Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!ico!vail!rcd
From: rcd@ico.ISC.COM (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Question on programming languages ("foreign" keywords)
Summary: translation is not that easy
Message-ID: <16126@vail.ICO.ISC.COM>
Date: 25 Sep 89 17:54:30 GMT
References: <8720001@hplsla.HP.COM> <89267.181118UH2@PSUVM.BITNET>
Organization: Interactive Systems Corp, Boulder, CO
Lines: 26

The question was whether there are programming languages based on some
language other than English, e.g. with keywords in some other language.
In article <89267.181118UH2@PSUVM.BITNET>, UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) writes:
> I've seen one.  Years ago I saw some source code which I believe
> was ALGOL, except that all the Keywords were auf Deutsch...
. . .[example deleted]
> Seems like this would be pretty easy to do if you had the source
> to the translater, or using a simple preprocessor for a compiled
> language.

You can modify the translator easily enough, but you end up with a
different language because (for most languages) you can't do a simple
translation without getting into trouble.  The problem is that the key-
words, when translated, may collide with identifiers in the program--
which is a problem in most languages.  (And if you look for identifier
collisions and remap them, you'll mess up the comments, etc.)

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.
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com    uucp: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd     (303)449-2870
   ...I'm not cynical - just experienced.