[Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Sugar Digest 2012-09-18

[Kevin Mark]

--- On Sun, 9/23/12, S. Daniel Francis <francis at sugarlabs.org> wrote:

> From: S. Daniel Francis <francis at sugarlabs.org>
> Subject: Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Sugar Digest 2012-09-18
> To: "James Cameron" <quozl at laptop.org>
> Cc: sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> Date: Sunday, September 23, 2012, 9:24 PM
> 2012/9/23 James Cameron <quozl at laptop.org>:
> > On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 09:14:41PM -0300, S. Daniel
> Francis wrote:
> >> 2012/9/23 James Cameron <quozl at laptop.org>:
> >> > It is irritating that we still store source
> code in linear text files
> >> > without built-in internationalisation.
> >> > As you change these names, they become far
> less useful to programmers
> >> > who use that language.
> >> >
> >> > The development system would be more open and
> inclusive if there was a
> >> > way to keep variable names, and other text, in
> multiple languages.
> >>
> >> It isn't possible, there is to implement l10n and
> then there are
> >> needed translators, our translators cant translate
> source code...
> >
> > True, only bilingual programmers could translate source
> code ... and
> > that was what I was suggesting.  I doubt our
> string translators, or
> > their infrastructure, could be any help
> whatsoever.  It is a totally
> > different problem.
> >
> > But I don't think it is impossible for bilingual
> programmers to
> > collaborate in this way.  Merely difficult.
> 
> There are many reasons for don't translate source code.
> Here two:
> - Other languages have non-ascii characters, and variable
> names can't
> be written with those characters.

Some language (might be Perl or Python) are moving to make variables Unicode (UTF-8), so it will be allowed in the future.

> - Python is very similar to the natural language, but in
> other
> languages, where the order to use the words is different,
> the code
> leases concordance.

Yes, I can see a direct translation would be a problem, but in most case, the people I knew just made a shortened version or shorthand of the full name.

I didn't mean to disrupt the conversation, as I know most 'real' programmers will eventually use English. But the idea of kids learning python with Spanish variable names and comments as part of a hacking community to learn, I think is something to consider. When they go to High School or College, they will have learned more English, I assume, and they can change to English (if they program in a Company that uses that)
-Kev