Re: Apostrophes, quotation marks, keyboards and typography

From: John Cowan (cowan@locke.ccil.org)
Date: Tue Jul 20 1999 - 12:22:42 EDT


Kenneth Whistler wrote:

> Markus [wrote:]

[much good stuff snipped]

> > Seriously, computer languages are rather controlled artificial languages
> > that are NOT intended for end users. They have developed their very own
> > and very special ideosyncracies (for very good reasons), i18n attempts
> > at programming language syntax could very easily be misguided badly, and
> > using Navajo in program identifiers is most certainly not what we should
> > consider to be good software engineering. Even French, Russian, and
> > Japanese identifiers are bad enough, especially when mixed in the same
> > program. Lucky you, if you never had to maintain one of these. ASCII for
> > identifiers is just fine, and if it forces software engineers to stay
> > with English identifiers, then trust me, this is a feature, not a bug.
>
> But your point about computer languages is well taken. Certainly
> keywords should not be mucked with in formal syntax. And most attempts
> to internationalize internal identifiers are misguided, since the
> little help they provide to a group who wants to use non-ASCII
> identifiers is often offset by the troubles of code maintenance and
> portability.

Maintenance and portability by whom? I thought "everybody who works
with computers has to know English" was what we were trying to get
away from. Identifier names are part of a program's [self-]documentation,
and like other doco should be in the most useful language, which in
principle could certainly be Navajo; in practice, Japanese is already
in use for this purpose. (See the sf novel _Cyber Way_ for a view of
the possible future Silicon Rez.)

-- 
	John Cowan	http://www.ccil.org/~cowan	cowan@ccil.org
Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! / Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau,
Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau / Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.
			-- Coleridge / Politzer



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