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قلب: a non-ASCII programming language written in Arabic

nas.sr

231–240 of 657 posts

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

#232
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people don't speak English and I think it's main barrier to become a programmer or QA engineer.

Good! We need less shitty software, the fewer people that write it the better. I don't get why you have to be a certified engineer to build a bridge, but you can be some bloke with a 2 weekend course in python to program medical computers, avionics, train scheduling systems and other stuff that kills people when it breaks. Non native speaker btw.

gatekeeper much

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

#233
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Programming languages have to be developed from scratch to fit to other spoken languages and cultures in my opinion. This is really interesting. I wonder if there are some human language with properties that would allow for programming language constructs that we don't really use today. My linguistic skills are not good enough to really suggest an example, but considering there is a language[0] (almost) without rel…

> This is really interesting. I wonder if there are some human language with properties that would allow for programming language constructs that we don't really use today. Ooh, just thought of something interesting: I lived in Turkey for 4 months, and in Turkish, rather than using location to indicate which words modify each other, you use suffixes. (At least, as much as I could figure out in that time.) Then you ca…

There are a lot of languages like this - this is the much-studied spectrum of analytic vs. synthetic.

English is one of the most strongly analytic languages (Chinese being even more extreme) - it determines word relationships and function with word order and helper words.

Whereas Standard Arabic, Ancient Latin, and Finnish are very synthetic, changing words to indicate their function and relationship to other words in the sentence. If your language has the concept of "declensions", it's probably on the synthetic end of the spectrum.

Interestingly, after observing an increase in analyticity over time in European languages, some linguists have hypothesized that analytic languages are easier for foreign speakers to learn as adults, and that this causes languages with lots of geographic spread and inter-language contact to become more and more analytic. With creole languages being of course the most striking example.

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

#234
post #229

Visual Basic for Applications has localized Versions. Here is an Example in german, so why not in arabic? Funktion VorherigerGeschaeftstag(dt Als Datum) Als Datum Dim wd as integer wd = Wochentag(dt) ' Wochentag liefert 1 für Sonntag, 2 für Montag usw. Prüfe Fall wd Fall 1 ' Auf Sonntag wird Datum vom letzten Freitag zurückgegeben VorherigerGeschaeftstag = dt - 2 Fall 2 ' Auf Montag wird Datum vom letzten Freitag zur…

> Dim wd as integer

Ausgelöst

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

#235
post #219

First: That is culturally a very important project I really like. As a German, English was a barrier for me as well (imagine a 15 yo with little English proficiency). But it was just the language, not the letters and symbols. I think the interesting question would be if you could build an IDE replacing keywords, interpunctation, writing order etc on the fly while emitting in the end "standardized" output (aka. Englis…

I think what you want is something similar to Scratch or Snap!, but with keyboard input support[0][1]. Because the programming structure of these languages is not based on text input, that makes it independent of the language it is presented in.The result is that can change the language it is presented in on the fly:

> Scratch, albeit visual, is still a language built around sentence fragments. Instead of using punctuation and assorted ascii art to enchant text into code, the structure and action of a Scratch program is almost as clear as prose. By using natural language fragments instead of magic identifiers in text, Scratch is unique in another aspect — Internationalization — Scratch programs can be built up out of German, French, Chinese, Japanese fragments too.[2]

The main downside to Scratch as a language is having to drag our mouse for many kilometers for complex programs. It is a... well, drag (also more complex data types and such, but Snap! addresses that fairly well).

[0] https://scratch.mit.edu/

[1] https://snap.berkeley.edu/

[2] https://programmingisterrible.com/post/76953953784/programmi...

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

#236
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.

If given an opportunity, the French language police of Québec would have adopted and enforced it in Québec.

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

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do they keep making me post the Bors comic? https://i.imgur.com/SPyfuNz.png

I don't see the connection with this comic, are you suggesting the person walking is you therefore should complain in the universal language to make society stop using such universal language so we can no longer understand you next time you complain?

I will leave the interpretation of the comic as an exercise to the reader.

(Partially because I'm unable to parse what it is you are trying to say in your last comment.)

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

#238
post #227

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…

* https://wordsandbuttons.online/fortran_is_still_a_thing.html "Fortran is not, of course, outdated, and it’s not at all complex. In fact, it has grown into these myths exactly because it is that good at what it does." Just wanted to share some positive FORTRAN vibes...

Yes, of course, in my opinion modern Fortran is awesome.

http://fortranwiki.org/fortran/show/HomePage is worth a check!

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

#239
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people don't speak English and I think it's main barrier to become a programmer or QA engineer.

Good! We need less shitty software, the fewer people that write it the better. I don't get why you have to be a certified engineer to build a bridge, but you can be some bloke with a 2 weekend course in python to program medical computers, avionics, train scheduling systems and other stuff that kills people when it breaks. Non native speaker btw.

Good point. There's just one problem: any moron can still be able to become a programmer if they come from an anglophone country. Therefore, I propose that all companies in English-speaking countries switch to using Linotte[1], which is based on French.

I'm also going to submit a patch to GCC that will require the user to solve a differential equation before their code will compile.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linotte

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

#240

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…

Im not sure your analogy holds ground.

Different programming languages are created try to solve limitations in existing programming langs.

Writing it in a different ascii character set isn't solving any technical issue - it's solving an accessibility issue, but compounding the problem of compatibility tremendously.

Obviously there is a efficient middle ground between accessibility and compatibility.

It's great for more people to be able to code. It's also great to be able to read code written by someone else across the world.

There is both pain and wisdom in standardization.

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