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The whole point is not whether you, without any learning, would have any idea how to read, speak, think in any specific language. You likely have forgot how lo

by jxy 4y ago

The whole point is not whether you, without any learning, would have any idea how to read, speak, think in any specific language. You likely have forgot how long you had to learn English. Do you know how many people in the world have no idea what you had written here, yet they are still very comfortable in using a computer? It's easy for an English speaking person to consider programming languages in English as the only kind that's usable. To be fair, English dominates in the tech world. But it would be narrow minded to dismiss a programming language solely based on its non-English symbols. Mathematicians have long been using symbols for efficiency in its expressiveness. Why not programming languages? I'd like to keep an open mind.

capableweb 4y ago
I'm not arguing about English vs non-English programming languages, I'm talking about symbols available on the keyboard. When you start out programming, you're being met with symbol you probably haven't extensively used before, such as the pipe ("|") or even curly braces, as you usually don't come across those in prose. But you can look down on a keyboard and see how you can enter those symbols. Contrast that to APL which has you enter symbols that are nowhere to be found on a keyboard. You need to manually look up how to enter the symbols, or run specific software to have it on-screen, and if you forget, you can't just look at the keyboard, you need to look it up again. I'm sure it becomes second-nature after a while, just like entering pipe characters or curly braces. But it's definitely harder to get started if there is more to remember than just concepts. I have not forgotten how long I had to learn English, as it's not my mother language and I had to learn it in school at a certain age. I'm also currently learning a fourth (speaking/writing/"human") language currently, so I'm well aware about that there are other languages out there. I'm also not arguing against APL as a language as a whole, I'm personally curious about it as well and will probably give it a go as it's currently missing from my repertoire of languages, which is wide already but still missing things. I'm simply arguing against it as a first programming language for people to learn, compared to languages that don't contain symbols you cannot "normally" enter on a traditional keyboard.

by jxy 4y ago

capableweb 4y ago

I'm not arguing about English vs non-English programming languages, I'm talking about symbols available on the keyboard. When you start out programming, you're being met with symbol you probably haven't extensively used before, such as the pipe ("|") or even curly braces, as you usually don't come across those in prose. But you can look down on a keyboard and see how you can enter those symbols. Contrast that to APL which has you enter symbols that are nowhere to be found on a keyboard. You need to manually look up how to enter the symbols, or run specific software to have it on-screen, and if you forget, you can't just look at the keyboard, you need to look it up again. I'm sure it becomes second-nature after a while, just like entering pipe characters or curly braces. But it's definitely harder to get started if there is more to remember than just concepts. I have not forgotten how long I had to learn English, as it's not my mother language and I had to learn it in school at a certain age. I'm also currently learning a fourth (speaking/writing/"human") language currently, so I'm well aware about that there are other languages out there. I'm also not arguing against APL as a language as a whole, I'm personally curious about it as well and will probably give it a go as it's currently missing from my repertoire of languages, which is wide already but still missing things. I'm simply arguing against it as a first programming language for people to learn, compared to languages that don't contain symbols you cannot "normally" enter on a traditional keyboard.