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This isn't really new, there have been projects like this since forever. Microsoft used to ship one with Office, even. I wish they had published something about

by EdiX 2y ago

This isn't really new, there have been projects like this since forever. Microsoft used to ship one with Office, even. I wish they had published something about why they stopped doing it, maybe that would prevent people from repeating the same mistakes. I was subjected to one of those translated programming languages 20+ years ago: they are traps two weeks in you realize you can't do anything without either learning a different programming language (with english keywords) and reaching for external libraries that will define english identifiers and often even have english documentation. I wish I could get back every minute I spent with it and could reinvest it into learning english.

monsieurbanana 2y ago
I don't know the one that shipped from Microsoft, but I'm going to assume it's goal wasn't to teach people how to code but rather empower non-programmers to code. Starting from that, I don't see the two would be similar.
zanellato19 2y ago
I know several programmers who don't speak any english and can understand the things well enough. I think this is a valid project and while most programmers I know eventually understand a bit of what the identifier of english mean, the concepts are much better explained in their native language. They can much better translate it later when moving to a "serious" programming language or even to Excel or something like that. Excel functions are also translated, so stuff like that is really helpful even if you aren't going to become a programmer.
chris_pie 2y ago
Also Excel functions are translated based on your region. Which I find annoying, because most learning resources and references are in English, and English function names don't work in other regional settings.
- canucker2016 2y ago
  I have no idea how this got through management. The localizers went too far, converting the language keywords to somewhat appropriate language-specific versions. I guess once they shipped a version with the keywords translated, they decided to was too expensive to fix/go back and limped along with this major footgun.

by EdiX 2y ago

monsieurbanana 2y ago

I don't know the one that shipped from Microsoft, but I'm going to assume it's goal wasn't to teach people how to code but rather empower non-programmers to code. Starting from that, I don't see the two would be similar.

zanellato19 2y ago

I know several programmers who don't speak any english and can understand the things well enough. I think this is a valid project and while most programmers I know eventually understand a bit of what the identifier of english mean, the concepts are much better explained in their native language. They can much better translate it later when moving to a "serious" programming language or even to Excel or something like that. Excel functions are also translated, so stuff like that is really helpful even if you aren't going to become a programmer.

chris_pie 2y ago

Also Excel functions are translated based on your region. Which I find annoying, because most learning resources and references are in English, and English function names don't work in other regional settings.

canucker2016 2y ago
I have no idea how this got through management. The localizers went too far, converting the language keywords to somewhat appropriate language-specific versions. I guess once they shipped a version with the keywords translated, they decided to was too expensive to fix/go back and limped along with this major footgun.