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قلب: a non-ASCII programming language written in Arabic

nas.sr

301–310 of 657 posts

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

#301

Retrofitting an existing language with flexible syntax (in this case, LISP) to non-English languages is relatively easy. They are not necessarily bad and can be useful for learners and casual users, but deviating from ASCII alone doesn't remove a cultural bias as the OP states. Programming languages have to be developed from scratch to fit to other spoken languages and cultures in my opinion. I'm aware of multiple (n…

there is chinese python.

http://reganmian.net/blog/2008/11/21/chinese-python-translat...

I bet there are IoT devices out there that use it already.

For example:

#!/usr/bin/env zhpy

# 檔名: while.py

數字 = 23

運行 = 真

當 運行:

    猜測 = 整數(輸入('輸入一個數字: '))


    如果 猜測 == 數字:

        印出 '恭喜, 你猜對了.'

        運行 = 假 # 這會讓循環語句結束

    假使 猜測 
否則:

    印出 '循環語句結束'
印出 '結束'

which translates to:

  #!/usr/bin/env python
  # File name: while.twpy
  number = 23
  running = True
  while running:
    guess = int(raw_input('Enter an integer : '))

    if guess == number:
        print 'Congratulations, you guessed it.'
        running = False # this causes the while loop to stop
    elif guess 

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

#302

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…

that's certainly funny up to the day where you have to debug a codebase where all the function names and comments are in japanese. Also, I lost so much time searching for issues in badly-localized error messages that I nowadays just set my computers in english even though it's not my main language. It's just more efficient.

Yeah I have seen that. It highlights the one weakness of text based code formats - still prevaling for a good reason.

Multiple languages for developers is kind of a fringe case for functionality seen more in importers and fantranslaters.

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

#304
So does having the programming language be in your native tongue affect the actual structure of the code as well? Beyond maybe just lots of yoda conditions, say, would data schemas radically differ from other programming languages because they can be better articulated when spoken aloud?

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

#305
post #285

The truely universal language is math. There are however languages that do not use english words at all. e.g. APL or J. In these languages also localized programs in any language would be possible. For example quicksort in J: qs =: (($:@( #[)) ({~ ?@#)) ^: (1<#)

Came here to find the APL comment, and I agree.

"APL: a non-ASCII programming language written entirely in APL"

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

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to know English to write code. I wrote my first QBasic and Visual Basic programs (one of them was "photo editor") when only foreign language I knew was German (my native is Russian).

I'm really curious now. If you don't mind me asking, how did you learn the meanings of the keywords when they were in a language you didn't understand? Did you have to learn to translate "for", "while", etc into Russian equivalents?

I knew meaning of "if then else", "function", "go", "return", other keywords were just keywords for me - I knew what they do and it was enough.

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

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I should be able to read code written anywhere in the world and understand what it does" You cannot read tons of code written in the 1C language [0] unless you know Russian, but I don't think it's a loss for you or for Russians because it's a scripting language used by a suit of enterprise software dealing mostly with ever changing Russian accounting standards and tax code [1]. At the same time it's economically eff…

My Russian is shitty, but not so shitty to not understand what "govnokod" means :-)

I hoped that someone would notice :)

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

#308

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…

That's exactly why all the HN'ers use JavaScript to write FORTRAN!

Truly a Galaxy-brain move

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

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a reason why e.g. air traffic control speaks english no matter the ethnicity (as per the ICAO standard). Yes. The reason is that air traffic control inherently requires people from different regions and languages to communicate quickly in life or death situations. Ease of being an air-traffic controller is not a primary motivating factor, and getting more diverse input isn't really a useful feature. On the…

> Programming in a foreign language is a pretty significant barrier. Not really. I learned programming when I was 14, far before learning English. How many English constructs do you have in a programming language? Func, var, for, if, else, import, etc. You can memorize those in no time, especially if you do that as you learn programming. Documentation and textbooks are a different thing, of course. But I learned prog…

So if it's not such a huge barrier for a foreign programmer to program in an English-centric computer programming language, surely the same can be said about non-Arabic speakers who might want, or have to deal with this language?

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

#310

If your Arabic-only programming language has an English web page (actually a blog post) it means it's an art project, not a bona fide tool for programmers who want to use Arabic input and/or who prefer Arabic names and keywords.

The way I see it, if its creator made software with it, then it's a bona fide tool for programming. The fact it hasn't yet spread to more developers than those involved in the project doesn't negate its "fide"s or "tool"-ness.

If you made a parser for a scripting language for content for your application, or a DSL for your colleagues to use, would you claim they weren't "bona fide"?

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