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قلب: a non-ASCII programming language written in Arabic

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

#521

Post by yorwba »

timerol wrote: post #519
yorwba wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not so much non-Arabic speakers having difficulty dealing with the language, since they're not really the target audience. But if an Arabic speaker tries to use this language to write a program for some specific use case they have, they'll have to work around the complete lack of ecosystem that comes with a novel language in a tiny niche. It's the same reason why Chinese developers haven't banded toget…

As mentioned in the top comment on this article, this is why the software community avoids fractures by programming entirely in FORTRAN. /s Your comment is an argument against any new programming language.

Yes. Any new programming language needs to offer something more than just different syntax if it wants to be used by more than just a handful of people.

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

#522

Post by ralusek »

knolax wrote: post #501
jcelerier wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the current status quo your nightmare scenario (having to debug a codebase with comments in a diffeeent language) is precisely the everyday reality for non-English speaking devs. A Japanese dev could easily make the same comment as you, the difference being he actually has to deal with situation in question on a daily basis. You could make the argument that English is the "lingua franca" but the phrase itself demo…

The internet has changed what it means to be the Lingua Franca. The ubiquity of English language in the largest internet communities and high quality media content would have to have a very strange reason to change. Before, it was simply a function of your colonizer or trading partners.

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

#524

Post by NoodleIncident »

knodi123 wrote: post #432
big_chungus wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an obvious difference; English is still the lingua franca. If you're dealing with anything international, you use it because everyone has a decent shot of knowing it; assuming most oss isn't confined to a single nation, english is still the best choice. Plus, for this reason, other nations are usually much better than America about teaching a foreign language.

> English is still the lingua franca Ironic that in order to say this, you used a latin phrase that translates to "language of the Frankish people".

The fact that the Latin translation doesn't make any sense means that it was an English phrase the whole time, despite its etymology.

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

#525

Post by jacquesm »

opwieurposiu wrote: post #439
jacquesm wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they are. There is a huge difference between having a language as you mother tongue versus having it as a secondary one. My English is reasonably good, I started young (at age 10) and yet, by the time I was 14 or so the programming books I had access to were way over my head. If English had been my first language I would have had a much easier time. It's not about English speakers tolerance, it is all about the…

Semi related question: Did you pick up the word "grok" from reading Stranger in a Strange Land or from somewhere else? That book was so much about the importance of the martian language and how language shapes perception.

> Did you pick up the word "grok" from reading Stranger in a Strange Land or from somewhere else?

Absolutely. Using it wasn't an accident either. The word is used illustratively only in the text, it is never explained.

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

#526

Post by [deleted] »

pgcj_poster wrote: post #135

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…

[deleted]

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

#527

Post by pgcj_poster »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #508
schwartzworld wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That, and if you generally do want people to understand, then you should use English What if the people you want to understand aren't English speakers?

Surprisingly (at least to me) when I had this discussion online in the past the biggest pushback I got against using another language in code was from non-native speakers. They all were highly comfortable, and preferred, that their "work language" was English. For better or for worse, the world has settled on English as the lingua franca for business.

I imagine, however, that you don't hear much from the people who didn't become programmers because their English wasn't good enough.

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

#528

Post by NoodleIncident »

pgcj_poster wrote: post #272
koheripbal wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mo…

I'm not sure that I accept the distinction between technical issues and accessibility issues in the case of programming languages. Any Turing-complete language, given the right tooling, can be used to solve any software problem. Ultimately, we only use languages other than FORTRAN (or even assembly, for that matter) because it's easier.

A grid of rocks in a desert is turing complete. It's not a useful concept for discussing the differences between programming languages, precisely because it's such a low bar.

"Any software problem" includes these two extremely common problems, neither of which has anything to do with Turing completeness:

* It needs to do something fast

* It needs to be written quickly

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

#530

Post by pgeorgi »

astura wrote: post #483
pgeorgi wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The tech community greatly benefits from settling on a lingua franca Maybe we see that in a few years, with everything moving to Chinese. > Imagine if everyone posted on StackExchange using their native tongue. Imagine users going to forums in their own language. People actually do that.

People have been talking about "everything will be moving to Chinese in the next few years" for the last ~20 years.

I'm well aware. But China is also the only country (or even bloc) in the world that's aiming for a fully internal supply chain for high tech. Not sure you can transform basic materials into a laptop (to pick one simple example) at scale without China anymore, but China is on a pretty successful track to do that without anybody else.

Once they get there, I'm not sure they have a lot of motivation left to do high-tech on foreigners' terms and in foreign languages.

While it doesn't follow that "we" need to learn Chinese then, whatever they'll use instead of StackExchange will simply outnumber the English version.

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