# [DISCUSSION] Multilingual PHP - Thread: https://externals.io/message/105253 - Original archive: https://news-web.php.net/php.internals/105253 - Started by Michael Morris on 2019-04-11T20:32:08+00:00 - Messages: 12 - Reply by email to internals@lists.php.net - More for agents: search with https://externals.io/search.md?q={query} · RFCs at https://externals.io/rfc.md · JSON API at https://externals.io/api · documentation at https://externals.io/llms.txt --- ## #105253 — Michael Morris — 2019-04-11T20:32:08+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/105253#105253 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-english/ 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 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-english/ > > 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 > > > 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. --- ## #105255 — Stanislav Malyshev — 2019-04-11T21:35:31+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/105253#105255 Hi! > 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. For better or for worse, English is the lingua franca of the internet technology. You can, of course, create a compiler which would understand keywords in other languages. This compiler will be used by 0.001% of the main language user base, code written with it will be inaccessible to any person who does not read that language, and communication between the users of different language-branches of the project would be virtually zero because they literally would have no common language. I don't think this would help anyone. Yes, basic knowledge of English is currently a requirement to engage with most technologies. Once you have mastered it, however, the whole technology world is available to you, at one-time investment. Fragmenting this world into tiny pieces, each with its own language, would not make these parts more accessible to each other. > 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 My native language is not English. Moreover, my first foreign language wasn't English either. I had no more trouble learning BASIC (yes, I am that old) or Pascal than I had learning programming languages based on my native tongue. The only difference is that the former translated pretty well into other languages I encountered when I progressed with my learning, while the latter did not, it was an isolated island not connected to anything else. -- Stas Malyshev smalyshev@gmail.com --- ## #105256 — Bruce Weirdan — 2019-04-11T21:36:36+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/105253#105256 On Fri, Apr 12, 2019 at 12:17 AM Benjamin Morel wrote: > This may be harder for people having a native language with a different > alphabet, though. > That's unlikely to be a problem. Even to get to the PHP manual you have to type `www.php.net` (or `google.com` if you want to google something), so it implies you have a way to enter latin characters. Keyboard layout switching is a problem solved decades ago. -- Best regards, Bruce Weirdan mailto: weirdan@gmail.com --- ## #105257 — Walter Parker — 2019-04-11T21:57:31+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/105253#105257 I also am old enough to have used/remember using BASIC. I remember German and Japanese friends that wrote in BASIC. It was interesting to see German programs where all the keywords were in English and all the text was in German. The Japanese was even more strange as the system had to switch between the code pages for ASCII/LATIN and the one for the Japanese Language. Today to get something other an ASCII/LATIN, we would have to support Unicode for source code. Does PHP currently work if Unicode is used for identifiers? Walter > On Fri, Apr 12, 2019 at 12:17 AM Benjamin Morel > wrote: > > > […] > > That's unlikely to be a problem. Even to get to the PHP manual you have to > type `www.php.net` (or `google.com` if you want to google something), > so it implies you have a way to enter latin characters. Keyboard layout > switching is a problem solved decades ago. > > -- > Best regards, > Bruce Weirdan mailto: > weirdan@gmail.com > -- The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis --- ## #105258 — Derick Rethans — 2019-04-11T22:09:50+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/105253#105258 > I also am old enough to have used/remember using BASIC. I remember German > and Japanese friends that wrote in BASIC. It was interesting to see German > programs where all the keywords were in English and all the text was in > German. The Japanese was even more strange as the system had to switch > between the code pages for ASCII/LATIN and the one for the Japanese > Language. > > Today to get something other an ASCII/LATIN, we would have to support > Unicode for source code. Does PHP currently work if Unicode is used for > identifiers? Yes. You can use UTF-8 for function names and variables (but please don't!). My favourite annoyance is using a non breaking space in function/method names ;-) cheers, Derick --- ## #105259 — Bruce Weirdan — 2019-04-11T22:25:38+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/105253#105259 > > My favourite annoyance is using a non breaking space in > function/method names ;-) "Better" yet, you can use characters that are different, but look the same as Latin chars e.g. CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER ES (U+0441) instead of (LATIN SMALL LETTER C U+0063). Incidentally these two chars also share the same physical button in English/Russian keyboard layouts, so it's a mistake easy to make and very hard to spot visually: https://3v4l.org/rjjU9 -- Best regards, Bruce Weirdan mailto:weirdan@gmail.com --- ## #105260 — johannes@schlueters.de — 2019-04-11T22:26:29+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/105253#105260 Hi, > 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-spea > k-english/ > Oh, memories. Microsoft Office has (or had) localised macros. This lead to many problems since localisaton depends on language installed and macros from one don't work on the other ... I don't believe the language itself should be translated. This limits portability and there are just a few keywords. If somebody wants to create localised libraries they can of course do ... An area I would find interesting is error messages. To a little degree we already have them localized: $ php -r 'setlocale(LC_ALL, "de_DE");fopen("/etc/passwd", "w");' PHP Warning:  fopen(/etc/passwd): failed to open stream: Keine Berechtigung in Command line code on line 1 Expanding might be interesting, but it is not a trivial task, as this might make error reporting (also suppressed one, i.e. deprecation warnings) slower and it is a big translation and maintenance work and has impact on support (I myself run my machines typically in English so I can Google error messages and receive better results or can grep the source for the origin) johannes --- ## #105261 — Michael Morris — 2019-04-12T13:10:24+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/105253#105261 The replies so far have been excellent and I do appreciate the time given to write them. Being a lazy one-language American (I tried to learn Spanish but I've forgotten most of what I learned out of lack of use) I'm not familiar with the obstacles to learning English beyond "gittin rid my accint" when I was real little. Several of you brought up a counterpoint Wired hadn't considered - that having a common language facilitates cooperation around the globe. Some large projects like Drupal, WordPress, and PHP itself couldn't be undertaken without a common tongue. A colleague of mine at word pointed out that there are preprocessors out there such as antlr that can translate the language of a file into the tokens the compiler will recognize. It seems an adequate solution, but I don't know for sure. Still, an interesting discussion overall. Thanks. --- ## #105573 — Yasuo Ohgaki — 2019-05-02T22:07:23+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/105253#105573 > 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-english/ > > 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 > > > 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? > Interesting idea. This may be good for kids to learn programming language. PHP's parser is compatible with UTF-8, so code like this works. [yohgaki@dev ~]$ cat t.php : > The problem with this approach is that while it may become more readable > for the native speaker, it becomes pretty much impossible to read for the > rest of the world. > Having one single syntax for everyone allows all programmers in the world > to share code. I can't imagine a world where I'd find a library based on > Russian PHP on GitHub, that I can't contribute to or even understand (I > probably wouldn't use it). > English has the huge advantage to be quite simple to learn for basic > purposes, and it has a limited alphabet, composed only of ASCII letters. > > I'm not a native English speaker but have never been bothered by keywords > being called IF and THEN, even when reading BASIC books as a child before > taking any English course at school. > > This may be harder for people having a native language with a different > alphabet, though. > > - Ben > > > > > > […] > https://www.wired.com/story/coding-is-for-everyoneas-long-as-you-speak-english/ > > […] > the > > […] > language > > […] > head > > […] > Wired > > […] > their > > […] --- ## #105576 — Er Galvao Abbott — 2019-05-02T22:31:50+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/105253#105576 My two cents on this, since I teach beginner courses on a regular basis: All languages - that I'm aware of - have English as their basis. As a matter of fact our industry as a whole have English as it's basis. I often tell my students: learn English. You'll eventually need it and it will provide you with a whole different view of all things as you'll understand their meaning. You may argue it's unfair or even cruel, but it is what it is. So while I understand the reason behind this discussion - and am even sympathetic towards it - it seems to be "Working on a problem that's not really there". Aside from all this, wasn't this one of the downfalls of PHP6? Er Galvão Abbott Development, Consulting and Teaching https://www.galvao.eti.br/ | galvao@galvao.eti.br ------------------------------------------------------------ Contributor and Evangelist, PHP Director, PHP Conference Brazil Zend Framework Evangelist @ Roguewave Zend's ZTeam Fedora Ambassador LATAM Guest (Specialist) Post Graduation Professor ------------------------------------------------------------ > On Fri, Apr 12, 2019 at 12:17 AM Benjamin Morel > wrote: > > > […] > That's unlikely to be a problem. Even to get to the PHP manual you have to > type `www.php.net` (or `google.com` if you want to google something), > so it implies you have a way to enter latin characters. Keyboard layout > switching is a problem solved decades ago.