[net.nlang] Other Languages

ecn-pa.scott (07/23/82)

(Forwarded)

>From decvax!harpo!floyd!jce Thu Jul 22 19:26:34 1982
Date: Thu Jul 22 08:15:38 1982
To: harpo!decvax!pur-ee!scott
Subject: autre langues


MANY years ago, I heard a rumor of a French FORTRAN.  The French
are probably the only people with enough language chauvinism to
contemplate such a thing.  I have seen a pascal compiler written
in pascal and German (for comments and variable names); I think
it may be the famous Hamburg compiler.  It came from DECUS and
compiled for pdp-11's running DEC operating systems.
John Eldridge	harpo!floyd!jce

ecn-pa.scott (07/23/82)

(Forwarded)

>From teklabs!tekid!rogerw Fri Jul 23 02:19:09 1982
To: teklabs!pur-ee!ecn-pa.scott
Subject: Re: Programming in other languages
In-reply-to: Your news article ecn-pa.207 of Wed Jul 21 09:00:21 1982

I am not an expert in the field, but I have been told that most
computer programming is done in English, or at least with English
command words as you describe.  I saw an article when IBM provided
versions of FORTRAN with the reserved words translated into several
European languages (eg., GEH ZU for the infamous GO TO) however I
also was told that this is a rare occurance.  Apparently, the
Komrads in the Soviet Union still like to work in machine language more
than we do, and most of their computers have the Latin alphabet.
They apparently do far less word processing than we.
I suspect, with the advent of home computers, this will change.
the more educated in most advanced foreign countries are
far more versitle in foreign languages than we are in the US.

ecn-pa.scott (07/23/82)

(Forwarded)

>From teklabs!tekmdp!azure!laurir Fri Jul 23 02:19:25 1982
To: tekmdp!teklabs!pur-ee!ecn-pa.scott
Subject: Re: Programming in other languages
In-reply-to: Your news article ecn-pa.207 of Wed Jul 21 09:00:21 1982

The various European implementations of Algol-60 and Algol-68 (almost)
always use native-language versions of the keywords.  In the Algol-68
committee, there was a long argument between those who wanted "par" to
mean "parallel" execution in the standard (English) language, and French
nationals who planned to use "par" for "for".
  -- Andrew Klossner (ex-Algol hacker)