RE: international language support
As I see it the technical problem is fact that the reserved words of the
langauage (end, for, while etc.) could clash with identifier names that
programmers might choose. A solution (although it's really ugly) is to have
all the reserved words in a language prefixed with a special character so no
such clash is possible.
For the sake of argument lets assume that the ! character isn't used (does
Euphoria use ! for anything? - I'd have to check to be sure).
Now we just write our code to look like:
!include get.e
!function main()
!sequence cmdline
cmdline = command_line()
!for i = 1 !to length(cmdline) !do
!printf(1, "Arg %02d is [%s]\n", {i, cmdline[i]})
!end !for
!return(wait_key())
!end !function
!abort(main())
I told you it was ugly!!! Just to clear up any potential confusion I'm in no
way proposing this as a serious solution - just looking at that code segment
above makes me feel like I have motion sickness. It's more to illustrate that
maybe reserved words of a language could be explicitly set apart from
identifier names. Many languages require you to prefix identifer names when
used in certain contents ($variable in UNIX shell and @variable in Perl) so
I'm just taking this convention and applying it to the reserved words as
opposed to the identifiers. The result is ugly and jarring - but maybe that's
because we're used to something else - very subjective I guess.
As a totally academic question in the code snippet above I left command_line
and length untouched. As I see it length is a built in reserved word so
should I have !length - I'd say it was a difficult (if academic) call.
Perhaps this idea might not be so mad for an "internal" form though - hmmm.
Regards,
FP.
>===== Original Message From John McAdam <johnmcadam at clix.pt> =====
>
>I just get my mail once a day, so I will answer everybody all at once.
>
>Kat, I like the lang.ini idea. Probably easier than include lang.e
>because the user wouldn't always have to remember to include
>the lang.e file - it would just be automatically used by the interpreter.
>However, I think it would take a lot of work for Rob to it. Perhaps the
>substitution was done by the editor at the same time as syntax
>coloring, perhaps in an internal representation?
>
>Igor, I am sure that you will agree with me that there are some
>intelligent people in the world who don't speak english. Probably
>quite a few in fact. People who would pay for the ability to write
>computer programs in their native language. A world full of people.
>A really big world full of people who want this. I think this would
>be a truly enormous market and there is no competition. There is
>no language that does this.
>
>Rolf, Just because all other languages are in english doesn't mean
>that they have to be.
>
>Igor, I speak portuguese very well, but if am trying to figure out some
>complicated algorithm I do it in english because it flows faster for me.
>I think that new programmers will have an even more difficult time if
>their language skills are not as good. It turns off their creativity and
>their enthusiasm - things that we need.
>I will download the red.ex tonight when the rates go down.
>
>Irv, Why do you need a different sort order, as well? I don't understand.
>
>FP, My idea would be that the preprocessor substitute the keywords
>and save the new file in its english version as a regular .ex file. The
original
>file - in other language - could be written with another extension. ".pex"
>or "fex" or "Rex" or something (portuguese, french, russsian). The english
>version would be the one shared between programmers of different
>languages and for this group. The number of keywords would only be
>double. Hmm. Maybe more. Hmm. I see your point.
>
>Kat, The substitution list would be strict. Fim would only mean End. The
>problem would be exchanging a library or program with someone who
>had used a variable named fim (which they understood to mean "financial
>integration marker" or whatever in their language). In order to continue
>exchanging code we would not be able to use translations of keywords
>from any language. There must be a simple way of getting around this.
>
>
>Rolf, No need to write off the majority of creative people in the world.
>No need to shackle their minds by limiting them with just one language
>option. Kids do learn quick its true, but even some adults are intelligent.
>
>JOHN
>
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