4 ms·

Latin American techies want to make Spanish the primary language of programming

7 points by akhmatova 4y ago

tsupiroti 4y ago
> The logic of most prominent programming languages, such as Python, is based on English vocabulary and syntax — using terms like “while” or “if not” to trigger certain actions — which makes it that much more difficult to learn for non-native speakers. Furthermore, many of the most popular educational resources for learning to code, including Stack Exchange, are also in English. It seems to me that the latter is a much bigger problem for Spanish. Programming languages have relatively few keywords. I imagine English keywords might be a big problem for people who doesn't know the latin alphabet though.
- pfortuny 4y ago
  “If not” (i.e. else) translates to “si no”. Imagine finding that in a line of code… You need a tilde “‘“ to say “yes” (sí) but… are you really going to introduce keywords with accented chars?
  - pvaldes 4y ago
    "si no", is a clear spanish construction. Everybody understands its meaning and it does not need a tilde. You could use "otro" (=another, =different) also, that is even shorter, has the advantage of being a single word instead two, and is used routinely in dichotomic keys.
hunglee2 4y ago
I once met a developer who swore it was possible to code PHP in Cyrillic. Was toon horrified to investigate further
proc0 4y ago
I speak Spanish and I think it's not as logical as English. It seems Spanish can express more passion but it falls short when it needs to be succinct and to the point. For example "if" is translated to "si", which is the exact word as "yes" (except without the accent mark, which itself another issue). "Or" is just "o", and so on where logical conjunctions aren't unique. That said, I think it could be a good start for Spanish speakers that haven't yet learned English. I wonder what could be the best human language to use for a programming language, including any ancient language. Maybe Sanskrit or something even more logical than English?
- mhitza 4y ago
  > I wonder what could be the best human language to use for a programming language, including any ancient language. Maybe Sanskrit or something even more logical than English? I don't know which language would be good in terms of conciseness and preciseness... But would probably need to be a language easily expressible with the ASCII character set.
N19PEDL2 4y ago
There are actually several programming languages based on languages other than English, although I don't think any of them have ever been used for serious projects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-English-based_programming_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-English-based_programming_...
CRConrad 4y ago
What's "Good luck!" in Spanish?

7 points by akhmatova 4y ago

> The logic of most prominent programming languages, such as Python, is based on English vocabulary and syntax — using terms like “while” or “if not” to trigger certain actions — which makes it that much more difficult to learn for non-native speakers. Furthermore, many of the most popular educational resources for learning to code, including Stack Exchange, are also in English. It seems to me that the latter is a much bigger problem for Spanish. Programming languages have relatively few keywords. I imagine English keywords might be a big problem for people who doesn't know the latin alphabet though.

pfortuny 4y ago
“If not” (i.e. else) translates to “si no”. Imagine finding that in a line of code… You need a tilde “‘“ to say “yes” (sí) but… are you really going to introduce keywords with accented chars?
- pvaldes 4y ago
  "si no", is a clear spanish construction. Everybody understands its meaning and it does not need a tilde. You could use "otro" (=another, =different) also, that is even shorter, has the advantage of being a single word instead two, and is used routinely in dichotomic keys.

hunglee2 4y ago

I once met a developer who swore it was possible to code PHP in Cyrillic. Was toon horrified to investigate further

proc0 4y ago

I speak Spanish and I think it's not as logical as English. It seems Spanish can express more passion but it falls short when it needs to be succinct and to the point. For example "if" is translated to "si", which is the exact word as "yes" (except without the accent mark, which itself another issue). "Or" is just "o", and so on where logical conjunctions aren't unique. That said, I think it could be a good start for Spanish speakers that haven't yet learned English. I wonder what could be the best human language to use for a programming language, including any ancient language. Maybe Sanskrit or something even more logical than English?

mhitza 4y ago
> I wonder what could be the best human language to use for a programming language, including any ancient language. Maybe Sanskrit or something even more logical than English? I don't know which language would be good in terms of conciseness and preciseness... But would probably need to be a language easily expressible with the ASCII character set.

N19PEDL2 4y ago

There are actually several programming languages based on languages other than English, although I don't think any of them have ever been used for serious projects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-English-based_programming_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-English-based_programming_...

CRConrad 4y ago

What's "Good luck!" in Spanish?