Comments on Another blogger rides the bus: Programming in Indic languages

Writing code in any other language than English is...

2009-01-12T02:06:00.000-08:00

Writing code in any other language than English is EPIC. The problem is, the programming languages are much more formal and strict in the way you express it. (The ordering of individual tokens matter..eg, gcc would shout if the statement does not end with a ';')..

So, you can get away with a one-one mapping of English -> [your_fav_language]...So in essence, have an intermediary parser that would translate the tokens into some other language. Also, note that English has been used for standard notations for a loong loooong time (Such a no-brainer).

I am not entirely sure about this though. Distributing code would be a major headache, and not to mention most compilers AFAIK take in only standard ASCII text (not unicode).

If you consider programming *for* indic languages, thats completely different. Google for, Indlinux project. :)

@everyone!- thnx a lot for ur comments! @LVS- as i...

2008-12-31T12:38:00.000-08:00

@everyone!- thnx a lot for ur comments!
@LVS- as i told u, love ur blog!
@radhika-i've never heard of hindi keyboards re...
@Srivats-thnx for dropping by!

I was thinking along these lines but under a diff ...

2008-12-30T21:26:00.000-08:00

I was thinking along these lines but under a diff context (cultural genocide) - the reason you and I for example converse in english is because
a. the british made sure they made english mandatory in all schools, hence supplanting the mother tongue as the first language.

b. There are too many regional languages in india to decide on any one as the common mode of communication - when hindi was made the official indian language, almost all southern states went on strike, etc etc etc - but no one did that when the british stuffed english down everyones throats.

And this happened in every british colony around the world. Also, the worlds most powerful nation today, the USA, uses english. hence, anyone in a supported economy (african states, puerto rico, caribbean, south america, mexico, erstwhile soviet states) learn english even if their first language is spanish or anything else. So, english rules the roost.

Several leading programmers have indicated that sanskrit is most suited in terms of grammatical protocols to be a programming language. (wiki noam chomsky and his take on sansrit, for eg.)

I think widespread use of a programming language based on a devanagiri script is gonna take a while to penetrate even the indian market - as other comments mention, keyboards first, languages later.

Nice blog, btw, keep em coming, all the best...

I believe such key boards do exist...there are lot...

2008-12-27T20:26:00.000-08:00

I believe such key boards do exist...there are lots of rural programmes run by NGOs who teach computer literacy, mainly vocational, to connect the rural masses to the mainstream & i think they use hindi language key boards. Or maybe they just use a conversion software ? -not too sure.

perhaps, Indic keyboards are the first step toward...

2008-12-25T20:53:00.000-08:00

perhaps, Indic keyboards are the first step towards Indic programming languages.

let me try,

सामान्य परिवर्तनहीन शून्य मुख्य(श्रृंखला परिमाणों[]) {

}

that's public static void main (String args[]) for you :P

~LVS

i'm not talking about a revolution man...imagine a...

2008-12-24T12:31:00.000-08:00

i'm not talking about a revolution man...imagine a guy from a village who is studied all his life in a hindi medium school and doesn't know a word of english. if he has to program, he needs to learn english first. its about bringing power to the masses. A village panchayat is not gonna conduct its sessions in english.

the code is what makes u a coder man... makes u th...

2008-12-24T10:03:00.000-08:00

the code is what makes u a coder man... makes u the literate.. and posting in an Indian language...why the revolution..?
why learn how to write wit the left hand hen u can write with your right?