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Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2019 15:32:08 -0500
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Subject: [PHP-DEV][DISCUSSION] Multilingual PHP
From: tendoaki@gmail.com (Michael Morris)

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Submitted to the floor is a Wired article from 2 days ago I came across

https://www.wired.com/story/coding-is-for-everyoneas-long-as-you-speak-engl=
ish/

The manual of PHP is translated into multiple languages - but what are the
development hurdles of the language itself being multilingual?

From what I understand of the compiler - maybe not that much.  The language
requires an opening tag, so we could hook into that like this example for
Japanese

<?php[=E3=83=9E=E3=83=8B=E3=83=A5=E3=82=A2=E3=83=AB]

A PHP opening tag with such a qualifier would change over all function
names and reserved words. Could these would be set on a per file basis?

The php.ini file could set the default language, the .htaccess file could
also on per directory.

I'll stop there cause I know there are problems I haven't thought of. And
I'm not going to argue the syntax I just kicked out from the top of my head
is the best either.

But I think it's worth the effort to at least look into the problem.  Wired
has a point - people learn to code faster when they are working with their
own language. One of the stated goals of PHP's design has been
accessibility so this seems to be appropriate.

I yield the floor to those smarter and wiser than I.

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