Non-English-based programming languages • Hacker News Board

Re: Non-English-based programming languages

#21

Post by msoad » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 6:06 PM UTC

When I write code, it's code. I don't read it like a human readable text. Because of that, I don't really care what it reads when I try to read it as a human readable text.

For example I don't even think about what it would mean in English if I write

     while(true){ i++; if(i>100) break; }

I'm curious if native English speakers look at code as real English text sometimes? It should be funny, because when I translate my code to my native language(word-by-word) it's just meaningless and funny.

Re: Non-English-based programming languages

#22

Post by dragandj » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 6:16 PM UTC

pshc wrote: post #19

An ambition of mine is a programming language where the program structure is decoupled from its visual/textual appearance (model-view separation). One nice result of this scheme is, for example, you could work on a program in English and another person could collaborate on the exact same source in French. Although I suspect that if this did get written and translated around a lot, many non-English speakers would stil…

I believe that you described lisp :)

Re: Non-English-based programming languages

#23

Post by iano » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 6:17 PM UTC

msoad wrote: post #21

When I write code, it's code. I don't read it like a human readable text. Because of that, I don't really care what it reads when I try to read it as a human readable text. For example I don't even think about what it would mean in English if I write while(true){ i++; if(i>100) break; } I'm curious if native English speakers look at code as real English text sometimes? It should be funny, because when I translate my…

Maybe it depends on the language? I could see something like this in python:

  if not callable(something): make_callable(something)

Which can (sortof) be read off in English.

Re: Non-English-based programming languages

#24

Post by crazygringo » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 6:17 PM UTC

msoad wrote: post #21

When I write code, it's code. I don't read it like a human readable text. Because of that, I don't really care what it reads when I try to read it as a human readable text. For example I don't even think about what it would mean in English if I write while(true){ i++; if(i>100) break; } I'm curious if native English speakers look at code as real English text sometimes? It should be funny, because when I translate my…

For things like "while", "do", "return", "public", "private" I definitely think of it as "real English text".

For things like "for", "wend" (while-end), "class", "switch", "main", they're divorced enough from any real English meaning that I just think of them as arbitrary coding words.

So, it's kind of both, at least for me.

Re: Non-English-based programming languages

#25

Post by crazygringo » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 6:22 PM UTC

guhemama2 wrote: post #3

My rather simplistic view: as a native Portuguese speaker, I strongly refute the idea of programming languages (and even coding) in a language other than English. Besides the obvious reasons (globalized world, outsourcing, multinational corporations, etc), English is much less expressive than the Romance languages [1], which makes it a better formal language. 1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages

As someone who is a native English speaker, but close to native level in Portuguese (lived in Brazil for 8 years), I'm curious what you mean by English being less expressive -- I've never heard that before.

Both languages have their expressive poets, authors, etc. It's easier to rhyme in Portuguese (it's almost like cheating, since the verbs all end in the same syllables), it's easier to modify the grammar classes of words in English (turning nouns into verbs and vice-versa), they both have rich vocabulary (although English seems to give more multiple meanings to individual words, and have more synonyms too). But in the end, I'd never call either of them more expressive than the other...

Re: Non-English-based programming languages

#26

Post by rett12 » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 7:00 PM UTC

lucasrp wrote: post #16

Create a non-English based programming language is very different from translating a english programming language. Different languages have different ways to express time, state, etc. If one translates a english programming language, it will be a translated English based programming language (not a Non-English base...) I`m a native portuguese speaker, for example. In portuguese, we "break" the "to be" verb in two for…

Interesting article, maybe a bit far-fetched towards the end. Correct link:

http://blog.new-bamboo.co.uk/2010/12/17/learning-japanese-th...

Re: Non-English-based programming languages

#27

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 7:01 PM UTC

lucasrp wrote: post #16

Create a non-English based programming language is very different from translating a english programming language. Different languages have different ways to express time, state, etc. If one translates a english programming language, it will be a translated English based programming language (not a Non-English base...) I`m a native portuguese speaker, for example. In portuguese, we "break" the "to be" verb in two for…

[deleted]

Re: Non-English-based programming languages

#28

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 7:02 PM UTC

lucasrp wrote: post #16

Create a non-English based programming language is very different from translating a english programming language. Different languages have different ways to express time, state, etc. If one translates a english programming language, it will be a translated English based programming language (not a Non-English base...) I`m a native portuguese speaker, for example. In portuguese, we "break" the "to be" verb in two for…

[deleted]

Re: Non-English-based programming languages

#29

Post by pshc » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 7:05 PM UTC

dragandj wrote: post #22

pshc wrote: post #19

An ambition of mine is a programming language where the program structure is decoupled from its visual/textual appearance (model-view separation). One nice result of this scheme is, for example, you could work on a program in English and another person could collaborate on the exact same source in French. Although I suspect that if this did get written and translated around a lot, many non-English speakers would stil…

I believe that you described lisp :)

I get the joke :) Although, taken literally, this is not the case. The existence of a variable in Lisp is not decoupled from its human-string-name, as Lisp source is textual. If you were to rename a variable, anything that referred to it (binding sites) would be broken. The human names in Lisp source code are crucial to program execution, unlike, for example, compiled native binaries without dynamic linking.

Re: Non-English-based programming languages

#30

Post by quarterto » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 7:06 PM UTC

I ended up on the (Chinese-language) page for 丙正正¹, a Chinese C++ variant. There was a code example, which I ran through Google Translate to see what would happen. The result is surprisingly readable (and obviously a C-family language)²:

  Empty chess file :: set comments (character * s, integer n)
    {
         If (n> = maximum number of comments)
         For (; maximum number of annotations


¹ http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%99%E6%AD%A3%E6%AD%A3² empty where one might expect void, character, for, string, &c.


    
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