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From: sra@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Stephen Adams)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Question on programming languages ("foreign" keywords)
Message-ID: 
Date: 26 Sep 89 09:45:18 GMT
References: <8720001@hplsla.HP.COM> <89267.181118UH2@PSUVM.BITNET>
	<16126@vail.ICO.ISC.COM>
Sender: sra@ecs.soton.ac.uk
Organization: Southampton University Computer Science
Lines: 15
In-reply-to: rcd@ico.ISC.COM's message of 25 Sep 89 17:54:30 GMT

In article <16126@vail.ICO.ISC.COM> rcd@ico.ISC.COM (Dick Dunn) writes:

   The reason that virtually all programming languages use English for
   keywords is simply to have one standard representation for programs.
   Trying to allow multiple languages gets you into portability problems.
   The anglo-centric view--like it or not, it's there--says that a language
   using keywords other than English doesn't stand a chance outside its own
   country.

I know a couple of programmers who program in COBOL for a living and
are glad that they dont have english as their first language.  They
rarely pick a variable name only to find that it is one of COBOLs
hundreds of reserved words :-).
--
Stephen Adams
S.Adams@ecs.soton.ac.uk