Internationalization
Sort of a fallacious an argument.
It's not like you have only these two choices:
1) support every language that exists
2) support only the English language
It's not like you have only these two choices:
1) support every language that exists
2) support only the English language
I'm frankly tired of seeing all these non-English options all over the place. America is the best and biggest country in the world. Everybody just needs to learn English and give up their inferior languages.
Can't we just make an Icelandic 2014 standard which deprecates proper noun suffixes (names are now const)? I guess the problem with that is before talking to anyone in Iceland you'd have to say "std=icelandic14" and check whether they understand you or not. Plus you just know the GNU people are going to start adding really useful but non-portable extensions, so you end up being vendor-locked by the very people who are the most vocal about vendor lock-in.
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Things that need to go away:
* All but one language.
* Months with a number of days other than 28.
* Users.
Then programmers could spend their time on things that are actually useful, like Parcheesi.
Seriously, though. A multilingual planet sucks the big one.
* All but one language.
* Months with a number of days other than 28.
* Users.
Then programmers could spend their time on things that are actually useful, like Parcheesi.
Seriously, though. A multilingual planet sucks the big one.
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How awesome would it be if there was one language that everybody spoke? You could travel anywhere in the world without worrying about not being able to communicate. I realize there's a cultural tie to languages, but should there be? A people's culture is not going to disappear because they speak a different language.
| helios wrote: |
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| Months with a number of days other than 28. |
Finance kinda did that, many fixed-income securities (government bonds etc) use 30-day months and 360-day years.
There's been several artificial languages created that are more efficient than today. But there's a set a problems:
Each language conveys things like emotions differently.
Schools in each country must teach such a language and be used from a young age. Adults are going to be both unwilling and unable to learn a new language.
What happens if we realize inefficiency in that language? We'll again end up with a fragmented language that splits in different ways (ever heard of swamp talk? Was once closer to British English. Think about it ;)).
Each language conveys things like emotions differently.
Schools in each country must teach such a language and be used from a young age. Adults are going to be both unwilling and unable to learn a new language.
What happens if we realize inefficiency in that language? We'll again end up with a fragmented language that splits in different ways (ever heard of swamp talk? Was once closer to British English. Think about it ;)).
...actually, yeah it would. Few things- there are more than enough words that don't translate across languages because they lack an equivalent.
Two, what city do you live in right now? There is a very high chance that the name of the city isn't in English.
I'd get more into this argument, but frankly it is just so silly and absurd that I don't find it worth the time to argue against. But I will throw these in:
-English isn't the national language of the US; the US doesn't have a national language
-English is neither the most spoken, or most widely spoken across all countries, language
-The US's "best" and "biggest" status is so rapidly being eroded that to call it that is a joke
-Again against English- it is neither the best language, nor the oldest- if anything, it is inferior to several others since it is such a clusterfuck of a language
Two, what city do you live in right now? There is a very high chance that the name of the city isn't in English.
I'd get more into this argument, but frankly it is just so silly and absurd that I don't find it worth the time to argue against. But I will throw these in:
-English isn't the national language of the US; the US doesn't have a national language
-English is neither the most spoken, or most widely spoken across all countries, language
-The US's "best" and "biggest" status is so rapidly being eroded that to call it that is a joke
-Again against English- it is neither the best language, nor the oldest- if anything, it is inferior to several others since it is such a clusterfuck of a language
@htiwrin
But if you start supporting languages besides English, all the other non-English languages are going to feel left out. If you just support English, at least non-English speakers will be united in their jealousy.
I see three optimal solutions:
1. Support the one language with the absolute greatest number of speakers, which is Mandarin Chinese.
2. Support the one language deemed to be the most sensible, which is Lojban.
3. Support the one language deemed to be the coolest, which is the Black Speech.*
The current option -- only support the one language generally considered easiest to support, which is English -- is sub-optimal because we should never do things just because they are easy.
My personal preference would be for #2, so everyone had better start learning Lojban. Here's a handy header file you can use in your C and C++ programs, with an example program: http://codepad.org/2KNKxGds (I actually spent almost an hour doing that)
* I wish I had wasted 45 minutes of my life writing a header file for the Black Speech instead of Lojban
Sadly it's not possible to convert preprocessor directives into Lojban, unless you use a pre-pre-processor to pre-process the pre-processor directives.
30 day months? But then how are you supposed to align your blood-cycle with the comings and goings of the night-God?
@Ispil
If there's one thing I learned in the hour I just wasted translating most of the C/C++ keywords into Lojban, it's that most languages don't have the technical vocabulary that English has. I don't expect that to change.
That's because it isn't a nation, it's a colony of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland which is in an ongoing rebellion.
@NoXzema
If there's another thing I learned, it's that Lojban f*cking sucks.
But if you start supporting languages besides English, all the other non-English languages are going to feel left out. If you just support English, at least non-English speakers will be united in their jealousy.
I see three optimal solutions:
1. Support the one language with the absolute greatest number of speakers, which is Mandarin Chinese.
2. Support the one language deemed to be the most sensible, which is Lojban.
3. Support the one language deemed to be the coolest, which is the Black Speech.*
The current option -- only support the one language generally considered easiest to support, which is English -- is sub-optimal because we should never do things just because they are easy.
My personal preference would be for #2, so everyone had better start learning Lojban. Here's a handy header file you can use in your C and C++ programs, with an example program: http://codepad.org/2KNKxGds (I actually spent almost an hour doing that)
* I wish I had wasted 45 minutes of my life writing a header file for the Black Speech instead of Lojban
Sadly it's not possible to convert preprocessor directives into Lojban, unless you use a pre-pre-processor to pre-process the pre-processor directives.
| Cubbi wrote: |
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| Finance kinda did that, many fixed-income securities (government bonds etc) use 30-day months and 360-day years. |
30 day months? But then how are you supposed to align your blood-cycle with the comings and goings of the night-God?
@Ispil
If there's one thing I learned in the hour I just wasted translating most of the C/C++ keywords into Lojban, it's that most languages don't have the technical vocabulary that English has. I don't expect that to change.
| Ispil wrote: |
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| -English isn't the national language of the US; the US doesn't have a national language |
That's because it isn't a nation, it's a colony of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland which is in an ongoing rebellion.
@NoXzema
If there's another thing I learned, it's that Lojban f*cking sucks.
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| 30 day months? But then how are you supposed to align your blood-cycle with the comings and goings of the night-God? |
This made me chuckle. Bravo.
| ResidentBiscuit wrote: |
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| This made me chuckle. Bravo. |
Thanks, but it's not my favourite menstruation-related joke. My favourite is one my friend came up with: Satanitary towels, for your monthly blood-offering.
| -English is neither the most spoken, or most widely spoken across all countries, language |
| we should never do things just because they are easy |
| My personal preference would be for #2, so everyone had better start learning Lojban. Here's a handy header file you can use in your C and C++ programs, with an example program: http://codepad.org/2KNKxGds (I actually spent almost an hour doing that) |
A word for template? How about stencil?