Re: Python Statements/Keyword Localization
Thank you all for the insights. I particularly like the broad spread of opinions on the subject. Indeed when I wrote the original post my thoughts were with those young students of non-English speaking countries that start learning to program before they learn English. My case is almost one of those: I started at home when I was 13, toying around with Basic, and at the time not only I didn't know English, but for a few more years I would be learning only French. Later I did start learning English but I still found that while learning programming in Pascal at school its English keywords were somehow an interruption of my mental flow. At the time (20 years ago) localization wasn't a particularly big thing and this issue would have been a bit of a lost cause. But as the world is becoming more and more interconnected I think it is important that we all make an effort to respect cultural needs and sensitivities of both non-western adults and youngsters alike. Ultimately I certainly appreciate the ubiquity of English even though in the interest of fairness and efficiency I'd prefer the role of common language to be given to a constructed language, such as Ido. But it doesn't take a particularly religious person to see that "do to others as you would want them do to you" tends to be a valid principle, and in the same way the world would be at a loss if an Indian university came up with a wonderful programming language available only in Sanskrit, the world is at a loss not having a beautiful language such as Python natively available in other scripts. Again, thank you all! Manu -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Python Statements/Keyword Localization
Terry Reedy wrote: A 'pro' argument: Python was designed for learning and is good for that and *is* used in schools down to the elementary level. But kids cannot be expected to know foreign alphabets and words whill still learning their own. I taught myself BASIC at 9 by reading magazines, but had my first english lessons five years later. Knowing english would have helped to understand the operating/language manuals, not the language keywords themselves. I suppose if you were to try what the OP suggested, you would need to translate a lot of the standard library, parameter names, and such... nonsense. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Python Statements/Keyword Localization
Emanuele D'Arrigo wrote: In this context it seems to be the case that the executable would have to be able to optionally accept -a list- of dictionaries to internally translate to English the keywords found in the input code and at most - one- dictionary to internally translate from English output messages such as a stack trace. What do you guys think? Microsoft did that twenty years ago and we're still mocking them. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Python Statements/Keyword Localization
Emanuele D'Arrigo wrote: Greetings everybody, some time ago I saw a paper that used an XSL transformation sheet to transform (if I remember correctly) a Chinese xml file (inclusive of Chinese-script XML tags) into an XHTML file. More recently you might have all heard how the ICANN has opened up the way for non-latin characters in domain names, so that we'll soon start seeing URLs using Russian, Asian and Arabic characters. In this context I was wondering if there has ever been much thought about a mechanism to allow the localization not only of the strings handled by python but also of its built-in keywords, such as "if", "for", "while", "class" and so on. There have been various debates and discussions on the topic. There has been slow movement away from ascii-only in user code. (But not in the stdlib, nor will there be there.) 1. Unicode data type. 2. Unicode allowed in comment and string literals. This required input decoding and coding cookie. This lead, I believe somewhat accidentally, to 3. Extended ascii (high bit set, for other European chars in various encodings) for identifiers. 4 (In 3.0) unicode allowed for identifiers Here is a version of the anti-customized-keyword position. Python is designed to be read by people. Currently, any programmer in the world can potentially read any Python program. The developers, especially Guido, like this. Fixed keywords are not an undue burden because any educated person should learn to read Latin characters a-z,0-9. and Python has an intentionally short list that the developers are loath to lengthen. Change 4 above inhibits universal readability. But once 3 happened and str became unicode, in 3.0, it was hard to say no to this. A 'pro' argument: Python was designed for learning and is good for that and *is* used in schools down to the elementary level. But kids cannot be expected to know foreign alphabets and words whill still learning their own. > For example, the following English- based piece of code: class MyClass(object): def myMethod(self, aVariable): if aVariable == True: print "It's True!" else: print "It's False!" would become (in Italian): classe LaMiaClasse(oggetto): def ilMioMetodo(io, unaVariabile) se unaVariabile == Vero: stampa "E' Vero!" altrimenti: stampa "E' Falso!" I can imagine how a translation script going through the source code could do a 1:1 keyword translation to English fairly quickly but this would mean that the runtime code still is in English and any error message would be in English. This is currently seen as a reason to not have other keywords: it will do no good anyway. A Python programmer must know minimal English and the keywords are the least of the problem. I can imagine that there could be a mechanism for extracting and replacing error messages with translations, like there is for Python code, but I do not know if it will even happen with haphazard volunteer work or will require grant sponsorship. I can also imagine that it should be possible to "simply" recompile python to use different keywords, but then all libraries using the English keywords would become incompatible, wouldn't they? In this context it seems to be the case that the executable would have to be able to optionally accept -a list- of dictionaries to internally translate to English the keywords found in the input code and at most - one- dictionary to internally translate from English output messages such as a stack trace. What do you guys think? I would like anyone in the world to be able to use Python, and I would like Python programmers to potentially be able to potentially read any Python code and not have the community severely balkanized. To me, this would eventually mean both native keywords and tranliteration from other alphabets and scripts to latin chars. Not an easy project. Terry Jan Reedy -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Python Statements/Keyword Localization
Emanuele D'Arrigo wrote: > Greetings everybody, > > some time ago I saw a paper that used an XSL transformation sheet to > transform (if I remember correctly) a Chinese xml file (inclusive of > Chinese-script XML tags) into an XHTML file. > > More recently you might have all heard how the ICANN has opened up the > way for non-latin characters in domain names, so that we'll soon start > seeing URLs using Russian, Asian and Arabic characters. Non-latin characters in domain names are already possible (and usable and actually used) for some years by now. Google for "punycode". ICANN was talking about TLD. > > I can imagine how a translation script going through the source code > could do a 1:1 keyword translation to English fairly quickly ...and get conflickts because I named my variable (in English python), say, stampa. Anyway, see http://www.chinesepython.org -- --- | Radovan Garabík http://kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk/~garabik/ | | __..--^^^--..__garabik @ kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk | --- Antivirus alert: file .signature infected by signature virus. Hi! I'm a signature virus! Copy me into your signature file to help me spread! -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: Python Statements/Keyword Localization
Emanuele D'Arrigo wrote: Greetings everybody, some time ago I saw a paper that used an XSL transformation sheet to transform (if I remember correctly) a Chinese xml file (inclusive of Chinese-script XML tags) into an XHTML file. More recently you might have all heard how the ICANN has opened up the way for non-latin characters in domain names, so that we'll soon start seeing URLs using Russian, Asian and Arabic characters. In this context I was wondering if there has ever been much thought about a mechanism to allow the localization not only of the strings handled by python but also of its built-in keywords, such as "if", "for", "while", "class" and so on. For example, the following English- based piece of code: class MyClass(object): def myMethod(self, aVariable): if aVariable == True: print "It's True!" else: print "It's False!" would become (in Italian): classe LaMiaClasse(oggetto): def ilMioMetodo(io, unaVariabile) se unaVariabile == Vero: stampa "E' Vero!" altrimenti: stampa "E' Falso!" I can imagine how a translation script going through the source code could do a 1:1 keyword translation to English fairly quickly but this would mean that the runtime code still is in English and any error message would be in English. I can also imagine that it should be possible to "simply" recompile python to use different keywords, but then all libraries using the English keywords would become incompatible, wouldn't they? In this context it seems to be the case that the executable would have to be able to optionally accept -a list- of dictionaries to internally translate to English the keywords found in the input code and at most - one- dictionary to internally translate from English output messages such as a stack trace. What do you guys think? It might be necessary to work in tokens, where a token is a word or a string (or maybe also a comment). Your example would be encoded to: «1» «2»(«3»): «4» «5»(«6», «7»): «8» «7» == «9»: «10» «11» «12»: «10» «13» with either English: «1» class «2» MyClass «3» object «4» def «5» myMethod «6» self «7» aVariable «8» if «9» True «10» print «11» "It's True!" «12» else «13» "It's False!" or Italian: «1» classe «2» LaMiaClasse «3» oggetto «4» def «5» ilMioMetodo «6» io «7» unaVariabile «8» se «9» Vero «10» stampa «11» "É Vero!" «12» altrimenti «13» "É Falso!" Any messages produced by, or format strings used by, the runtime would also be tokens. Python currently does lexical analysis on the source code to identify names, strings, etc; a new tokenised file format would partially bypass that because the names and strings (and comments?) have already been identified. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
