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

compilers@is-not-my.name
Fri, 14 Jan 2011 10:12:50 -0000

          From comp.compilers
Related articles
[38 earlier articles]
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)
Re: language design implications for variant records in a pascal-like robin51@dodo.com.au (robin) (2011-01-14)
Re: language design implications for variant records in a pascal-like robin51@dodo.com.au (robin) (2011-01-14)
Re: language design implications for variant records in a pascal-like DrDiettrich1@aol.com (Hans-Peter Diettrich) (2011-01-14)
Re: language design implications for variant records in a pascal-like cfc@shell01.TheWorld.com (Chris F Clark) (2011-01-14)
[11 later articles]
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From: compilers@is-not-my.name
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2011 10:12:50 -0000
Organization: Compilers Central
References: 11-01-040
Keywords: design
Posted-Date: 15 Jan 2011 00:17:42 EST

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


The answer that jumps out at me is most languages were developed in
America and so were most of the hardware and operating
systems. FORTRAN and COBOL set the early standards by using English to
make it simpler for their target audience to use the languages in a
natural way as opposed to what came before- machine language,
autocoder, assembler, etc. I can't explain LISP, but maybe it's easier
for non native-English speakers to master, I can tell you the keywords
in LISP make no sense and may just have well been in German or Chinese
or Swedish ;-)


I don't know that there was any specific plot to exclude anybody, but
I do know the global view that's common today was not very common in
the times those languages were developed. I'm not sure anybody had any
idea how far things would go.
[The keywords in Lisp make perfect sense if you know IBM 704 assembler. -John]


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