Talk:Old Develop activity

From OLPC
Revision as of 05:53, 4 July 2007 by 72.3.237.81 (talk)
Jump to: navigation, search

Feedback on Translation of keywords

There is a drawback if keywords are translated to one's native language. People will want to share code snippets. Although translation is feasible in the IDE, it is not obvious online. Using custom translations are even more of an issue. The IDE could translate the snipped based on its original language but this would require extra effort by the user.

There are much less keywords than methods provided by the standard libraries. If people need to learn the meaning of 'httplib' etc., then learning the meaning of 'string' and 'if' is not much more extra effort. How many native English speaking people automatically associate the word 'string' to a bunch of characters? ;-)

I think learning some keywords initially is more valuable in the long term. Multi/dynamic language comments on the other hand is beneficial, especially in example code etc.

--WeBToR 05:10, 20 December 2006 (EST);

Translation is not just a find-and-replace activity. Many concepts do not translate into a concise word that fits into the target grammar. Traditional programming languages are a sub-set of tailored english, while retaining some sort of 'natural' association to the english language as a whole. It's rarely the case in other languages. IT generates new words or meanings in english that rarely translate in a natural way