start to adopt it. The largest economy dictates the lingua franca because t…

> English was arbitrary, so was French and Latin and Greek before it. Might be arbitrary but there isn't really a good reason to change. Compared to the past, right now we have way more people than ever before from around the planet being able to communicate in a single language - English might not be everyone's first language, but it is a fine second language (if anything i'm certain that there are way more people s…

right now we have way more people than ever before from around the planet being able to communicate in a single language

My father worked in international trading. He would talk (or Telex) with people in 50 different countries each week. He always said, "English is the international language."

Re: Italian Ruby

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I dread every time I see Chinese in a codebase (simply because they are a large enough market to split the dev community) They aren't going to split it, the rest of us will adapt. English was arbitrary, so was French and Latin and Greek before it. Probably in the form of some Romaji-like equivalent (ideograms are too high a bar) but we will start to adopt it. The largest economy dictates the lingua franca because t…

> English was arbitrary, so was French and Latin and Greek before it. Might be arbitrary but there isn't really a good reason to change. Compared to the past, right now we have way more people than ever before from around the planet being able to communicate in a single language - English might not be everyone's first language, but it is a fine second language (if anything i'm certain that there are way more people s…

Because this is not an arbitrary decision made by someone, but a natural, almost unavoidable process.

Re: Italian Ruby

#159
post #46

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…

I encountered this once in an internship in Switzerland (didn't have to write any, thankfully). Quite the esoteric little platform indeed!

Re: Italian Ruby

#160
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a kid, what the words meant in English didn't matter much (e.g. i was learning Pascal and it took years until i learned what 'procedure' means), they were essentially symbols. They wouldn't really be helpful. I just had a book in my native language which explained things.

I'm not so sure. At that point, why have programming instructions be words at all? Why not make everything a 3-character symbol? While you certainly can learn a programming language without any understanding of the keywords, I don't think you can really say that it doesn't help if you do know them. My kid is learning Scratch, and I didn't have to explain to her what the "REPEAT" block would do.

I came across a reference to such a language in the January 1986 issue of "Computer Language" (I have the magazine right in front of me as I type) and the idea has remained firmly lodged in my brain ever since. Some examples:

    (!i = 0 , 2 .. 15
      r = foobar(i)
    !r = 0)
This sets `i` to be the even values less than 15 and will repeat until the result of `foobar()` is not 0. The expressions on either end are optional.

    ?char = 'x' : result = 'y'
A simple if statement. This can be extended:

    (?m
      = copy : sub(1)
      = find : sub(2)
      = quit : sub(3)
     ?)
Unfortunately, the article is only two pages, and it doesn't cover everything and I've been unable to find anything else about the language, but it was a very cool idea.
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