Re: [go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[Michael Jones]

'carcer' is the word. jail/gaol are just johnny-come-lately.

On Sat, May 18, 2019 at 9:43 AM David Riley  wrote:

> On May 18, 2019, at 05:59, ma...@madra.net wrote:
>
> On Saturday, 18 May 2019 00:44:33 UTC+1, Rob 'Commander' Pike wrote:
>>
>> jail is a clear improvement over the ludicrous gaol...
>>
>
> I hadn't actually realised that GAOL vs JAIL was a British vs. US English
> distinction. I thought 'Gaol' was just an archaic spelling of 'Jail', as
> I've only ever come across it in C19th and earlier literature. Even over
> this side of the pond, 'Jail' is used pretty exclusively. Although we
> mostly call it 'Prison' :-)
>
>
> This is OT for the list, but: I think it’s more the latter (an archaism
> rather than a regional distinction; jail is basically universal here
> because we started later).
>
> We do, however, tend to distinguish somewhat between “jail” and “prison”;
> the short version is that jail is temporary holding while awaiting trial,
> while prison is more permanent punitive containment post-sentencing. I’m
> not sure if that distinction exists as much overseas, and in colloquial US
> English, saying that someone is “in jail” is often used for both situations
> (I, myself, enjoy our more colorful slang such as “in the pokey” or “up the
> river”).
>
>
> - Dave
>
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-- 

*Michael T. jonesmichael.jo...@gmail.com *

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Re: [go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[David Riley]

On May 18, 2019, at 05:59, ma...@madra.net wrote:
> 
>> On Saturday, 18 May 2019 00:44:33 UTC+1, Rob 'Commander' Pike wrote:
>> jail is a clear improvement over the ludicrous gaol...
> 
> I hadn't actually realised that GAOL vs JAIL was a British vs. US English 
> distinction. I thought 'Gaol' was just an archaic spelling of 'Jail', as I've 
> only ever come across it in C19th and earlier literature. Even over this side 
> of the pond, 'Jail' is used pretty exclusively. Although we mostly call it 
> 'Prison' :-)

This is OT for the list, but: I think it’s more the latter (an archaism rather 
than a regional distinction; jail is basically universal here because we 
started later).

We do, however, tend to distinguish somewhat between “jail” and “prison”; the 
short version is that jail is temporary holding while awaiting trial, while 
prison is more permanent punitive containment post-sentencing. I’m not sure if 
that distinction exists as much overseas, and in colloquial US English, saying 
that someone is “in jail” is often used for both situations (I, myself, enjoy 
our more colorful slang such as “in the pokey” or “up the river”).


- Dave

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[go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[Jakub Labath]

Back in the 90ies someone at Microsoft had the brilliant idea to translate 
Visual Basic that came with the Czech version of Excel into Czech.

So e.g. IF became KDYZ (well it's not Z it's Z with caron - which also was 
a problem if character encoding was not set properly)

The results were that no one was able to re-use any code or documentation 
to learn it. It created numerous problems for IT support as any macros 
written in English were broken.

So in the end rather than creating an army of Czech visual basic 
programmers we were specifically requesting English version of the software 
to replace the Czech ones.

Let's not do that ever again I say.

On Monday, April 29, 2019 at 5:36:37 AM UTC, Chris Burkert wrote:
>
> I recently read an article (German) about the dominance of English in 
> programming languages [1]. It is about the fact that keywords in a language 
> typically are English words. Thus it would be hard for non English speakers 
> to learn programming - argue the authors.
>
> I wonder if there is really demand for that but of course it is weird to 
> ask that on an English list.
>
> I also wonder if it would be possible on a tooling level to support 
> keywords in other languages e.g. via build tags: // +language german
>
> Besides keywords we have a lot of names for functions, methods, structs, 
> interfaces and so on. So there is definitely more to it.
>
> While such a feature may be beneficial for new programmers, to me it comes 
> with many downsides like: readability, ambiguous naming / clashes, global 
> teams ...
>
> I also believe the authors totally miss the point that learning Go is 
> about to learn a language as it is because it is the language of the 
> compiler.
>
> However I find the topic interesting and want to hear about your opinions.
>
> thanks - Chris
>
> 1: 
>
> https://www.derstandard.de/story/2000101285309/programmieren-ist-fuer-jeden-aber-nur-wenn-man-englisch-spricht
>

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Re: [go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[madra]

On Saturday, 18 May 2019 00:44:33 UTC+1, Rob 'Commander' Pike wrote:
>
> jail is a clear improvement over the ludicrous gaol...
>

I hadn't actually realised that GAOL vs JAIL was a British vs. US English 
distinction. I thought 'Gaol' was just an archaic spelling of 'Jail', as 
I've only ever come across it in C19th and earlier literature. Even over 
this side of the pond, 'Jail' is used pretty exclusively. Although we 
mostly call it 'Prison' :-)

 

> ...with similar favorable positions taken on draft/draught etc.. 
>
...Australia is closer to Britain but sticks with jail and tire...
>

I don't see why the American reforms are necessarily "Favo[u]rable".  In a 
lot of cases, the US spelling actually causes conflict with an existing 
English word, where in British English there is no ambiguity.  You've 
mentioned two already.  TIRE/TYRE and DRAFT/DRAFT. Just think how much 
potential for confusion is avoided by retaining the British English 
spellings in the following:

1: My car was tired so I had it retyred.
2: A sudden draught blew away my draft 

Programme is just something that came out of the blue, from Scotland I 
> believe, replacing the older program again relatively recently


PROGRAM[ME] is another interesting one. As we [sort of!] have both versions 
in British English. Likewise with DISC/DISK

On television we have PROGRAMMES. At the opera or a football [not Soccer!] 
match, you might buy a PROGRAMME but it's generally considered the norm to 
run a PROGRAM on a computer.

In the same vein, you might admire the DISC of the moon or buy the tax DISC 
for your car or play your music on a compact DISC. But you'll have a DISK 
drive in your computer.  

[Though thankfully the abolition of the Tax Disc, the obsolescence of the 
DC and the advent of the SSD is gradually removing this discrepancy]

On Saturday, 18 May 2019 03:32:42 UTC+1, K.S. Bhaskar wrote:
>
> And let's not forget Indian English - between the countries in the Indian 
> Sub-continent (India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh)...
>

As far as I'm aware the Indian sub-continent officially retains the British 
English spellings. I think you're referring more to regional differences in 
dialect there. That's a whole other can of worms!

Even within the tiny British Isles, there are huge differences in dialects 
of English spoken in different regions. I think people in the US who've 
never visited the British Isles and are only used to hearing that slightly 
artificial and bland-sounding, carefully enunciated "British Accent" that 
most actors from this part of the world seem to adopt when starring in US 
made television and films would probably be shocked to find themselves 
suddenly dumped in the middle of Belfast, Glasgow, Liverpool, Birmingham, 
Dublin, London's East End, etc and trying to follow a conversation amongst 
the locals.

Another thing that I hadn't realised, until I read that article I linked to 
on Noah Webster was that the existing reforms in US spelling were actually 
a much-watered down version of what he had originally intended.  This 
probably explains why they're an odd mixture of [he grudgingly admitted] 
logical changes, such transposing the RE to ER on the end of CENTRE with 
illogical ones such as retaining the C at the beginning, rather than 
replacing it with an S.  

Apparently, if Noah had got his way, it would  have been SENTER but he 
watered down his suggested reforms in the face of public ridicule. Thus 
leaving you Americans with a job only half-done.  Which, I suppose, in a 
way, is why from a British English point of view the differences in 
American English can often seem a bit random and arbitrary.

Tune in same time next week when the topic for discussion will be "Why is 
the American date format so illogical?"  Although I suspect that, on a 
mailing list comprised of coders, that one will be less controversial.

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Re: [go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[K.S. Bhaskar]

And let's not forget Indian English - between the countries in the Indian 
Sub-continent (India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh), that should add up to 
another couple hundred million at least, with its own peculiarities like 
"Horn OK Tata" on the back of every truck (sorry, lorry). Interestingly, 
those dialects have not made their mark on any programming language, 
despite the large number of people of Indian ancestry in the software 
business.

Regards
- Bhaskar

On Friday, May 17, 2019 at 7:44:33 PM UTC-4, Rob 'Commander' Pike wrote:
>
> It is of course more complicated than most people believe. The right is 
> often wrong; the wrong often has long precedence. The British -ise ending 
> is an early 20th century misguided respelling based on invalid theories of 
> etymology. Programme is just something that came out of the blue, from 
> Scotland I believe, replacing the older program again relatively recently 
> (the occasional American pronunciation that rhymes with pogrom is a 
> catastrophe of its own). And so on and so on. What is perceived as British 
> and correct is often felt worthy through its Britishness but is in fact 
> more recently constructed than, for instance theater replacing theatre.
>
> Webster did indeed drop the colourful u's, with good reason (we are not 
> French), and jail is a clear improvement over the ludicrous gaol, with 
> similar favorable positions taken on draft/draught etc., but most of his 
> adjustments never caught on as canon, thru being the closest to making it. 
> Most of his attempts died on his tung (sic).
>
> Canada mostly follows the American (-ize, jail, tire, etc.) but keeps the 
> French u's and re's. Australia is closer to Britain but sticks with jail 
> and tire. I'm sure every English speaking country has its own set, and each 
> is valid in place.
>
> Language is rich, English orthography perhaps richest of all. Don't cast 
> aspersions, just be consistent. Most of all, don't believe that the Brits 
> are always "proper".
>
> The Go team's spelling standard honors the modern American style. It needs 
> to pick something to be consistent, but you are of course free to do as you 
> will in your own world, and you should.
>
> -rob
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, May 18, 2019 at 8:08 AM Michael Jones  > wrote:
>
>> In addition to being a daily Go programmer, I'm also a corporate 
>> executive in the US and a venture investment partner in the UK. This has me 
>> constantly surrounded by "proper" English and has made me very aware of the 
>> linguistic habits of my American upbringing. It seems that I've become an 
>> amalgam of the two, I say that "I was in hospital" for example, but name 
>> variables 'color' -- the result earning awkward glances on both sides of 
>> the Atlantic. My ear now prefers English English, in part from my love of 
>> the character of English people.
>>
>> On Fri, May 17, 2019 at 2:07 PM stíobhart matulevicz > > wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> I know that a lot of what we think of as "American English"  words are 
>>> actually archaic forms of early 'English English'. Words like "gotten" 
>>> instead of "got", for example. But there's also a lot of blame or credit 
>>> (depending on your point of view) for the differences to be laid at the 
>>> door of a certain Mr. Noah Webster:
>>>
>>>
>>> https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/amp/2018/05/07/noah-webster-american-identity-simplified-spelling-movement/
>>>
>>> I was kind of half-joking in my original post.  But, as someone who 
>>> considers himself highly literate,  I do actually find it does grate a 
>>> bit,  having to (from my point of view) deliberately spell words wrong, 
>>> when I'm coding. 
>>>
>>> I get my revenge in the code comments though,  where I resolutely stick 
>>> to "colour", "centre", "programme", etc.
>>>
>>> I wonder if I'm am isolated case,  or whether any other native English 
>>> speakers are slightly irked by having to code in "bad spelling" too?
>>>
>>>
>>> On 17 May 2019 21:26:29 Michael Jones > 
>>> wrote:
>>>
 I know that you joke here, but I had an interesting dinner conversation 
 in London last year with erudite, scholarly friends who shared with me 
 that 
 recent research supports a different view of the "barbaric Americanised 
 false English" that is the prevailing sentiment you share. 

 According to the scholars they mentioned, "American English" is indeed 
 a true, pure, "real" English; just one from a time-capsule, an English 
 from 
 1776 that did not advance significantly since American independence. This 
 view suggests that were a BBC presenter and an American to travel back to 
 meet with King George, it would be the American who sounded "right" and 
 not 
 the other way around.

 This time-capsule argument is not an argument against modern evolved 
 English, but it is an interesting notion of a living language in the 
 homeland might become a historical artifact through cargo culting in the 

Re: [go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[Rob Pike]

According to my Macquarie dictionary, the word in local use is jail but the
established institutions still use the old spelling on their edifices.

MacQ backs you on 'tyre', but I have seen 'tire' a lot as well.

It continues to evolve.

-rob




On Sat, May 18, 2019 at 10:08 AM Dan Kortschak  wrote:

> On Sat, 2019-05-18 at 09:43 +1000, Rob Pike wrote:
> > Australia is closer to Britain but sticks with jail
> > and tire.
>
> I don't think this is true Australia wide - in Melbourne and Adelaide
> (my home cities), I have always seen gaol and tyre.
>
> > I'm sure every English speaking country has its own set, and each
> > is valid in place.
>
> And also at a finer resolution.
>

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Re: [go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[Dan Kortschak]

On Sat, 2019-05-18 at 09:43 +1000, Rob Pike wrote:
> Australia is closer to Britain but sticks with jail
> and tire.

I don't think this is true Australia wide - in Melbourne and Adelaide
(my home cities), I have always seen gaol and tyre.

> I'm sure every English speaking country has its own set, and each
> is valid in place.

And also at a finer resolution.

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Re: [go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[Dan Kortschak]

:)

In Gonum source/text, we have a policy of ASE in user-facing
documentation, but all my internal comments and commit messages are
written in BE (though read by me in AuE). We also avoid usages that are
ambigiguous when read in BE/AuE or grammatically incorrect when read in
those dialects (the best example of this is alternate/alternate for
alternate/alternative where this is a reduction in the semantic space
in ASE).

On Fri, 2019-05-17 at 09:20 -0700, ma...@madra.net wrote:
> Spare a thought for those of us who actually speak and write
> 'proper' 
> English and not that American version used in all programming
> languages.
> 
> We get to write in our own language but have to remember to spell
> half the 
> words wrong!
> 
> > 
> > 

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Re: [go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[Rob Pike]

It is of course more complicated than most people believe. The right is
often wrong; the wrong often has long precedence. The British -ise ending
is an early 20th century misguided respelling based on invalid theories of
etymology. Programme is just something that came out of the blue, from
Scotland I believe, replacing the older program again relatively recently
(the occasional American pronunciation that rhymes with pogrom is a
catastrophe of its own). And so on and so on. What is perceived as British
and correct is often felt worthy through its Britishness but is in fact
more recently constructed than, for instance theater replacing theatre.

Webster did indeed drop the colourful u's, with good reason (we are not
French), and jail is a clear improvement over the ludicrous gaol, with
similar favorable positions taken on draft/draught etc., but most of his
adjustments never caught on as canon, thru being the closest to making it.
Most of his attempts died on his tung (sic).

Canada mostly follows the American (-ize, jail, tire, etc.) but keeps the
French u's and re's. Australia is closer to Britain but sticks with jail
and tire. I'm sure every English speaking country has its own set, and each
is valid in place.

Language is rich, English orthography perhaps richest of all. Don't cast
aspersions, just be consistent. Most of all, don't believe that the Brits
are always "proper".

The Go team's spelling standard honors the modern American style. It needs
to pick something to be consistent, but you are of course free to do as you
will in your own world, and you should.

-rob




On Sat, May 18, 2019 at 8:08 AM Michael Jones 
wrote:

> In addition to being a daily Go programmer, I'm also a corporate executive
> in the US and a venture investment partner in the UK. This has me
> constantly surrounded by "proper" English and has made me very aware of the
> linguistic habits of my American upbringing. It seems that I've become an
> amalgam of the two, I say that "I was in hospital" for example, but name
> variables 'color' -- the result earning awkward glances on both sides of
> the Atlantic. My ear now prefers English English, in part from my love of
> the character of English people.
>
> On Fri, May 17, 2019 at 2:07 PM stíobhart matulevicz 
> wrote:
>
>>
>> I know that a lot of what we think of as "American English"  words are
>> actually archaic forms of early 'English English'. Words like "gotten"
>> instead of "got", for example. But there's also a lot of blame or credit
>> (depending on your point of view) for the differences to be laid at the
>> door of a certain Mr. Noah Webster:
>>
>>
>> https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/amp/2018/05/07/noah-webster-american-identity-simplified-spelling-movement/
>>
>> I was kind of half-joking in my original post.  But, as someone who
>> considers himself highly literate,  I do actually find it does grate a
>> bit,  having to (from my point of view) deliberately spell words wrong,
>> when I'm coding.
>>
>> I get my revenge in the code comments though,  where I resolutely stick
>> to "colour", "centre", "programme", etc.
>>
>> I wonder if I'm am isolated case,  or whether any other native English
>> speakers are slightly irked by having to code in "bad spelling" too?
>>
>>
>> On 17 May 2019 21:26:29 Michael Jones  wrote:
>>
>>> I know that you joke here, but I had an interesting dinner conversation
>>> in London last year with erudite, scholarly friends who shared with me that
>>> recent research supports a different view of the "barbaric Americanised
>>> false English" that is the prevailing sentiment you share.
>>>
>>> According to the scholars they mentioned, "American English" is indeed a
>>> true, pure, "real" English; just one from a time-capsule, an English from
>>> 1776 that did not advance significantly since American independence. This
>>> view suggests that were a BBC presenter and an American to travel back to
>>> meet with King George, it would be the American who sounded "right" and not
>>> the other way around.
>>>
>>> This time-capsule argument is not an argument against modern evolved
>>> English, but it is an interesting notion of a living language in the
>>> homeland might become a historical artifact through cargo culting in the
>>> breakaway colony. Insightful as to human psychology and something to
>>> remember amongst the lessons of wisdom.
>>>
>>> Michael
>>> (a barbaric American-English 1776 throwback ;-)
>>>
>>> On Fri, May 17, 2019 at 9:41 AM  wrote:
>>>
 Spare a thought for those of us who actually speak and write 'proper'
 English and not that American version used in all programming languages.

 We get to write in our own language but have to remember to spell half
 the words wrong!

>

 --
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 Groups "golang-nuts" group.
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Re: [go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[Michael Jones]

In addition to being a daily Go programmer, I'm also a corporate executive
in the US and a venture investment partner in the UK. This has me
constantly surrounded by "proper" English and has made me very aware of the
linguistic habits of my American upbringing. It seems that I've become an
amalgam of the two, I say that "I was in hospital" for example, but name
variables 'color' -- the result earning awkward glances on both sides of
the Atlantic. My ear now prefers English English, in part from my love of
the character of English people.

On Fri, May 17, 2019 at 2:07 PM stíobhart matulevicz 
wrote:

>
> I know that a lot of what we think of as "American English"  words are
> actually archaic forms of early 'English English'. Words like "gotten"
> instead of "got", for example. But there's also a lot of blame or credit
> (depending on your point of view) for the differences to be laid at the
> door of a certain Mr. Noah Webster:
>
>
> https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/amp/2018/05/07/noah-webster-american-identity-simplified-spelling-movement/
>
> I was kind of half-joking in my original post.  But, as someone who
> considers himself highly literate,  I do actually find it does grate a
> bit,  having to (from my point of view) deliberately spell words wrong,
> when I'm coding.
>
> I get my revenge in the code comments though,  where I resolutely stick to
> "colour", "centre", "programme", etc.
>
> I wonder if I'm am isolated case,  or whether any other native English
> speakers are slightly irked by having to code in "bad spelling" too?
>
>
> On 17 May 2019 21:26:29 Michael Jones  wrote:
>
>> I know that you joke here, but I had an interesting dinner conversation
>> in London last year with erudite, scholarly friends who shared with me that
>> recent research supports a different view of the "barbaric Americanised
>> false English" that is the prevailing sentiment you share.
>>
>> According to the scholars they mentioned, "American English" is indeed a
>> true, pure, "real" English; just one from a time-capsule, an English from
>> 1776 that did not advance significantly since American independence. This
>> view suggests that were a BBC presenter and an American to travel back to
>> meet with King George, it would be the American who sounded "right" and not
>> the other way around.
>>
>> This time-capsule argument is not an argument against modern evolved
>> English, but it is an interesting notion of a living language in the
>> homeland might become a historical artifact through cargo culting in the
>> breakaway colony. Insightful as to human psychology and something to
>> remember amongst the lessons of wisdom.
>>
>> Michael
>> (a barbaric American-English 1776 throwback ;-)
>>
>> On Fri, May 17, 2019 at 9:41 AM  wrote:
>>
>>> Spare a thought for those of us who actually speak and write 'proper'
>>> English and not that American version used in all programming languages.
>>>
>>> We get to write in our own language but have to remember to spell half
>>> the words wrong!
>>>

>>>
>>> --
>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>>> Groups "golang-nuts" group.
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>>> .
>>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> *Michael T. jonesmichael.jo...@gmail.com *
>>
>
>

-- 

*Michael T. jonesmichael.jo...@gmail.com *

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Re: [go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[stíobhart matulevicz]

I know that a lot of what we think of as "American English"  words are 
actually archaic forms of early 'English English'. Words like "gotten" 
instead of "got", for example. But there's also a lot of blame or credit 
(depending on your point of view) for the differences to be laid at the 
door of a certain Mr. Noah Webster:


https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/amp/2018/05/07/noah-webster-american-identity-simplified-spelling-movement/

I was kind of half-joking in my original post.  But, as someone who 
considers himself highly literate,  I do actually find it does grate a bit, 
having to (from my point of view) deliberately spell words wrong, when I'm 
coding.


I get my revenge in the code comments though,  where I resolutely stick to 
"colour", "centre", "programme", etc.


I wonder if I'm am isolated case,  or whether any other native English 
speakers are slightly irked by having to code in "bad spelling" too?



On 17 May 2019 21:26:29 Michael Jones  wrote:
I know that you joke here, but I had an interesting dinner conversation in 
London last year with erudite, scholarly friends who shared with me that 
recent research supports a different view of the "barbaric Americanised 
false English" that is the prevailing sentiment you share.



According to the scholars they mentioned, "American English" is indeed a 
true, pure, "real" English; just one from a time-capsule, an English from 
1776 that did not advance significantly since American independence. This 
view suggests that were a BBC presenter and an American to travel back to 
meet with King George, it would be the American who sounded "right" and not 
the other way around.



This time-capsule argument is not an argument against modern evolved 
English, but it is an interesting notion of a living language in the 
homeland might become a historical artifact through cargo culting in the 
breakaway colony. Insightful as to human psychology and something to 
remember amongst the lessons of wisdom.



Michael
(a barbaric American-English 1776 throwback ;-)


On Fri, May 17, 2019 at 9:41 AM  wrote:

Spare a thought for those of us who actually speak and write 'proper' 
English and not that American version used in all programming languages.



We get to write in our own language but have to remember to spell half the 
words wrong!







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Re: [go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[Michael Jones]

I know that you joke here, but I had an interesting dinner conversation in
London last year with erudite, scholarly friends who shared with me that
recent research supports a different view of the "barbaric Americanised
false English" that is the prevailing sentiment you share.

According to the scholars they mentioned, "American English" is indeed a
true, pure, "real" English; just one from a time-capsule, an English from
1776 that did not advance significantly since American independence. This
view suggests that were a BBC presenter and an American to travel back to
meet with King George, it would be the American who sounded "right" and not
the other way around.

This time-capsule argument is not an argument against modern evolved
English, but it is an interesting notion of a living language in the
homeland might become a historical artifact through cargo culting in the
breakaway colony. Insightful as to human psychology and something to
remember amongst the lessons of wisdom.

Michael
(a barbaric American-English 1776 throwback ;-)

On Fri, May 17, 2019 at 9:41 AM  wrote:

> Spare a thought for those of us who actually speak and write 'proper'
> English and not that American version used in all programming languages.
>
> We get to write in our own language but have to remember to spell half the
> words wrong!
>
>>
>
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[go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[madra]

Spare a thought for those of us who actually speak and write 'proper' 
English and not that American version used in all programming languages.

We get to write in our own language but have to remember to spell half the 
words wrong!

>

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[go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[K.S. Bhaskar]

For historical reasons, languages and activities tend to be associated. Is 
the need for programmers to know relevant English technical terms any 
different from opera singers needing to know relevant Italian technical 
terms or fencers needing to know relevant French technical terms?

Regards
– Bhaskar

On Tuesday, May 7, 2019 at 12:33:46 PM UTC-4, skinne...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> When I first used IBM's UniComal the manual was Danish but the keywords 
> were English. Sometimes the function names in the examples were Danish. I 
> un derstand your problem.
>
> However, I do think that language is irrellevent. The keywords are tokens 
> that can be replaced programmatically with SED or AWK. You can display all 
> programs in your native language and write code in your native language, 
> when you save your code, it then translates that language source to English 
> language source and then when to edit the English language source you 
> translate it back to your native language source.
>
> I once wrote a process in Comal that would read a legal contract defining 
> a database program, it would parse the file, convert it to C++ code, that 
> would then compile into a working program. If the program did not perform 
> as needed, I sometimes had to write new C++ code but more often the sale 
> person would have to do a change order on the contract for the software.
>
> I do think that all programmers are multi-lingual, they have their native 
> language and one or more computer languages. Sometimes it is easier to 
> learn a new language than to build the tools needed to remain in ones 
> current comfort zone.
>
> My final comment is a bit off topic, I do not consider English to be a 
> language, it has over 120,000 words. If you have a vocabulary of 500 words 
> of Latin you can read most any ancient history. ESL speakers typically have 
> a subset of only 3k words. Most native English speakers use only 10k-20k 
> words depending on their training and locale. Native English speakers can 
> sometimes be incomprehensible to ESL or other English dialects. Vocabulary 
> can be vastly different depending upon class, heritage, region, training. 
>
> On Monday, April 29, 2019 at 12:36:37 AM UTC-5, Chris Burkert wrote:
>>
>> I recently read an article (German) about the dominance of English in 
>> programming languages [1]. It is about the fact that keywords in a language 
>> typically are English words. Thus it would be hard for non English speakers 
>> to learn programming - argue the authors.
>>
>> I wonder if there is really demand for that but of course it is weird to 
>> ask that on an English list.
>>
>> I also wonder if it would be possible on a tooling level to support 
>> keywords in other languages e.g. via build tags: // +language german
>>
>> Besides keywords we have a lot of names for functions, methods, structs, 
>> interfaces and so on. So there is definitely more to it.
>>
>> While such a feature may be beneficial for new programmers, to me it 
>> comes with many downsides like: readability, ambiguous naming / clashes, 
>> global teams ...
>>
>> I also believe the authors totally miss the point that learning Go is 
>> about to learn a language as it is because it is the language of the 
>> compiler.
>>
>> However I find the topic interesting and want to hear about your opinions.
>>
>> thanks - Chris
>>
>> 1: 
>>
>> https://www.derstandard.de/story/2000101285309/programmieren-ist-fuer-jeden-aber-nur-wenn-man-englisch-spricht
>>
>

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[go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[skinner . david]

When I first used IBM's UniComal the manual was Danish but the keywords 
were English. Sometimes the function names in the examples were Danish. I 
un derstand your problem.

However, I do think that language is irrellevent. The keywords are tokens 
that can be replaced programmatically with SED or AWK. You can display all 
programs in your native language and write code in your native language, 
when you save your code, it then translates that language source to English 
language source and then when to edit the English language source you 
translate it back to your native language source.

I once wrote a process in Comal that would read a legal contract defining a 
database program, it would parse the file, convert it to C++ code, that 
would then compile into a working program. If the program did not perform 
as needed, I sometimes had to write new C++ code but more often the sale 
person would have to do a change order on the contract for the software.

I do think that all programmers are multi-lingual, they have their native 
language and one or more computer languages. Sometimes it is easier to 
learn a new language than to build the tools needed to remain in ones 
current comfort zone.

My final comment is a bit off topic, I do not consider English to be a 
language, it has over 120,000 words. If you have a vocabulary of 500 words 
of Latin you can read most any ancient history. ESL speakers typically have 
a subset of only 3k words. Most native English speakers use only 10k-20k 
words depending on their training and locale. Native English speakers can 
sometimes be incomprehensible to ESL or other English dialects. Vocabulary 
can be vastly different depending upon class, heritage, region, training. 

On Monday, April 29, 2019 at 12:36:37 AM UTC-5, Chris Burkert wrote:
>
> I recently read an article (German) about the dominance of English in 
> programming languages [1]. It is about the fact that keywords in a language 
> typically are English words. Thus it would be hard for non English speakers 
> to learn programming - argue the authors.
>
> I wonder if there is really demand for that but of course it is weird to 
> ask that on an English list.
>
> I also wonder if it would be possible on a tooling level to support 
> keywords in other languages e.g. via build tags: // +language german
>
> Besides keywords we have a lot of names for functions, methods, structs, 
> interfaces and so on. So there is definitely more to it.
>
> While such a feature may be beneficial for new programmers, to me it comes 
> with many downsides like: readability, ambiguous naming / clashes, global 
> teams ...
>
> I also believe the authors totally miss the point that learning Go is 
> about to learn a language as it is because it is the language of the 
> compiler.
>
> However I find the topic interesting and want to hear about your opinions.
>
> thanks - Chris
>
> 1: 
>
> https://www.derstandard.de/story/2000101285309/programmieren-ist-fuer-jeden-aber-nur-wenn-man-englisch-spricht
>

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[go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[Mirko Friedenhagen]

Well, back in the 90s the Microsoft Office Basic dialects were 
internationalized so you could write something like "Für Alle Zellen In 
DieseArbeitsMappe.ArbeitsBlätter[5]" instead of "for all cells in 
ThisWorkmap.WorkSheets[5]".
But you could open/run this only with a German version of Excel 4.0. To 
make this available for other languages you had to save it as English 
version. 
I remember this was quite horrible, as all (advanced) documentation was in 
English anyways and you sometimes had to guess the correct translations.

Regards
Mirko

Am Montag, 29. April 2019 07:36:37 UTC+2 schrieb Chris Burkert:
>
> I recently read an article (German) about the dominance of English in 
> programming languages [1]. It is about the fact that keywords in a language 
> typically are English words. Thus it would be hard for non English speakers 
> to learn programming - argue the authors.
>
> I wonder if there is really demand for that but of course it is weird to 
> ask that on an English list.
>
> I also wonder if it would be possible on a tooling level to support 
> keywords in other languages e.g. via build tags: // +language german
>
> Besides keywords we have a lot of names for functions, methods, structs, 
> interfaces and so on. So there is definitely more to it.
>
> While such a feature may be beneficial for new programmers, to me it comes 
> with many downsides like: readability, ambiguous naming / clashes, global 
> teams ...
>
> I also believe the authors totally miss the point that learning Go is 
> about to learn a language as it is because it is the language of the 
> compiler.
>
> However I find the topic interesting and want to hear about your opinions.
>
> thanks - Chris
>
> 1: 
>
> https://www.derstandard.de/story/2000101285309/programmieren-ist-fuer-jeden-aber-nur-wenn-man-englisch-spricht
>

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[go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[lgodio2]

this issue involves much more than Go code For example , we for whom 
English is not our native language use 'Google translate' to translate our 
golang-nuts questions into English and the golang-nuts responses back to 
our native language.  The second translation often produces produces 
very-strange (and often laughable) native language translations. So I think 
it is safe to conclude the first translation produces similar things in 
English because many of the golang-nuts responses indicate  gross 
misunderstanding of original question.

Some golang-nuts members are native Americans who have very little 
tolerance for non-American English  

On Saturday, May 4, 2019 at 6:15:00 PM UTC-4, Chris Burkert wrote:
>
> Some background why I was asking this: I have a history with 
> Squeak/Smalltalk and how Alan Kay worked with children. At work I also 
> teach 14/15 year old pupils during their 2 weeks internship and that is 
> simply too short to show them something about programming especially when 
> this is just one topic out of many. We usually convert numbers between 
> decimal, octal, binary and hexadecimal on the whiteboard. And because they 
> just knew 0-9 so far it becomes a sudden insight to some of them. These few 
> kids usually want to learn more (convert numbers programmatically) but 
> because they are intrinsically motivated the English language is not a 
> hurdle for them. That’s why I was wondering about the article.
>
> Thanks for all your comments. Reading the different perspectives about the 
> topic fascinates me a lot.
>
> Chris Burkert > schrieb am Mo. 29. Apr. 
> 2019 um 07:35:
>
>> I recently read an article (German) about the dominance of English in 
>> programming languages [1]. It is about the fact that keywords in a language 
>> typically are English words. Thus it would be hard for non English speakers 
>> to learn programming - argue the authors.
>>
>> I wonder if there is really demand for that but of course it is weird to 
>> ask that on an English list.
>>
>> I also wonder if it would be possible on a tooling level to support 
>> keywords in other languages e.g. via build tags: // +language german
>>
>> Besides keywords we have a lot of names for functions, methods, structs, 
>> interfaces and so on. So there is definitely more to it.
>>
>> While such a feature may be beneficial for new programmers, to me it 
>> comes with many downsides like: readability, ambiguous naming / clashes, 
>> global teams ...
>>
>> I also believe the authors totally miss the point that learning Go is 
>> about to learn a language as it is because it is the language of the 
>> compiler.
>>
>> However I find the topic interesting and want to hear about your opinions.
>>
>> thanks - Chris
>>
>> 1: 
>>
>> https://www.derstandard.de/story/2000101285309/programmieren-ist-fuer-jeden-aber-nur-wenn-man-englisch-spricht
>>
>

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[go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[Chris Burkert]

Some background why I was asking this: I have a history with
Squeak/Smalltalk and how Alan Kay worked with children. At work I also
teach 14/15 year old pupils during their 2 weeks internship and that is
simply too short to show them something about programming especially when
this is just one topic out of many. We usually convert numbers between
decimal, octal, binary and hexadecimal on the whiteboard. And because they
just knew 0-9 so far it becomes a sudden insight to some of them. These few
kids usually want to learn more (convert numbers programmatically) but
because they are intrinsically motivated the English language is not a
hurdle for them. That’s why I was wondering about the article.

Thanks for all your comments. Reading the different perspectives about the
topic fascinates me a lot.

Chris Burkert  schrieb am Mo. 29. Apr. 2019 um
07:35:

> I recently read an article (German) about the dominance of English in
> programming languages [1]. It is about the fact that keywords in a language
> typically are English words. Thus it would be hard for non English speakers
> to learn programming - argue the authors.
>
> I wonder if there is really demand for that but of course it is weird to
> ask that on an English list.
>
> I also wonder if it would be possible on a tooling level to support
> keywords in other languages e.g. via build tags: // +language german
>
> Besides keywords we have a lot of names for functions, methods, structs,
> interfaces and so on. So there is definitely more to it.
>
> While such a feature may be beneficial for new programmers, to me it comes
> with many downsides like: readability, ambiguous naming / clashes, global
> teams ...
>
> I also believe the authors totally miss the point that learning Go is
> about to learn a language as it is because it is the language of the
> compiler.
>
> However I find the topic interesting and want to hear about your opinions.
>
> thanks - Chris
>
> 1:
>
> https://www.derstandard.de/story/2000101285309/programmieren-ist-fuer-jeden-aber-nur-wenn-man-englisch-spricht
>

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Re: [go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[Louki Sumirniy]

Oh, I don't mean 'funny' in a derogatory way. Some of them are beautiful 
and I find the languages that use them, fascinating grammar and etymology 
and differences in grammar. For me language is a general category of much 
interest, and programming very specific and use-targeted, but for sure, 
many computer languages are affected by the languages of its designers and 
some even are named to signify that, such as the syntax RPN, which is 
closely related to Lisp's syntax.

The issue about capitalisation and equivalence of symbols would make the 
use of languages without capitalisation difficult for sure. It's great to 
see that someone is actually caring enough about it to facilitate it. Go 
idiom prescribes certain policies with naming - I'd guess that if those 
rules were tightened up a bit more, and tools built to lint them, that 
fully translating into another script (even potentially rtl) would be a lot 
easier than the good old days when the compiler only recognised ascii.

On Friday, 3 May 2019 19:30:33 UTC+2, Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
>
> On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 8:25 AM Louki Sumirniy 
> > wrote: 
> > 
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode#General_Category_property 
> > 
> > This section in the wp entry lists these categories. 
> > 
> > So, in Go, actually, all identifiers can be in practically any language. 
> Even many of those funny african scripts and west asian languages! 
>
> Yes.  Note that those scripts are not funny for the people who use 
> them every day, they are just normal writing. 
>
> It gets a little more complicated when discussing which identifiers 
> are visible in other packages.  See https://golang.org/issue/5763 and 
> https://golang.org/issue/22188.  Separately, but related to this 
> general topic, see also https://golang.org/issue/20706 and 
> https://golang.org/issue/27896. 
>
> Ian 
>

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Re: [go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[Ian Lance Taylor]

On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 8:25 AM Louki Sumirniy
 wrote:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode#General_Category_property
>
> This section in the wp entry lists these categories.
>
> So, in Go, actually, all identifiers can be in practically any language. Even 
> many of those funny african scripts and west asian languages!

Yes.  Note that those scripts are not funny for the people who use
them every day, they are just normal writing.

It gets a little more complicated when discussing which identifiers
are visible in other packages.  See https://golang.org/issue/5763 and
https://golang.org/issue/22188.  Separately, but related to this
general topic, see also https://golang.org/issue/20706 and
https://golang.org/issue/27896.

Ian

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Re: [go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[Louki Sumirniy]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode#General_Category_property 

This section in the wp entry lists these categories.

So, in Go, actually, all identifiers can be in practically any language. 
Even many of those funny african scripts and west asian languages!

On Friday, 3 May 2019 17:17:56 UTC+2, Jan Mercl wrote:
>
> On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 5:14 PM Louki Sumirniy 
> > wrote: 
>
> > If the 'letter' classification is the same as used in .NET's unicode 
> implementation, this info lists the categories of symbols that unicode 
> classifies as letters: 
>
> https://golang.org/ref/spec#Characters 
>
>  
> In The Unicode Standard 8.0, Section 4.5 "General Category" defines a 
> set of character categories. 
> Go treats all characters in any of the Letter categories Lu, Ll, Lt, 
> Lm, or Lo as Unicode letters, and 
> those in the Number category Nd as Unicode digits. 
>  
>

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Re: [go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[Jan Mercl]

On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 5:14 PM Louki Sumirniy
 wrote:

> If the 'letter' classification is the same as used in .NET's unicode 
> implementation, this info lists the categories of symbols that unicode 
> classifies as letters:

https://golang.org/ref/spec#Characters


In The Unicode Standard 8.0, Section 4.5 "General Category" defines a
set of character categories.
Go treats all characters in any of the Letter categories Lu, Ll, Lt,
Lm, or Lo as Unicode letters, and
those in the Number category Nd as Unicode digits.


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Re: [go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[Louki Sumirniy]

If the 'letter' classification is the same as used in .NET's unicode 
implementation, this info lists the categories of symbols that unicode 
classifies as letters:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.char.isletter?view=netframework-4.8

On Friday, 3 May 2019 17:11:55 UTC+2, Louki Sumirniy wrote:
>
> Oh, I *can* use UTF-8 in identifiers?? nooo:
>
> Identifiers name program entities such as variables and types. An 
> identifier is a sequence of one or more letters and digits. The first 
> character in an identifier must be a letter.
>
> identifier = letter { letter | unicode_digit } .
>
>  
>
> ...
>
>  
>
> Letters and digits
> The underscore character _ (U+005F) is considered a letter.
>
> letter= unicode_letter | "_" .
> decimal_digit = "0" … "9" .
> octal_digit   = "0" … "7" .
> hex_digit = "0" … "9" | "A" … "F" | "a" … "f" .
>
>
> but `unicode_letter` - what is that? Does that include such as æ ? If so 
> then I guess it would also allow ⻄ too.
>
> I have seen source code from chinese authors that has comments in cn 
> traditional. So does this mean, in theory, I can use any valid unicode 
> letter from alphabet (or even pictograpic) language scripts??
>
> On Friday, 3 May 2019 16:43:09 UTC+2, Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 7:28 AM Louki Sumirniy 
>>  wrote: 
>> > 
>> > It would be incredibly computationally costly to add a natural language 
>> translator to the compilation process. I'm not sure, but I think also 
>> identifiers in Go can only be plain ASCII, ie pure latin script (and 
>> initial character must be a letter) 
>>
>> That turns out not to be the case.  The rules for identifiers are at 
>> https://golang.org/ref/spec#Identifiers, where the definition of 
>> "letter" is at https://golang.org/ref/spec#Characters . 
>>
>> Ian 
>>
>

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Re: [go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[Louki Sumirniy]

Oh, I *can* use UTF-8 in identifiers?? nooo:

Identifiers name program entities such as variables and types. An 
identifier is a sequence of one or more letters and digits. The first 
character in an identifier must be a letter.

identifier = letter { letter | unicode_digit } .

 

...

 

Letters and digits
The underscore character _ (U+005F) is considered a letter.

letter= unicode_letter | "_" .
decimal_digit = "0" … "9" .
octal_digit   = "0" … "7" .
hex_digit = "0" … "9" | "A" … "F" | "a" … "f" .


but `unicode_letter` - what is that? Does that include such as æ ? If so 
then I guess it would also allow ⻄ too.

I have seen source code from chinese authors that has comments in cn 
traditional. So does this mean, in theory, I can use any valid unicode 
letter from alphabet (or even pictograpic) language scripts??

On Friday, 3 May 2019 16:43:09 UTC+2, Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
>
> On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 7:28 AM Louki Sumirniy 
> > wrote: 
> > 
> > It would be incredibly computationally costly to add a natural language 
> translator to the compilation process. I'm not sure, but I think also 
> identifiers in Go can only be plain ASCII, ie pure latin script (and 
> initial character must be a letter) 
>
> That turns out not to be the case.  The rules for identifiers are at 
> https://golang.org/ref/spec#Identifiers, where the definition of 
> "letter" is at https://golang.org/ref/spec#Characters . 
>
> Ian 
>

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Re: [go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[JuciÊ Andrade]

I think my poor choice of words induced a misunderstanding. When I said "we 
code in Portuguese" I meant "we prefer to pick words from Portuguese for 
identifiers". Sorry.

On Friday, May 3, 2019 at 11:43:09 AM UTC-3, Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
>
> On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 7:28 AM Louki Sumirniy 
> > wrote: 
> > 
> > It would be incredibly computationally costly to add a natural language 
> translator to the compilation process.
>

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Re: [go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[Ian Lance Taylor]

On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 7:28 AM Louki Sumirniy
 wrote:
>
> It would be incredibly computationally costly to add a natural language 
> translator to the compilation process. I'm not sure, but I think also 
> identifiers in Go can only be plain ASCII, ie pure latin script (and initial 
> character must be a letter)

That turns out not to be the case.  The rules for identifiers are at
https://golang.org/ref/spec#Identifiers, where the definition of
"letter" is at https://golang.org/ref/spec#Characters .

Ian

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[go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[Louki Sumirniy]

It would be incredibly computationally costly to add a natural language 
translator to the compilation process. I'm not sure, but I think also 
identifiers in Go can only be plain ASCII, ie pure latin script (and 
initial character must be a letter)

These days in most countries where foreign scripts are used there is some 
(usually fairly standardised) latinisation rules.

The thing is, Go, speaking in terms of idiom, has the opinion that names 
should be chosen carefully and follow rules about stutter and so forth. I 
find myself reaching for a thesaurus a lot when writing code. If I came 
across code that had words like 'benutzer' or 'nachalnik' I'd know what I'm 
looking at but I know a lot of vocab from latinic and germanic continental 
european languages.

It's unfortunate, but I don't think it's really a problem. Language 
learning is quite peculiar - most polyglots, who speak 4 or more 
significantly different languages, will tell you the more languages you 
learn the easier each next one gets. Computer programming is about language 
also. I can express a simple algorithm in about 5 major computer languages, 
as can most programmers who are much over the age of 40.

The thing is, with the exception of maybe German and Russian, almost every 
paper written on any computer science subject is in english. You can't even 
hardly understand the principles without english, but let's say you want to 
get into distributed systems or language processing... ha!. Plus, english 
conveniently has such a rabble of different syntax and semantics that 
resembles the variations in programming languages, left branch, right 
branch, prefix, suffix, infix, compound words and modifiers, etc. Just to 
contrast, Georgian is 100% left branch syntax. Go's function syntax is an 
example of right branch syntax (C's is a jumble of both).

On Monday, 29 April 2019 07:36:37 UTC+2, Chris Burkert wrote:
>
> I recently read an article (German) about the dominance of English in 
> programming languages [1]. It is about the fact that keywords in a language 
> typically are English words. Thus it would be hard for non English speakers 
> to learn programming - argue the authors.
>
> I wonder if there is really demand for that but of course it is weird to 
> ask that on an English list.
>
> I also wonder if it would be possible on a tooling level to support 
> keywords in other languages e.g. via build tags: // +language german
>
> Besides keywords we have a lot of names for functions, methods, structs, 
> interfaces and so on. So there is definitely more to it.
>
> While such a feature may be beneficial for new programmers, to me it comes 
> with many downsides like: readability, ambiguous naming / clashes, global 
> teams ...
>
> I also believe the authors totally miss the point that learning Go is 
> about to learn a language as it is because it is the language of the 
> compiler.
>
> However I find the topic interesting and want to hear about your opinions.
>
> thanks - Chris
>
> 1: 
>
> https://www.derstandard.de/story/2000101285309/programmieren-ist-fuer-jeden-aber-nur-wenn-man-englisch-spricht
>

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[go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[Louki Sumirniy]

I'd also go further and point out that the Go language has a somewhat 
peculiar and unique feature that code reusability is not considered a holy 
grail. If I really needed a library that was written in portuguese, it 
would not be hard to figure out how to rename everything for my easier 
readability.

On Tuesday, 30 April 2019 21:46:08 UTC+2, jucie@zanthus.com.br wrote:
>
> Here in Brazil we usually code in Brazil's native language: Portuguese. 
> Yes, there are some companies that mandate the use of English, albeit the 
> additional costs of doing so, but that is very exceptional. The vast 
> majority of brazilian software houses use Portuguese everywhere.
>
> The only English words are the programming language keywords and library 
> function calls, for obvious reasons. This scheme has the advantage that it 
> differentiates code created in house from foreign code.
>
> We pick words from the problem domain. So, if we are coding retail 
> software for a chain store, we don't even think about using the word 
> "INVOICE" ( are you kidding? ) Our clients don't say "invoice", they say 
> "nota fiscal", so we code using the name notaFiscal.
>
> That is not nationalism, it's a practical matter and, generally speaking, 
> it works great.
>

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[go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[jucie . andrade]

Here in Brazil we usually code in Brazil's native language: Portuguese. 
Yes, there are some companies that mandate the use of English, albeit the 
additional costs of doing so, but that is very exceptional. The vast 
majority of brazilian software houses use Portuguese everywhere.

The only English words are the programming language keywords and library 
function calls, for obvious reasons. This scheme has the advantage that it 
differentiates code created in house from foreign code.

We pick words from the problem domain. So, if we are coding retail software 
for a chain store, we don't even think about using the word "INVOICE" ( are 
you kidding? ) Our clients don't say "invoice", they say "nota fiscal", so 
we code using the name notaFiscal.

That is not nationalism, it's a practical matter and, generally speaking, 
it works great.

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[go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[HaWe]

As others mentioned already, the 25 keywords in Go, which were taken from 
the english language are not a problem for (adult) programmers. And if they 
were, some kind of localized precompiler could handle them easily.

More of a stumbling block for non-english-native readers are names and 
comments in the code. I don't see a viable path to internationalization 
here. Technically yes, you could use 'gofmt -w'. But programming is 
internationally organized after all - you need a lingua franca. (Choosing 
names carefully can help a bit.)

But there is also the broad area of documentation to consider, especially 
API docs, namely the API docs of the Go Standard Library. I can imagine 
some kind of tooling, maybe an extension to 'go doc', that extracts 
localized text from supplemental files when they are available ... just an 
idea.
But, I already hear people say, programmers understand English - they have 
to. Yes, I agree ... partly. But you are much quicker to understand, to 
grok the Zen, when you read your own mother tongue. I can tell because on 
several occasions, for better to understand them, I underwent the effort to 
translate english written documents into German.
(BTW there is still a german version of The Go Programing Language waiting 
for a publisher: https://bitloeffel.de/index.php?lang=en)

But back to the topic of non-english programming languages. Time will tell. 
Programmers think about milliseconds, linguists think in centuries. If 
there is at some time a real need for, say, a Chinese based programming 
language then there will be one. You could even use Go to build the 
compiler.

my 2¢

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[go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[ffm2002]

"They" were also developing languages of their own, also in countries not 
of English language, such as Pascal, Modula, Scala (Switzerland), Kotlin 
(Russia) and using English words as key words. It is understood by everyone 
in the world who already knows some other language ;-).

Am Montag, 29. April 2019 15:37:45 UTC+2 schrieb fbaube:
>
> It's interesting to see this!
>
> Back in the early 1970s I wondered what the programming languages in other 
> countries (not-USA) looked like - what were the keywords, etc. 
>
> Well, it turns out that (AFAIK) they were using the same compilers and the 
> same interpreters, and languages with the same English keywords, because 
> (also AFAIK) nobody was writing non-English-keyword compilers in Europe and 
> nobody was patching existing binaries (like BASIC.EXE) to change the 
> keywords contained in executables.
>
> cheers - fred
>
> On Monday, April 29, 2019 at 11:58:50 AM UTC+3, yvan...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>
>> In France we have WINDEV  
>>
> giving something like
>> '''
>> // Le document sera enregistré en noir et blanc
>> SI TwainVersJPEG("C:\Temp\MaPhoto.JPEG", 0, Faux, TwainNoirBlanc) = Vrai 
>> ALORS
>> Info("Le document a été enregistré")
>> SINON
>> Erreur("Le document n'a pas été scanné")
>> FIN
>>
>

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[go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[fbaube]

It's interesting to see this!

Back in the early 1970s I wondered what the programming languages in other 
countries (not-USA) looked like - what were the keywords, etc. 

Well, it turns out that (AFAIK) they were using the same compilers and the 
same interpreters, and languages with the same English keywords, because 
(also AFAIK) nobody was writing non-English-keyword compilers in Europe and 
nobody was patching existing binaries (like BASIC.EXE) to change the 
keywords contained in executables.

cheers - fred

On Monday, April 29, 2019 at 11:58:50 AM UTC+3, yvan...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
> In France we have WINDEV  
>
giving something like
> '''
> // Le document sera enregistré en noir et blanc
> SI TwainVersJPEG("C:\Temp\MaPhoto.JPEG", 0, Faux, TwainNoirBlanc) = Vrai 
> ALORS
> Info("Le document a été enregistré")
> SINON
> Erreur("Le document n'a pas été scanné")
> FIN
>

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[go-nuts] Re: the Dominance of English in Programming Languages

[yvan . godin]

just for fun 
In France we have WINDEV where you can write code either in English or 
French ;-)  but no German :-(
unfortunately not free product 

giving something like
'''
// Le document sera enregistré en noir et blanc
SI TwainVersJPEG("C:\Temp\MaPhoto.JPEG", 0, Faux, TwainNoirBlanc) = Vrai 
ALORS
Info("Le document a été enregistré")
SINON
Erreur("Le document n'a pas été scanné")
FIN
'''
source here 

Le lundi 29 avril 2019 07:36:37 UTC+2, Chris Burkert a écrit :
>
> I recently read an article (German) about the dominance of English in 
> programming languages [1]. It is about the fact that keywords in a language 
> typically are English words. Thus it would be hard for non English speakers 
> to learn programming - argue the authors.
>
> I wonder if there is really demand for that but of course it is weird to 
> ask that on an English list.
>
> I also wonder if it would be possible on a tooling level to support 
> keywords in other languages e.g. via build tags: // +language german
>
> Besides keywords we have a lot of names for functions, methods, structs, 
> interfaces and so on. So there is definitely more to it.
>
> While such a feature may be beneficial for new programmers, to me it comes 
> with many downsides like: readability, ambiguous naming / clashes, global 
> teams ...
>
> I also believe the authors totally miss the point that learning Go is 
> about to learn a language as it is because it is the language of the 
> compiler.
>
> However I find the topic interesting and want to hear about your opinions.
>
> thanks - Chris
>
> 1: 
>
> https://www.derstandard.de/story/2000101285309/programmieren-ist-fuer-jeden-aber-nur-wenn-man-englisch-spricht
>

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