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Re: Greetings from new member

Hi Nadim

First - great work. I'm always amazed by the people who really get stuff done in the free software world, because it's a lot of work for intangible rewards.

G. Reynolds

On Nov 20, 2004, at 5:58 PM, Nadim Shaikli wrote:

Great - welcome aboard.  The key here is not to disappear and to take
ownership of something to lead the way - that's the best way to get
something accomplished for it will encourage others to lend a helping
hand.


Agreed. Personally I tend to over-optimism with regard to time estimating (rather a drawback in my previous career as a programmer, but then again all software is late, to coin an aphorism) so expect me to be stingy with explicit commitment to actual deliverables upon which others depend, at least for the time being (pretty heavy schedule at work so I don't have a lot of free time).

By the way, I'm in Qatar for the next 3 weeks and expect to be again in the Spring - if anybody else on the list is nearby please get in touch and let's get together.

...
So I propose as a possible goal for arabeyes the design and
implementation of an Arabic language programming language.
...

Personally I wouldn't be a fan of this idea _now_. I still think we
have a ways to go before we can move in this direction. But its not
for me to discourage and/or sway your plans. I'm simply thinking
about the added benefit of such a system. When it comes to programming
I think most people simply contend with the need to program in english
(not german or french but english). The idea is not to get too mired
into "us vs. them" mentality or "I shan't touch this unless its in
arabic". Its a forgone conclusion that the entire world has accepted
that if you plan to program then you really need to do it in english.
Granted this is a barrier for some of our kids, but I think if the
intent is there its a rather low hurdle to get over because again
reinventing the wheel for the sake of having a wheel is a waste of time,
it would be much wiser to use the wheel to build something more grand.


Understood, and basically agreed. But don't misunderstand; it's not really (for me) so much a matter of "us v. them", as the intriguing question of what might happen if people could "think computationally" in their native languages. I guess the larger theme is the relation between natural language and formal language. Plus, language design is for me at least the most interesting and fun aspect of programming - it would just be fun to design a language in Arabic. I think your instinct is probably correct that this isn't suitable as an immediate goal for arabeyes - so much else to be done!

Still, it would be interesting to see what would happen if we had an Arabic programming language. Would people use it? Maybe not. Obviously you'd need the tools - editor and debugger at a minimum. But that's where I think Scheme is a good candidate - it's so simple all it would take is translating a few keywords. Well, ok, math would be an issue, thanks to bidi. Sigh. (See my anti-bidi screed in my other msg.)

In addition to XML editing, I need a good file comparison tool that
handles Arabic. I've looked at a bunch of them but still haven't
found one. If there isn't a good one out there I suppose the thing to
do would be to arabize gnu diff. 

Noted.  Then we need to add 'diff' to our list of things that we need
to add arabic support to and this I'd agree with - this is a rather
basic necessity which is rather urgent.

I've begun compiling a list of diff programs (commercial and free) and how they handle Arabic. Will post when I get it into a useful state. Then we can pick the one that looks like the least amount of work as an immediate goal, with gnu diff as the longer term goal.

And that's not even considering the bizarre (and IMHO totally
unacceptable) behaviour of the cursor in bidi enabled software.  Nor
the many other issues that make Unicode Arabic one of the worst
designs in the history of technology.


The cursor behavior is bizarre because none of us (and no one else has)
spec'ed out what really needs to happen in various scenarios.

Indulge me for a second. The shame of it is, if Arabic were properly construed as monodirectional this problem would simple disappear. It would still be there for actual mixed rtl/ltr text such as program code - a practical reason (sort of) for an Arabic programming language. ;)

Gregg, you seem to be very enthusiastic and idea-filled. The point here
is not to argue until we are all blue in the face, but to plan forth a
direction and lead it. In other words, since you are into XML and
integrating that into the .PO translation flow - go ahead with the
idea if you think it will ease people's life and show us a prototype
of the end result that you have in mind. The prototype will give you
feedback on how to proceed (if at all) and it will also give tangibles
to those doing the actual .PO translation work to see what benefits
they can reap from it.

Bare in mind that we are small in number so don't let our lack of
immediate support discourage you - we're all juggling a number of
things and until an idea/plan get clearer most usually tend to simply
shy away.


No problem. For now the most I can promise is some modest translation effort, plus ideas/proposals - I'll be posting some of the writing/thinking I've been doing on my website under some kind of free license so arabeyes can use if appropriate and useful.

Salam,

gregg