On 09/03/2012 00:07, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
But yea, it would be interesting to see a langauge that was based on something very different. A German-based one would be fun. Or even better, something that doesn't use the Latin alphabet, like Japanese or Hebrew or Russian. Or Swahili (which is an awesome-sounding language). Designing/using an Arabic (right-to-left, IIRC) programming language would be a great mind-fuck. Heh one of us should hack up DMD to produce a NihonD, using (or at least allowing) kanji instead of the kanas wherever appropriate :) That'd be both fun to make and to use.
I recall, but have no idea where to start looking for it, reading an article about why English is the only language that works for programming. I think the jist was that its archaic rules allowed any syntax needed to be shoe-horned into place. After all, "grammatical, everything Yoda says, is." Or perhaps it is a relic of lost colonialism that English is good for listing instructions.
Having said that, I'd love to see a programming language that was based on Welsh/Gaelic/Irish/Cornish/Occitan/Catalan, they make for beautiful sounding poetry (no idea what they mean though) and I have a theory that poetic languages would be good for programming in.
Also I think I remember there being a Greek version of C, but it never took off even in Greece.
A...