Re: international language support
Hi, everybody.
I've been following this thread with some interest. Many interesting
thoughts, nothing really new, basically the old conflict: should x be
translated or should I learn another language? Happens with books, movies
and clothes labels, not just with PLs.
I don't think there's just one clear solution. I believe most people will
feel comfortable with a dual system, as in keeping English-based syntax
along with translated docs (as long as they are well translated -you should
see some Spanish help files, and I do mean MS).
Now, there's a point that this far I haven't seen anybody make, and I feel
it's quite important. English as an almost requisite for programming is
pushing considerably towards the popularisation of an international
language. Never mind it's English, it might have been French, Spanish,
Russian or ..you name it. Never mind it comes along with programming.
The main fact is that we're all talking a common language, sharing ideas and
experience across every line you care to mention, just because we share a
language. This not only makes us comfortable and serves our needs, it's an
enormous intellectual and practical multiplier.
There's ample historical precedent. The huge scientific process that helped
lead Europe through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance would not have been
possible had not every person with intellectual pretensions been profficient
in the use of a common language, namely Latin.
We live in a small, troubled world. As Buckminster Fuller said, a spaceship
that came without the manual. We -the whole human species- are now in the
process, whether we are conscious of the fact or not, of writing that
manual. I'd say that a good grasp of a common language is step number zero
towards that end. English? So be it. Does an English-inspired PL help along
the way? My finger points upwards.
Not that the preprocessor idea is wrong in any way. There are many good
translations around, along with the bad and the ugly. Of books, movies, TV
series, documents of all kinds. If it helps someone to do a better job,
good. But if it gives someone the idea that it's not worth the trouble to
learn another language, seeing that the (translated) world is intent on
beating a path to your particular neck of the woods, then it's doing you and
everyone else a sad disservice.
By the way, here's an unintentional example of the complexity of the whole
thing:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Irv Mullins" <irvm at ellijay.com>
To: "EUforum" <EUforum at topica.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2001 1:13 PM
Subject: Re: international language support
> Pretty much the same thing could be done in Euphoria with simple include
> files:
> msg.en
> msg1 = "File not found"
> msg2 = "Cannot read file"
>
> msg.es
> msg1 = "Fichero no encontrado"
> msg2 = "No puede leer el fichero"
>
> (Apologies for the poor spanish)
>
> Regards,
> Irv
No apologies needed. Your Spanish is quite adequate, and your translation
would indeed have made the grade in any important commercial app. However,
therein lies a wolf in sheep's disguise. Your Spanish is truly Spanish, I
mean as in from Spain. Not every Spanish (language) speaker says 'fichero.'
That's actually a Gallicism, a literal translation from the French
'fichier'. Both fichier and fichero actually mean 'file cabinet', and so
would have been more appropriate as equivalences for the English 'archive'.
But that's water under the bridge. Half the Spanish-speaking world says
'fichero', the other half says 'archivo'. Each half understands the other,
the way Americans and Britons understand about lift and elevator, but it's
not their native way, not the way they speak or think. It can be almost like
another language. Literally. I'm from urban Argentina. I once underwent the
daunting experience of not understand two words out of three in what a
Mexican teenager was saying. Tired of speaking to the walls (as we say
here), he sighed and ...switched to English. Great buddies ever since.
Gerardo
>
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