3 ms·

The English language is certainly one of the most flexible ones, on the positive side, and one of loosest ones, on the negative side. In English, even the most

by bianco 18y ago

The English language is certainly one of the most flexible ones, on the positive side, and one of loosest ones, on the negative side. In English, even the most stupid thoughts sound right, just because of the language-culture itself. So, it would certainly be very exciting to have e.g. a perfect programming language, expressing itself in say Arabic or Hebrew; but, on the other side, computers and real intelligence (or: AI and Real Human Intelligence) are so far away from each other, that it really doesn't matter how 'stupid' the programming-language-language is...

jwilliams 18y ago
In English, even the most stupid thoughts sound right, just because of the language-culture itself. Well - that certainly doesn't sound right to me.
- bianco 18y ago
  You got it all wrong: native English folks should be forbidden to vote on this comment. Anyway, believe me or not: you English ones are certainly the most ignorant in culture anyways; all of non english folks around the world would agree on this...
  - godDLL 18y ago
    I disagree. Я несогласен. לא נכון.
jibiki 18y ago
What specifically makes English "loose"? What makes other tongues "tight"?
- wheels 18y ago
  While I consider the parent a troll, English is a pretty grammatically odd language among western languages since has dropped a lot of the rigid formalities common in Germanic languages. Also subtlety in the English language tends to come from importing words from other language bases (French, notably) whereas in other languages that's conveyed by modifiers. So it's not really true to call English imprecise, just precision in English comes through subtlety rather than formal structures. All of that is of course largely irrelevant for programming as the small subset of English words that are used are given precise formal meanings which could be readily exchanged for equivalents in other languages.
mahmud 18y ago
I designed a Lisp dialect in Arabic, there is Arabic C called Jeem: http://www.jeemlang.com/index.php?page=examples http://www.jeemlang.com/index.php?page=examples
godDLL 18y ago
I speak Hebrew, when I have to. That's not the kind of attitude I want towards a programming language. Hebrew doesn't scale. Neither up nor down. You can't dumb down Hebrew, it is already a very young language. And you can't extend it up to the modern world or complex concepts because of the Biblical Hebrew heritage, with stiff grammar and way-ambiguous writing system. You'll have to reinvent it to use it, and good luck with that. I also speak Russian, proper and street. When I have to. So much for that. In my view they are all technical obstacles on the way of greater proliferation of ideas. Choose one language, whatever it will be. English's fine. Use it for everything that involves technical concepts. This is what most of the world today does, more or less, and it works out not that bad. I'm not entirely sold on programming languages resembling human languages, but that's another matter altogether.

by bianco 18y ago

jwilliams 18y ago

In English, even the most stupid thoughts sound right, just because of the language-culture itself. Well - that certainly doesn't sound right to me.

bianco 18y ago
You got it all wrong: native English folks should be forbidden to vote on this comment. Anyway, believe me or not: you English ones are certainly the most ignorant in culture anyways; all of non english folks around the world would agree on this...
- godDLL 18y ago
  I disagree. Я несогласен. לא נכון.

jibiki 18y ago

What specifically makes English "loose"? What makes other tongues "tight"?

wheels 18y ago
While I consider the parent a troll, English is a pretty grammatically odd language among western languages since has dropped a lot of the rigid formalities common in Germanic languages. Also subtlety in the English language tends to come from importing words from other language bases (French, notably) whereas in other languages that's conveyed by modifiers. So it's not really true to call English imprecise, just precision in English comes through subtlety rather than formal structures. All of that is of course largely irrelevant for programming as the small subset of English words that are used are given precise formal meanings which could be readily exchanged for equivalents in other languages.

mahmud 18y ago

I designed a Lisp dialect in Arabic, there is Arabic C called Jeem: http://www.jeemlang.com/index.php?page=examples http://www.jeemlang.com/index.php?page=examples

godDLL 18y ago

I speak Hebrew, when I have to. That's not the kind of attitude I want towards a programming language. Hebrew doesn't scale. Neither up nor down. You can't dumb down Hebrew, it is already a very young language. And you can't extend it up to the modern world or complex concepts because of the Biblical Hebrew heritage, with stiff grammar and way-ambiguous writing system. You'll have to reinvent it to use it, and good luck with that. I also speak Russian, proper and street. When I have to. So much for that. In my view they are all technical obstacles on the way of greater proliferation of ideas. Choose one language, whatever it will be. English's fine. Use it for everything that involves technical concepts. This is what most of the world today does, more or less, and it works out not that bad. I'm not entirely sold on programming languages resembling human languages, but that's another matter altogether.