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Italian Ruby

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Re: Italian Ruby

#31

Post by gmueckl »

viraptor wrote: post #20
makach wrote: post #7

ah, this reminds me of how much JOY I am having using my localized Microsoft Excel. All formulas have been translated to my native language and it's just BLISS to work with. This makes it MUCH easier to search the interweb for my specific formula question. We obviously need much more localization. Particularily in error messages.

I honestly can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. I can think of ways going for specific formula could be both better and worse. The localised error messages are also a double edged sword - if you can solve your own problem based on the message, they're better, but if you need to Google it your chances of finding a solution go down due to fewer hits.

Localized error messages have pretty much been a curse for me every time I encounter non-trivial ones. Quite often they end up being horrible mistranslations of the original text and terminology that make them hard to understand.

I get the need for interface localization, but I prefer no translation to a bad one. And many translations are bad.

Re: Italian Ruby

#32

Post by seek3r »

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; you don’t even notice it anymore (Myers and Cotton, 2002).

We should fix our schools, not translate programming languages. The technology sector speaks English. You can’t escape this language.

[1] https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/conoscenza-dell-inglese-alta...

Re: Italian Ruby

#33

Post by remix2000 »

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 correlate with programming mastery: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277097932_A_CORRELA...

Re: Italian Ruby

#34

Post by viraptor »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #30
viraptor wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. I can think of ways going for specific formula could be both better and worse. The localised error messages are also a double edged sword - if you can solve your own problem based on the message, they're better, but if you need to Google it your chances of finding a solution go down due to fewer hits.

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.

Re: Italian Ruby

#35

Post by Kreotiko »

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.

Re: Italian Ruby

#36

Post by hoseja »

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…

Excel localization is absolute PITA, mainly because there is no easy way to turn it off.

Re: Italian Ruby

#37

Post by pizza234 »

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 English, just because of familiarity.

I'm not sure if there is a realistic improvement that could be applied. I'm not so critical of the italian schools; without significant immersion, it's hard to improve or retain a language meaningfully.

I suspect that a considerable factor of the problem is that Italy is not a significantly cosmopolitan country (intended as amount of "traffic" of international people), so that there is very little exercise (or "immersion", using my previous term).

Re: Italian Ruby

#38

Post by remix2000 »

saint-loup wrote: post #5
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…

Are there any attempts to have it both ways? Like, the source code stays in English but my IDE translates keywords to and from my language.

If you made all keywords fit one character or so and allow selective installation of dictionaries, that would probably also decrease source code form size significantly! That would be great even if you never were to use any language other than English. I’ve played with APL a bit and found out that one can configure Emacs to replace APL’s cryptic symbols with English words using this: https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/PrettySymbol

APL is however not a language that one would consider using seriously.

Re: Italian Ruby

#40

Post by StavrosK »

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…

> 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.

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