Re: Avatox 1.0: Trouble with encoding in Windows

["Jeffrey R. Carter" <spam.not.jrcarter@acm.not.spam.org>]

Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> Jeffrey R. Carter wrote:
> 
> One value of characters outside the "crippled" range for English
> is communication which relates to the problem domain, and specifically
> adresses those who have to solve it.
> The problem might have its own language, as Martin explains.
> In particular, not every program is written by an international
> team. Even if it is written in a common language, the common
> language is only _like_ English, it is rather some computese. At
> least I get this impression when I look at some programs and texts
> including my own...

If the problem domain is not described in English, and the developers 
don't use English, why should they use a language that looks like English?

> But words of grammar are as formal as the symbols in the grammar.
> Other formal languages in the Ada camp even use artificial words
> like "fi" and "od". I think the argument that Ada's grammar implies
> English does not apply even though some of its reserved words
> are English (like "then"). "Procedure" and "function" are not
> specifically English, I'd say. If Ada is designed to read *like* English,
> then we have to consider that the European languages are very much
> *like* each other (communication barriers notwithstanding).
> For example, "when" reads "wenn", "then" reads "dann" (or even "denn"),
> and so on, in German. I'm sure people from other countries west of
> the slavic borders can add similar comparisons.

The origin of "fi" and "od" is fairly obvious, at least to an English 
speaker. They're English words written backwards, serving the purpose of 
Modula's "end", and the words they "end" are themselves reserved words.

With the exception of "elsif", all of Ada's reserved words are English 
words. Other western European languages may have similar words, but that 
may not be a good thing. I recall the misuse of "eventual" in English by 
Netherlands and French speakers in Belgium.

> So using your native language or problem domain language might add
> value to the local mode of expression.

Sure. So would using a programming language with reserved words in that 
language.

> The word "resent" is an example of the effects of people trying
> to write Enlish when they probably shouldn't. "Resent" is to be
> understood as a passive form of the word "resend". This word doesn't
> exist in my fairly recent edition of an Oxford dictionary.  But it has
> been added to a popular online dictionary (dict.leo.org).
> Nevertheless, I bet few people know that "resent" means something
> very different when English isn't their native language.
> (But it reads like English...)

I resent the implications :) Actually, that would be a past tense and 
past participle. The past participle, of course, is used in forming the 
passive voice.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of
thought, careening through a cosmic vapor of invention."
Blazing Saddles
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