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This language is slightly more interesting for being Arabic than (say) German or Greek. You're got three barriers between the learner and the language: unknown
by saalweachter 7y ago
This language is slightly more interesting for being Arabic than (say) German or Greek.
You're got three barriers between the learner and the language: unknown keywords, unfamiliar letters, and the wrong LTR/RTL order.
It all adds up to where, boy, it would be intimidating for me to learn this language, as someone who already knows how to program. Doesn't that imply it would be equally intimidating for someone who only speaks Arabic to learn C?
- bradhe 7y agoPerhaps we should try asking someone who actually speaks, reads, and writes Arabic how big of a barrier this is before we jump to conclusions...
- ufmace 7y agoWould 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 different cultures, and the result would depend on the culture of that board.
- saalweachter 7y agoI 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.