5 ms·

I've pondered on multiple occasions, what if computing was born somewhere other than the west and we had to use roman numerals and/or Chinese/Arabic for softwar

I've pondered on multiple occasions, what if computing was born somewhere other than the west and we had to use roman numerals and/or Chinese/Arabic for software development. I could never understand how anyone can quickly discern/read a huge dictionary of such dense and wildly intricate glyphs.

somerandomone 12y ago
Inventing computer with Chinese/Arabic is inherently harder because it's more difficult to type such characters. Once you pass the punctuation card stage, now what? Build a huge keyboard with 10s of thousand of Chinese characters? It took 13 years for MS-DOS to support typing in Chinese.
- qsun 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_typewriter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_typewriter http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Chinese_typewriter.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Chinese_t...
- zac1944 12y ago
  That's an English way to think about Chinese.
  - DrStalker 12y ago
    How do the Chinese approach this problem? Even something as simple things as looking up a word in a dictionary seems impossible in a language like Chinese where every work is a unique cahracter but obviously the people who actually deal with the language will have solutions I've not thought of.
    - NaNaN 12y ago
      (Disclaimer: Not to argue for who invented computers first.) Yeah, there is a famous computer geek who invented a super nice Chinese input method named "Cangjie" in Assembly and it can be used with a special Chinese CPU. (Now he is an old man.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_Bong-Foo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_Bong-Foo
    - muddyrivers 12y ago
      To answer your question on looking up a character in a dictionary, there are 3 ways, which are 3 indexing systems, all present in a dictionary. One can decide which index to use, either based on its pronunciation or its composition.
    - gizmo686 12y ago
      I can't speak directly to Chinese, but I am studying Japanese, which has a writing system derived from Chinese. Essentially each character can be broken up into smaller components (called radicals). This allows characters to be ordered somewhat 'alphabetically'. In theory, the radicals also carry some sementic and phonetic meaning, although (at least in Japanese) many characters have deviated significantly from what you would expect from the roots. Also, although Japanese has been (through deliberate effort) simplified to about 2,000 characters needed to be considered literate, it still takes until high-school for students to be able to fully read and write all 2,000.
    - univerio 12y ago
      Two ways. If you know what it sounds like, you look in the phonetic index, which is ordered alphabetically according to the pronunciation; if you know what it looks like, you can look in the radical index, which lists characters by their radicals, ordered by how many strokes they have.
    - evincarofautumn 12y ago
      Human ingenuity always finds a way. In Chinese dictionaries, there are simply multiple indices: you can look up characters by pronunciation (if you know the word but not how to write it) or by shape (if you know the character but not how to say it). The latter works because there is a small set of shapes (“radicals”) that are combined to produce new characters.
    - davidgerard 12y ago
      Largely, they don't, without a great deal of training. http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html
- mchaver 12y ago
  Hard to really guess what would have happened but it's possible that a Chinese speaker could have opted to start with one of the romanization systems or zhuyin fuhao and then build a system to inputs characters at a later point. For Arabic the challenge is more akin to this type of problem: "create a computer that can handle a cursive form of the Latin alphabet". You could start with something really rudimentary like allow for Arabic characters in isolated form. It would be ugly and challenging to read, but a start. Wouldn't be too hard to add the initial, medial and final forms, eventually diacritics as well.
- meric 12y ago
  The first solution that came into my mind, type using strokes. Here is a list of 11 strokes: http://www.121chineselessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Chinese-Writing-Strokes.jpg?99685b http://www.121chineselessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/... Every word's strokes has a pre-determined "correct" order. Once you list out the word's strokes, there are only a a couple of possibilities of characters left. A blog post on `Chinese Python`. http://reganmian.net/blog/2008/11/21/chinese-python-translating-a-programming-language/ http://reganmian.net/blog/2008/11/21/chinese-python-translat...
  - vorg 12y ago
    Unfortunately, Chinese Python maps English words to 2-character Chinese words, so the translation requires spaces between the Chinese words. So while running: guess = int(raw_input('Enter integer: ')) if guess == number: print 'Congratulations' running = False elif guess < number: print 'No, higher' else: print 'No, lower' translates to 當運行: 猜測 = 整數(輸入('輸入數字: ')) 如果猜測 == 數字: 印出 '恭喜' 運行 = 假假使猜測 < 數字: 印出 '錯了, 再大' 否則: 印出 '錯了, 再小' But if we map English words in programming to single Chinese characters, we wouldn't need spaces, so perhaps 當運: 猜=整(輸('輸入數字: ')) 如猜==數: 印'恭喜' 運=假否如猜<數: 印'錯了, 再大' 否: 印'錯了, 再小' And if we made the syntax more C-like to fully make use of the spaceless syntax 當運{ 猜=整(輸('輸入數字: ')) 如猜==數{印'恭喜';運=假} 否如猜<數{印'錯了, 再大'} 否{印'錯了, 再小'} } One could program on one's smartphone screen on the train!
    - meric 12y ago
      You can use semi-colons in Python to put multiple lines in one line, as well as inline blocks next to the colon. So, you can remove the braces, too. Added parenthesis for python 3. 當運: 猜=整(輸('輸入數字: ')) 如猜==數:印('恭喜');運=假; 否如猜<數:印('錯了, 再大'); 否:印('錯了, 再小')
- runn1ng 12y ago
  Arabic would actually be easier. It has about the same amount of letters and no capital letters.
jl6 12y ago
For what it's worth, although English is based on a small alphabet, we read whole words at a time (rather than one letter at a time). So although we are bewildered by the idea of learning thousands of characters, we exercise similar skill in recognising tens of thousands (out of a total of millions) of English words.
- satuon 12y ago
  Also English is not that phonological. In reality, you need to learn how combinations of 3-4 letters are mapped to sound. It's more like syllabary, really, except you don't have a separate glyph for each syllable.
- davidgerard 12y ago
  English has middling-simple grammar [+] and you really can make a good start with a few hundred words. But learning those first few hundred words ... about half of them have such completely ridiculous spelling, you might as well be learning pictograms anyway. (I'd like you to picture trying to explain this to a confused four-year-old. Her spelling's good now, a few years later ...) [+] no genders, no inflection, not many cases. Of course, articles are just ridiculous, and I challenge any English speaker to explain to a native Russian speaker the rules for when and when not to use "a" and "the" without looking it up ...
  - leeoniya 12y ago
    i'm native russian and english, Russian rules and exceptions are even more ridiculous and have all the [+]
yen223 12y ago
I had a similar thought. I think if modern computing arose in China, technological progress would have been slower by a decade or so, simply because you need 16-bit computing before you can do any reasonable Chinese word processing. After all, the printing press was invented in China, but it went nowhere there.
- satuon 12y ago
  I've read that in China they didn't have typewriters and everything was hand-written right up till they got computers. Edit: They had printing presses, but those are for newspapers etc. Ordinary people had to handwrite.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
    China did have typewriters, but the sheer number of keys made them impractical. The first practical ones came after the invention of dot matriz printing.
lnanek2 12y ago
It only seems difficult because you lack knowledge. Once you study a little you can break everything up into radicals pretty easy. It's one of the first things you learn so that you can lookup unfamiliar symbols in the dictionary by something other than stroke count.
vysaga 12y ago
If computer languages were invented by Chinese, it would be written in pinyin and it would be as easy as English syntax is (the vocabulary used in computer languages are very limited after all). People always find ways to simply things, so no need to worry.

somerandomone 12y ago

Inventing computer with Chinese/Arabic is inherently harder because it's more difficult to type such characters. Once you pass the punctuation card stage, now what? Build a huge keyboard with 10s of thousand of Chinese characters? It took 13 years for MS-DOS to support typing in Chinese.

qsun 12y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_typewriter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_typewriter http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Chinese_typewriter.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Chinese_t...
zac1944 12y ago
That's an English way to think about Chinese.
- DrStalker 12y ago
  How do the Chinese approach this problem? Even something as simple things as looking up a word in a dictionary seems impossible in a language like Chinese where every work is a unique cahracter but obviously the people who actually deal with the language will have solutions I've not thought of.
  - NaNaN 12y ago
    (Disclaimer: Not to argue for who invented computers first.) Yeah, there is a famous computer geek who invented a super nice Chinese input method named "Cangjie" in Assembly and it can be used with a special Chinese CPU. (Now he is an old man.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_Bong-Foo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_Bong-Foo
  - muddyrivers 12y ago
    To answer your question on looking up a character in a dictionary, there are 3 ways, which are 3 indexing systems, all present in a dictionary. One can decide which index to use, either based on its pronunciation or its composition.
  - gizmo686 12y ago
    I can't speak directly to Chinese, but I am studying Japanese, which has a writing system derived from Chinese. Essentially each character can be broken up into smaller components (called radicals). This allows characters to be ordered somewhat 'alphabetically'. In theory, the radicals also carry some sementic and phonetic meaning, although (at least in Japanese) many characters have deviated significantly from what you would expect from the roots. Also, although Japanese has been (through deliberate effort) simplified to about 2,000 characters needed to be considered literate, it still takes until high-school for students to be able to fully read and write all 2,000.
  - univerio 12y ago
    Two ways. If you know what it sounds like, you look in the phonetic index, which is ordered alphabetically according to the pronunciation; if you know what it looks like, you can look in the radical index, which lists characters by their radicals, ordered by how many strokes they have.
  - evincarofautumn 12y ago
    Human ingenuity always finds a way. In Chinese dictionaries, there are simply multiple indices: you can look up characters by pronunciation (if you know the word but not how to write it) or by shape (if you know the character but not how to say it). The latter works because there is a small set of shapes (“radicals”) that are combined to produce new characters.
  - davidgerard 12y ago
    Largely, they don't, without a great deal of training. http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html
mchaver 12y ago
Hard to really guess what would have happened but it's possible that a Chinese speaker could have opted to start with one of the romanization systems or zhuyin fuhao and then build a system to inputs characters at a later point. For Arabic the challenge is more akin to this type of problem: "create a computer that can handle a cursive form of the Latin alphabet". You could start with something really rudimentary like allow for Arabic characters in isolated form. It would be ugly and challenging to read, but a start. Wouldn't be too hard to add the initial, medial and final forms, eventually diacritics as well.
meric 12y ago
The first solution that came into my mind, type using strokes. Here is a list of 11 strokes: http://www.121chineselessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Chinese-Writing-Strokes.jpg?99685b http://www.121chineselessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/... Every word's strokes has a pre-determined "correct" order. Once you list out the word's strokes, there are only a a couple of possibilities of characters left. A blog post on `Chinese Python`. http://reganmian.net/blog/2008/11/21/chinese-python-translating-a-programming-language/ http://reganmian.net/blog/2008/11/21/chinese-python-translat...
- vorg 12y ago
  Unfortunately, Chinese Python maps English words to 2-character Chinese words, so the translation requires spaces between the Chinese words. So while running: guess = int(raw_input('Enter integer: ')) if guess == number: print 'Congratulations' running = False elif guess < number: print 'No, higher' else: print 'No, lower' translates to 當運行: 猜測 = 整數(輸入('輸入數字: ')) 如果猜測 == 數字: 印出 '恭喜' 運行 = 假假使猜測 < 數字: 印出 '錯了, 再大' 否則: 印出 '錯了, 再小' But if we map English words in programming to single Chinese characters, we wouldn't need spaces, so perhaps 當運: 猜=整(輸('輸入數字: ')) 如猜==數: 印'恭喜' 運=假否如猜<數: 印'錯了, 再大' 否: 印'錯了, 再小' And if we made the syntax more C-like to fully make use of the spaceless syntax 當運{ 猜=整(輸('輸入數字: ')) 如猜==數{印'恭喜';運=假} 否如猜<數{印'錯了, 再大'} 否{印'錯了, 再小'} } One could program on one's smartphone screen on the train!
  - meric 12y ago
    You can use semi-colons in Python to put multiple lines in one line, as well as inline blocks next to the colon. So, you can remove the braces, too. Added parenthesis for python 3. 當運: 猜=整(輸('輸入數字: ')) 如猜==數:印('恭喜');運=假; 否如猜<數:印('錯了, 再大'); 否:印('錯了, 再小')
runn1ng 12y ago
Arabic would actually be easier. It has about the same amount of letters and no capital letters.

jl6 12y ago

For what it's worth, although English is based on a small alphabet, we read whole words at a time (rather than one letter at a time). So although we are bewildered by the idea of learning thousands of characters, we exercise similar skill in recognising tens of thousands (out of a total of millions) of English words.

satuon 12y ago
Also English is not that phonological. In reality, you need to learn how combinations of 3-4 letters are mapped to sound. It's more like syllabary, really, except you don't have a separate glyph for each syllable.
davidgerard 12y ago
English has middling-simple grammar [+] and you really can make a good start with a few hundred words. But learning those first few hundred words ... about half of them have such completely ridiculous spelling, you might as well be learning pictograms anyway. (I'd like you to picture trying to explain this to a confused four-year-old. Her spelling's good now, a few years later ...) [+] no genders, no inflection, not many cases. Of course, articles are just ridiculous, and I challenge any English speaker to explain to a native Russian speaker the rules for when and when not to use "a" and "the" without looking it up ...
- leeoniya 12y ago
  i'm native russian and english, Russian rules and exceptions are even more ridiculous and have all the [+]

yen223 12y ago

I had a similar thought. I think if modern computing arose in China, technological progress would have been slower by a decade or so, simply because you need 16-bit computing before you can do any reasonable Chinese word processing. After all, the printing press was invented in China, but it went nowhere there.

satuon 12y ago
I've read that in China they didn't have typewriters and everything was hand-written right up till they got computers. Edit: They had printing presses, but those are for newspapers etc. Ordinary people had to handwrite.
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
  China did have typewriters, but the sheer number of keys made them impractical. The first practical ones came after the invention of dot matriz printing.

lnanek2 12y ago

It only seems difficult because you lack knowledge. Once you study a little you can break everything up into radicals pretty easy. It's one of the first things you learn so that you can lookup unfamiliar symbols in the dictionary by something other than stroke count.

vysaga 12y ago

If computer languages were invented by Chinese, it would be written in pinyin and it would be as easy as English syntax is (the vocabulary used in computer languages are very limited after all). People always find ways to simply things, so no need to worry.