قلب: a non-ASCII programming language written in Arabic • Hacker News Board

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

#541

Post by saalweachter » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 5:46 PM UTC

ufmace wrote: post #534

bradhe wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps we should try asking someone who actually speaks, reads, and writes Arabic how big of a barrier this is before we jump to conclusions...

Would be good, trouble is, where would we ask such a thing? Nobody would be on HN unless they were fluent enough in English to find it interesting to browse English comments and discussions. Presumably there are some Arabic-only tech forums out there somewhere for people who want to talk about technical things but don't feel comfortable enough with English. But then I suppose there's probably a few of those, all with…

I mean, the existence of the article implies that at least one person who speaks, reads and writes Arabic thought there was a problem (even if they also knew both English and English-based programming languages).

But again, while I can't speak from the Arabic speaker -> "English" PL direction, I'm perfectly capable of speaking for the English speaker -> "Arabic" PL direction.

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

#542

Post by jacquesm » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 5:47 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #539

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…

Given that the average reading level of a US resident (a vast majority of whom speak English as their primary language) is around a 7th grade level, yes, you are still on par with most (US) native English speakers. Even I, a native English speaker, have had issues getting through a number of textbooks. Mostly because it's not English that you have to be proficient with, but the industy-specific jargon and idioms.

As a foreigner you are not competing with the average US resident, you are competing worldwide with all the people that are aiming to learn something about computers.

I can't see what is so hard about recognizing that someone who had a 12 year or so head start (and in some cases more) in the lingua franca of that trade is an advantage.

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

#543

Post by falcolas » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #417

falcolas wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, most non-English countries teach children English in their version of middle school. And most English speakers aren’t like the stereotypical French; English speakers are quite tolerant of both sentence structure mistakes and extreme dialects. They’re not really at that great of a disadvantage.

That's a cascade of unsupported assumptions: have you really never heard someone complaining about non-native speaker's use of English, using it to say they aren't qualified for a job, etc.? “most non-English countries teach children English in their version of middle school” in particular is really dubious unless you're cherry-picking a handful of small, affluent countries. I've known a number of people who moved to…

> have you really never heard someone complaining about non-native speaker's use of English

Similar to the sibling response, only in the case where someone is being racist.

> I've known a number of people who moved to the U.S. from non-English speaking countries and the general trend is that the average is closer to, say, how well most Americans speak Spanish than fluency.

The availability of classes and the fluency learned from those classes are not related metrics. For example, I was able to take German language classes in middle school, but can't speak a lick of German today. It's not because the class was unavailable, but because I didn't apply myself to learning German.

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

#544

Post by gumby » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 5:52 PM UTC

ISL wrote: post #359

jiofih wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it’s a good joke, in reality it does not compute. “Learning a new language” as in programming language, sits in the days-to-months range, while “learning a new language” as in Arabic takes months-to-years, so you’re building a much, much deeper chasm for others to cross and contribute, even though the source code remains English-based. You can already see this happening with some open source libraries coming fr…

For centuries in the sciences, it was essential to know more than one language in order to be able to keep up with developments worldwide. As recently as our parents' generation, it was a graduation requirement for doctorates. That English has become the lingua franca [1] of the world is a recent development. If we would like people to read our documentation, it is reasonable to expect that we should do our best to l…

Universities have only recently (past few decades) started dropping the foreign language requirement for the PhD.

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

#545

Post by pgcj_poster » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 5:57 PM UTC

OptionX wrote: post #515

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…

Ikr? I mean since when does having a lingua franca ever helped any kind of scientific or technical progress? All those people writing in latin and greek despite not being their native language were just sheep trying to fit in. Like that Newton guy, just your typical apple-hipster trying to be one of the "cool kids". I think of myself as eclectic taster of the many fine cultures worldwide and since I just got python t…

It seems that there are two theoretical extremes on this position:

1. All code should be written in English, and no one should ever use any other language in programming.

2. All code should be written in local languages, and no one should should ever use a common language for collaboration.

I say "theoretical" because I've never heard anyone argue anything like the latter point, which you are satirizing here. On the other hand, there are people in this thread who seem to be arguing the former, which I find nearly as ridiculous.

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

#546

Post by Y_Y » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 5:57 PM UTC

codetrotter wrote: post #516

CodeCube wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you mean, --sprache=deutsch

You are all being silly. Obviously we would translate the name of the command itself, and the language would be implied riesenschlange main.py

Frankfurt-am-Main.py

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

#547

Post by Aperocky » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 5:57 PM UTC

thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #344

fxj wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is valid python3, try it out. 數字 = 23 運行 = True 假 = False 整數=int 輸入=input 印出=print while 運行: 猜測 = 整數(輸入('輸入一個數字: ')) if 猜測 == 數字: 印出('恭喜, 你猜對了.') 運行 = 假 # 這會讓循環語句結束 elif 猜測 See: http://reganmian.net/blog/2008/11/21/chinese-python-translat...

You can write Perl in Latin or Klingon: Latin from https://metacpan.org/pod/release/DCONWAY/Lingua-Romana-Perli... : use Lingua::Romana::Perligata; adnota Illud Cribrum Eratothenis maximum tum val inquementum tum biguttam tum stadium egresso scribe. da meo maximo vestibulo perlegementum. maximum comementum tum novumversum egresso scribe. meis listis conscribementa II tum maximum da. dum damentum nexto listis decapita…

It's too sad the latin one is not updated since 2001, I would love to use it to write random personal pieces of code!

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

#548

Post by falcolas » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 5:59 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #542

falcolas wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the average reading level of a US resident (a vast majority of whom speak English as their primary language) is around a 7th grade level, yes, you are still on par with most (US) native English speakers. Even I, a native English speaker, have had issues getting through a number of textbooks. Mostly because it's not English that you have to be proficient with, but the industy-specific jargon and idioms.

As a foreigner you are not competing with the average US resident, you are competing worldwide with all the people that are aiming to learn something about computers. I can't see what is so hard about recognizing that someone who had a 12 year or so head start (and in some cases more) in the lingua franca of that trade is an advantage.

Most of the world doesn't speak English as a primary language. So, I can't imagine it's that big of an advantage in the worldwide market. Instead, there's a certain bar that can be reached by someone without even a 20 year head start.

For example, if I tried to get a programming job in the Ukraine without being able to speak a lick of Russian, I'd be laughed out of the office regardless of how good my English is.

The only time I can see it really mattering is perhaps in the US and UK, due to racist assholes who judge you by your accent instead of your capability.

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

#549

Post by novok » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 5:59 PM UTC

ISL wrote: post #359

jiofih wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it’s a good joke, in reality it does not compute. “Learning a new language” as in programming language, sits in the days-to-months range, while “learning a new language” as in Arabic takes months-to-years, so you’re building a much, much deeper chasm for others to cross and contribute, even though the source code remains English-based. You can already see this happening with some open source libraries coming fr…

For centuries in the sciences, it was essential to know more than one language in order to be able to keep up with developments worldwide. As recently as our parents' generation, it was a graduation requirement for doctorates. That English has become the lingua franca [1] of the world is a recent development. If we would like people to read our documentation, it is reasonable to expect that we should do our best to l…

Latin used to be the language of science & religion in europe too, it's not unprecedented that an industry standardizes on one language in a region.

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

#550

Post by hinkley » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 6:00 PM UTC

jiofih wrote: post #251

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…

While it’s a good joke, in reality it does not compute. “Learning a new language” as in programming language, sits in the days-to-months range, while “learning a new language” as in Arabic takes months-to-years, so you’re building a much, much deeper chasm for others to cross and contribute, even though the source code remains English-based. You can already see this happening with some open source libraries coming fr…

Think about all the bad variable and function names from your ESL coworkers. This stuff matters to me enough that I know I would hate being on a project knowing I'm That Guy.

It does bring to mind that Mathematics isn't really done in 'english', it's a pidgin of latin and arabic symbols (and like most or all pidgins, has some whole-cloth inventions).

Instead of making most people learn a new language, should everyone have to learn a new language? Like they used to teach college in Latin in Europe?

The problem is that the only programming language I know of that tried to be its own language-language was APL and thoughts of coding in that give me nightmares.

UML tried to remove some of the english and fared better than APL but that's a wide chasm to cross and they too ended up at the bottom of it.

We are very, very slowly replacing some text in programming languages with more symbols, and with more parsers accepting Unicode characters for string literals we also should have access to the entire panoply of mathematical and scientific symbols (I'd really love proper multiply, not, and exponents to start, then maybe we can talk about sigma for some reduce operations) but the tipping point into "let's go ahead and remove the rest of the english" seems so far off that I'll probably never see it.