HN Explorer

Ask HN: What are the most popular non-English programming languages?

9 points by holaboyperu ↗ HN
I have been thinking about writing my own programming language in Spanish, but I'm wondering if it's even worth it.

What are the most popular non-English languages that you like?

16 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 45.2 ms ] thread
jobigoud
As engineers I think we can all see the benefits of having a standard language to back keywords.

I mean, culturally it's nice to have many languages throughout the world but imagine how easier everything would be if everybody on the planet spoke the same language. Now imagine if you had to relearn the name of "true", "false", "if", "for", etc. each time you change language… Bonkers.

Anectdote: As a non native speaker myself, I learned to use the while loop before I knew what the word "while" meant. The subset of English words used in programming can be learned pretty quickly.

So, yes, it is not worth it IMHO. For better or worse, English is the way to go.

holaboyperu
Yes, I agree with you with most of what you said, however, there are dozens of programming languages in English that don't get enough attention, why can't a non-English language be popular in its part of the world?
Tomte
Ah, the times when Microsoft translated VBA keywords into German...

But while they gave that up, we still have localized Excel function names. I don't know how robust exchanging Excel files really is, it makes me nervous, at least.

But given that many companies are global now and Excel is an important backbone to any company, there cannot be more than rare and minor problems with it, I guess.

hackuser
To native English speakers: How likely is it that you would have become a developer if all code was written in Chinese (or pick another language with glyphs that you don't even recognize)? Would you have become a web user if URLs were in Chinese?

What would be the size of the population of developers in the U.S., relative to today, if all code was written in Chinese?

allendoerfer
That is not a fair comparison for most people, because English is the most popular second language. For example in Europe it's not like we have to learn something totally different (like Chinese is to English). I would say most people who have a computer know at least some very basic English.

I started programming at around 13 years old when I have had English classes for 2 or 3 years (since 5th grade) and did not have any problems. My biggest problem was the IE 6 box model, really, and that for a while I had a hard time abstracting the "a class is a car and this object is a BMW car" to things I actually could needed. I have to say, though, that I used German language books and forums for help back then before Stackoverflow was a thing.

hackuser
> That is not a fair comparison for most people, because English is the most popular second language

According to Wikipedia, FWIW, 1.5 billion people speak English as a first or second language. That means there is a significant language barrier for ~78% of the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_num...

> in Europe it's not like we have to learn something totally different (like Chinese is to English)

Imagine how English is for the 1 billion people in China!

I wonder how many people are fluent in languages using the Latin alphabet, or speak any Indo-European language.

allendoerfer
>According to Wikipedia, FWIW, 1.5 billion people speak English as a first or second language. That means there is a significant language barrier for ~78% of the world.

As I argued, that's not exactly true. As long as your mother tongue is not something totally different, you do not have to qualify as an English speaker to learn how to program. It's the same with games: Sure, kids don't know how to pronounce "Game over", but they know what it means.

hackuser
I agree. That's why I was asking about the prevalence of Latin alphabets and Indo-European languages.
akeruu
Altough I'm not sure it counts as programming language but Excell's functions are definitely localized. While I can see the benefit for a less computer literate audience, I always find myself struggling when switching from an english Office installation to a localized one. I would strongly recommend against does this.
Avalaxy
Exactly. I think Excel's translations are a real PITA. Makes it hard to google stuff.
anonx
1C:Enterprise Programming Language is pretty popular in CIS countries. It is high level, looks like Visual Basic but has Russian syntax. Sample: [1]. Not something I like, just a popular language I'm aware of. Cannot say whether it's worth it. I guess it depends on what exactly you're trying to achieve.

http://i.imgur.com/r98WGEM.jpg