Re: language design implications for variant records in a pascal-like language

glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu>
Thu, 13 Jan 2011 07:31:01 +0000 (UTC)

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Related articles
[34 earlier articles]
Re: language design implications for variant records in a pascal-like haberg-news@telia.com (Hans Aberg) (2011-01-10)
Re: language design implications for variant records in a pascal-like compilers@is-not-my.name (2011-01-10)
Re: language design implications for variant records in a pascal-like martin@gkc.org.uk (Martin Ward) (2011-01-12)
Re: language design implications for variant records in a pascal-like martin@gkc.org.uk (Martin Ward) (2011-01-12)
Re: language design implications for variant records in a pascal-like DrDiettrich1@aol.com (Hans-Peter Diettrich) (2011-01-12)
Re: language design implications for variant records in a pascal-like mcr@wildcard.demon.co.uk (Martin Rodgers) (2011-01-12)
Re: language design implications for variant records in a pascal-like gah@ugcs.caltech.edu (glen herrmannsfeldt) (2011-01-13)
Re: language design implications for variant records in a pascal-like gah@ugcs.caltech.edu (glen herrmannsfeldt) (2011-01-13)
Re: language design implications for variant records in a pascal-like compilers@is-not-my.name (2011-01-13)
Re: language design implications for variant records in a pascal-like noitalmost@cox.net (noitalmost) (2011-01-13)
Re: language design implications for variant records in a pascal-like compilers@is-not-my.name (2011-01-14)
Re: language design implications for variant records in a pascal-like mcr@wildcard.demon.co.uk (Martin Rodgers) (2011-01-14)
Re: language design implications for variant records in a pascal-like robin51@dodo.com.au (robin) (2011-01-14)
[15 later articles]
| List of all articles for this month |
From: glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2011 07:31:01 +0000 (UTC)
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
References: 10-12-040 10-12-043 11-01-005 11-01-009 11-01-027 11-01-031 11-01-037
Keywords: design
Posted-Date: 14 Jan 2011 01:27:23 EST

Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@aol.com> wrote:
(snip on remembering all the reserved words for COBOL)


> Interestingly only English speakers have such problems. In one of my
> first IS lessons we've been encouraged to use natural (German) words
> for identifiers all over, to prevent such problems. Obeying this
> simple rule I never noticed even the existence of the keyword problem,
> in all my COBOL code :-)


I have always wondered why so many languages use English words
for keywords, even though programmers may speak other languages.


Now, with C one could use the preprocessor to replace keywords
from other languages with the appropriate C keyword.


I do remember when first learning Fortran, having to learn
how to spell EQUIVALENCE, as was a word that I rarely used
otherwise. I also remember people from other parts of the US
trying to get Fortran to accept the INTERGER statement.


I don't remember ever knowing a non-native-English speaker who
wanted a programming language with keywords in another language.


> Now I wonder why APL then wasn't the big breakthrough,
> eliminating any possible clashes with natural languages ;-)


Many symbols to learn, and they are harder to remember even
than keywords in a non-native language.


-- glen
[Long ago I saw versions of languages like Fortranwith the keywords
translated into other languages. They weren't very popular. -John]


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