[HN Gopher] Hello world: meet qlb (Qalb) a programming language ...
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       Hello world: meet qlb (Qalb) a programming language based on Arabic
       (2013)
        
       Author : segasaturn
       Score  : 37 points
       Date   : 2024-02-15 19:36 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
        
       | thatwasunusual wrote:
       | Probably still easier to read than Perl. ;)
        
       | elliottcarlson wrote:
       | https://github.com/nasser/---/ is the repo for it -- sadly
       | doesn't seem it has been updated much since the initial article
       | and release of it.
        
       | linux2647 wrote:
       | (2013)
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Added. Thanks!
        
       | illusive4080 wrote:
       | It seems rather limiting to make a single language in a different
       | script. Instead, would it make sense to have a language
       | transpiler to convert the Arabic into Latin (primarily English)
       | for all modern languages?
       | 
       | For instance, write your Rust code in native Arabic using native
       | keywords, run the transpiler, and you get regular English-
       | anchored Rust code?
       | 
       | This would be far less limiting than using a single language.
        
         | cyberax wrote:
         | Right-to-left switching is a problem, because your eyes will
         | have to jump all the time.
        
           | illusive4080 wrote:
           | Right, but my point is that with transpilers, you rarely look
           | at the transpiled code, only the original code. All original
           | code would be in native tongue.
        
           | alephnerd wrote:
           | Getting PTSD from looking at code written by a former
           | employer's Israeli and Indian dev teams at the same time.
           | 
           | We'd have comments in Hebrew, Indian English, and American
           | English all over the place.
        
           | nelblu wrote:
           | I don't know about Arabic but in Urdu the numbers are still
           | written left to right. I found that extremely annoying when I
           | was studying Urdu.
        
         | WorldMaker wrote:
         | Depends on what your goals are: collaborating in a multi-
         | lingual environment or exploring the abstractions that might
         | feel more "native" to the language (or languages) in the new
         | script.
         | 
         | Natural languages are abstractions in both similar ways and
         | distinct ones that programming languages are. There are
         | probably interesting programming languages to be discovered by
         | developers whose first language is something other than English
         | working on programming languages closer to their native
         | language's abstractions. I don't have specifics to offer, just
         | a general academic sense that diversity of thought/models is
         | interesting and can produce interesting results given a chance.
        
       | someotherperson wrote:
       | Thank you for correctly adding the Q. Writing it as "alb" is the
       | equivalent of transliterating "having a laugh" by someone from
       | London to "avvin a lorf."
        
         | ithkuil wrote:
         | In which Arabic dialect/languages does qalb not have a q or g
         | sound? I guess it doesn't become k to not confuse with "dog"
         | right?
        
           | someotherperson wrote:
           | Levantine, excluding Bedouins and Alawites and some others.
           | Egyptian Arabic supplements the Q with a glottal stop.
           | 
           | > I guess it doesn't become k to not confuse with "dog"
           | right?
           | 
           | Qaf (Q) is usually turned into g/gaf (G) in some accents
           | (gulf, bedouin levantine). Kaf (K) is sometimes turned into
           | ch/che (CH) in the northern Gulf accents. It's not very
           | common at all for a Q to drift its way into a K and is
           | usually considered mispronunciation.
        
       | p10_user wrote:
       | So cool!
       | 
       | Maybe someone will write a parser to convert x language ->
       | English valid python (or any language, just starting simple)
       | 
       | Shouldn't be terribly difficult with some help from AI:
       | 
       | https://chat.openai.com/share/14d4b7b2-fb87-4887-803e-0ecee7...
        
       | elintknower wrote:
       | Are women allowed to use it?
        
         | dang wrote:
         | None of this on Hacker News, please.
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Related:
       | 
       |  _qlb: a non-ASCII programming language written in Arabic_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21352508 - Oct 2019 (623
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _Ramsey Nasser 's Arabic programming language artwork_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7700691 - May 2014 (108
       | comments)
        
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       (page generated 2024-02-15 23:01 UTC)